[00:00:00] Speaker A: The average life expectancy for an air conditioning unit is 15 to 20 years and a furnace is 15 to 30 years.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Is it time to replace yours and.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Have you considered your options?
[00:00:12] Speaker C: Welcome to the your Energy Footprint podcast, where we cover easy ways to lower your energy bill and other ways to make your home more sustainable, with a few energy industry highlights sprinkled in. Hi, I'm Robin Seydoff and I've been in the energy industry for the past 20 years in both utilities and power generation, and I'll explain everything you need to know for some quick winds in your home to become more sustainable and save some money. Now let's dig in.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Years ago, my husband and I were living in our first house in Chicago together. It was time to replace the furnace and ac unit, and we wanted to get something more energy efficient while we were at it. Because of the space constraints in our utility closet, we also considered getting an instant hot water heater because of the cold climate. I believe gas was recommended instead of electricity, and we were quoted $1,200 to install the required vent piping. The work was already expensive enough so we didn't make the switch.
In order for something to be sustainable, it also needs to be cost effective. One of the things I was most excited about in buying our current home was that it has oil heat.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: It may sound crazy, but I listened.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: To an energy industry podcast years ago that featured Dandelion Energy, a company focused on installing geothermal heat pumps in New England. I remembered that it was generally cost effective if you were switching from oil heat. Dandelion didn't serve as New Jersey where we lived at the time, and I started the process to get a quote not long after we moved to Connecticut. Unfortunately for me, they deemed my house to be too energy inefficient to give us a proposal because they wouldn't be able to make our house warm and toasted with a reasonable number of heat pumps. I don't disagree, but since my house is already cold in the winter, why not provide the heat in a cleaner way?
I get that they want to have happy customers, but fortunately there are many options out there. I'll provide some links to resources in the show notes. The long story short is that I don't have a heat pump yet myself, but in the meantime, let's get into what heat pumps are.
Basically, they transfer heat from one area to another and use some electricity to run the process.
The amount of energy used is less than other forms of heating because the heat isn't being produced by burning a.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Fuel as it is in traditional gas, oil, or electric systems, it's being taken.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: From the air or ground outside.
In the summer, it's effectively just reversing the cycle to pump heat from inside to the outside. It may sound strange, but it works, trust me. Because they move heat from one area to another, they actually produce four times the heating or cooling benefit than the amount of electricity they use. According to a recent article in the New York Times, homeowners in Maine are converting to heat pumps at a faster rate than any other state in the country, and they're saving a notable amount of money.
Apparently it's spreading mostly by word of mouth, so happy customers are telling their neighbors. I'll put a link to the article in the show notes as well.
Now, my preference would be to get a ground source heat pump. These can be either coils of pvc pipe buried in the dirt a few feet underground, or coils that are buried vertically or water sourced ground source heat pump. Because the ground temperature is consistent throughout the year, geothermal heat pumps can work more efficiently in colder climates. The downside of geothermal is that however you transfer heat from the ground, it's going to be significantly more expensive than air source heat pumps. Based on the preliminary quotes I received, that's about $40,000 more for my house.
Now, this seems like a lot, but if you take into account the electricity savings each year, then I think it's still very likely that geothermal geothermal heat pumps are the most effective option. I'm still figuring out a simple way to estimate the electricity you would use for an air source heat pump versus geothermal heat pumps for my house.
I didn't get too far when I asked the professionals about what my operating costs might be. So my current plan is to track how many hours a day the heat is operating in my house.
I can do this through my nest thermostat app. The air source heat pump, I was quoted, is supposed to be a similar sized system to my current system, so I can see the maximum kilowatts of electricity it can draw per hour. I plan to calculate the kilowatt hours I would expect to use in a year and how much that would cost me.
Since my air conditioning units are 25 years old, I'm positive I'm going to be saving money there, so I'm leaving that out of the calculation.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: But I could do something similar with.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Nest if I wanted to. Later this year. I do plan on taking a few courses on heat pump design so that I'll be able to share more concrete information so that you can better understand your savings by switching to a heat pump. That's it for today.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: If there are any topics you'd like.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Me to cover in future episodes, please reach out and let me know. You can email me
[email protected] or find me on instagram at yourenergyfootprint. On next week's episode, we'll talk about everything you should know before you buy an electric vehicle. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please rate and review this podcast to help more listeners find us.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: I really appreciate it.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Our mission at your energy footprint is to educate consumers on ways you can.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Be more energy efficient at home, as.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Well as how to make significant investments like solar while saving money. You can find more information on our courses for homeowners interested in installing rooftop solar on our website, www.yourenergyfootprint.com.
All of our information is unbiased and based on my 20 years of experience working for utilities and as a renewable developer. We are not affiliated with any installers.
