Those of us who have been in the industry since the 1980s remember the trend away from early heat pumps sold in the 70s. In those earlier years the energy crisis created demand for heat pumps as natural gas shortages became a reality and prices doubled by 1979.

The industry quickly became enamored with heat pumps, swapping out gas and oil furnaces by the thousands. Many new communities began building all-electric heat-pump homes – particularly in the northern states. But it wasn’t long before customers began to complain about cold drafty air and longed for the warm comfort their former fossil fuel furnaces provided.

In the early 1990s, gas companies began running lines through all-electric communities, as thousands of heat pumps were replaced with comfortable gas furnaces. I was in fact one of those contractors, retrofitting dozens of heat-pump homes around Cleveland, Ohio with shiny new high-efficiency furnaces and 10 SEER air conditioning units. And my customers were thrilled!

Fast forward to the early 2020s. In the quest for reduced greenhouse gases through electrification we are now in Round Two of replacing fossil fuel equipment with heat pumps. This time, however, we have an opportunity to get it right!

The Good News

Today’s heat pumps are not your grandad’s Oldsmobile. Inverter technology and heat transfer improvements allow heat pumps to produce significantly warmer air even when outside temperatures drop below 00F degrees.

When installed right on properly sized and installed air distribution systems, modern heat pumps can provide great comfort year-round.

And that is the caveat: Properly sized and installed systems.

The Challenge

Unfortunately, we are already seeing a significant issue in our industry with new heat pumps – mostly stemming from improper installation – and/or existing bad duct systems.

When it comes to inverter-based equipment sizing, airflow, ductwork, and proper registers are more critical than ever. There’s not enough room on this page to get into all the technical details, but it’s safe to say our industry has a real problem.

Manufacturers, wholesalers, and contractors are reporting a big uptick in customer complaints about their expensive new systems – and of course the equipment itself is rarely the cause. It’s more important than ever that we both size equipment properly, and get the rest of the system right.

There’s an industry myth that there’s no need to properly size inverter heat pumps as they will ramp down to match the load. While there might be a smidgeon of truth to that, the adverse effects far outweigh this lazy approach to installation.

NCI’s Adam Mufich put it succinctly recently: “An oversized inverter system might be the most expensive single stage heat pump your customer can buy.” There are numerous issues with oversized inverter heat pumps ranging from high static pressures and reduced airflow, poor summer dehumidification, early equipment failures, and inefficient operation.

For a deeper dive, be sure to read Adam’s article in the January issue of Contracting Business Magazine on this subject.
The bottom line is we need the whole industry to get it right this time.

This starts with manufacturers and wholesalers stepping up their product training and supporting beyond-the-box training on air distribution design and renovation offered by organizations like NCI and others.