ETK517 wrote: Sun Feb 02, 2025 1:26 pm
In my climate (NYC metro) this would mean I’d be running two heating systems 3-4 months a year just to sustain comfortable indoor temps. I can’t imagine that the cost of maintaining and eventually replacing two independent heating systems offsets the savings, if any, of a heat pump. The registers thing doesn’t work for me - I want it warm when I wake up and before I go to bed at night, but cool overnight. This is something any other modern heating system can handle without issue.
Just seems like an immature technology to me, or one that is suited to Europe where folks expect a lot less from their HVAC than your typical American.
Yes American heat pump technology is (mostly) pretty basic. Japanese are way out in front, and there is now comparable European manufactured stuff.
US the HPs are mostly designed around the needs of high AC but limited winter heat. The South, broadly defined. Relatively few days below 32 F. And natural gas is generally pretty cheap, so an NG furnace is a simple heating solution (even if much less efficient).
where folks expect a lot less from their HVAC
Better to say "where the heating system is distinct from any air conditioning". Since European summers tend to be dryer (and cooler than large parts of North America) AC is less important. And you see a lot of room ACs in places like Italy or Spain (old houses and apartments).
Hot water heating systems predominate in Europe. So Air to Water HPs are relatively easy to retrofit (unless you need to increase both rad size and pipe size). Underfloor heating is also quite common and that works really well with the HP's principle of slow, even heat. The systems also tends to take care of Hot Water, too (so-called "indirect" systems where the same boiler heats both HW & rads).
It's in the US NE, for old houses and apartments, that you encounter HW systems (parts of Canada, too). Almost always in pre WW2 homes, I think.
There's also steam rads, which I have never actually encountered in Europe, knowingly, but may be present.