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So this is one of my big concerns - I live in a cold weather country currently. We have power outages once every couple of years. If I don't have back up powe

So this is one of my big concerns - I live in a cold weather country currently. We have power outages once every couple of years. If I don't have back up power my pipes freeze and then i'm out probably > $50k. I was thinking the solution for me is to put in a heat pump and then run a backup gas generator. But that solution feels like a significant amount of overbuild. I have 3 minisplits already but they aren't valuable in the winter -- where you install your AC units isn't where you would install your heating units .. I.e. the top of my house for AC, the bottom of the house for heat. Having multiple energy sources to defray risk is helpful.

bluGill 4y ago
Heat pumps are great when things are mildly cold. While do work down to -20C or so, efficiency drops off, so you need bigger and bigger units. It often makes sense to have a smaller heat pump that will only work down to -5C (random temperature, a real analysis of your house is required to give a better answer), and then a gas furnace backup for those really cold days. Once you have the gas furnace backup you can run that off of a small generator on the few days you are without power.