When you’re shopping for new heating and air conditioning equipment, you may want to give a second thought to a heat pump. Heat pumps use electricity to heat a home, but they do not use nearly as much energy as conventional electric furnaces. Plus, a heat pump is primarily an air conditioner, so you get an all-in-one system that requires less maintenance and works more efficiently.

Want to know more? Our heating and AC technicians are here to answer all of your questions and make sure you end up with the right home comfort equipment for your home. For more information, contact our friendly technicians, and read on for a brief overview of the heat pump system.

A heat pump uses your central duct system to move heated or cooled air out to the various rooms of the home. It also has an outdoor compressor unit, just like a conventional whole-house air conditioning system. The indoor unit is joined to it by the refrigerant line.

Refrigerant is a chemical blend capable of moving heat from one place to another. When in cooling mode, refrigerant absorbs heat from the inside of the home and moves it outside. That’s how the cooling process is started.

A reversing valve works along with some other parts to give a heat pump the ability to switch into heating mode. The refrigerant can work in reverse and also absorb heat from the outdoors and move it inside for whole-home heating.

What makes a heat pump so efficient is that the process of moving heat from one place to another uses so much less energy than the process of generating heat (like furnaces and boilers do). When you examine other electric heaters, like portable units and electric furnaces, there is no comparison in the amount they are able to save each month.

Sometimes, a gas heating system is a better option. Efficiency does suffer as temperatures drop, and the cost of gas heating is typically lower than the cost of electricity. Ask a technician to help you decide what the best choice is for your home.

Had you taken a public poll 20 years ago about the future of solar power and solar energy, the public would have likely expected the technology to have made leaps and bounds by 2013.  Perhaps many would have expected to see solar panels installed on most homes and businesses by now, or even being used to power cars (ala the 1996 James Belushi / Halle Berry movie Race The Sun.) In 2013, in a technological age where most people use smartphones as pocket sized computers, why does it seem that solar power hasn’t progressed much at all?

There are many reasons to help to understand this phenomenon, so we’ve listed some of the most popular below:

One of the most obvious issues that may be holding solar energy back is the idea that if there is no sunshine, there is no power being generated.  Because of this, solar energy doesn’t have the capability to stand alone which will surely hinder its popularity.  Modern consumers are of the instant gratification mindset and are not always willing to take the inconvenient option, even if it may have strong benefits.

It’s no question that there are huge amounts of money tied up in the corporations and investors who control the major energy companies of the world.  The electricity companies have an interest in limiting their competition and they have lobbyists in that will work to protect their interests.  There is also strong opposition coming from competing industries like coal and nuclear energy, both of which are heavily financed and politically influential.

Even with the tax breaks and incentives cited as reasons for solar energy development, the upfront  costs for equipment and installation are still excessively high.   It’s often cited that it would currently cost around $20,000 – $30,000 to install a new solar system on an average American home (before incentives.)  The investment can pay for itself over a 20-30 year period of monthly savings, but most households in the U.S. don’t have the means to spend such a large amount of cash straight away.

As many companies have rushed to be the biggest and best producers of solar panel equipment, the market has seen high competition with most of the solar products being produced cheaply in China.  Because of this, there has been wide concern that modern solar panels are expensive, untested, and of low quality.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory even estimates that solar panels degrade at a rate of 4.5% annually or more!  At this rate, a new solar panel will lose most of its efficiency before it ever becomes financially beneficial.

We will have to wait and see where solar energy goes in the coming years.  Maybe it won’t be popular for several more decades, or perhaps it will never become popular at all.  Either way, energy is a shifting business that constantly pushes and reinvents itself, so it will be exciting to see what the future has in store for the industry.