GSPHUNTER
WKR
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2020
- Messages
- 4,689
I would agree with this. I worked in the A/C industry for 38 years, not including time in Navy. I am not a big heat pump fan. As Stalker69 stated you will likely need backup strip heat when the outside unit, condensing unit goes into defrost. If you know a mech. engineer have him do the calculations for you to see if it is cost effective.You have to figure out cost of kilowatt hours, vs propane. I know when I took a class on heat pumps ( hvac tech) the instructor said at that time once it got down below 50 degrees outside, gas was more efficient. Now that was with natural gas. But the colder it gets out side, the lower the temp. of the air coming out of your ducts also. Which equates to longer run cycles in electricity. Propane would be your emergency heat or back up heat. You can get electric heat strips also in an air handler or an elec. furnace to heat the air, as primary ( use reg a/c unit) or back up heat with heat pump. We don’t install to many heat pumps here, as natural gas is readily available 99% of the time.
Mini splits are becoming more and more popular here, ( hydronic heated homes, no duct work) for a/c. Not used much if at all for heat, but they do have the ability.