Complete Home Energy - Heating & Cooling

What should you know about high efficiency furnaces and heat pumps?

If you are exploring the heating and cooling options for your home, and for ways to reduce your energy bills, you should be considering a heat pump and the latest high efficiency furnaces. A heat pump can provide year-round climate control for your home by supplying heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. The advantages of a heat pump over a unit that provides only air conditioning, are so significant that in our opinion, there is almost no reason to choose an air conditioner.

The latest high and mid-efficiency furnaces working in conjunction with a heat pump are the most cost effective and complete climate control systems for homes. Heat pumps can operate efficiently down to approximately - 6 Celsius at which point the furnace takes over heating duties until the outdoor ambient temperature rises again. In the Okanagan climate range, a heat pump can meet most heating requirements, extending the life of the furnace, and using only the furnace blower to circulate air.

In many cases it makes good sense to reduce air leakage and increase thermal insulation before upgrading to a heat pump. We recommend that homeowners assess and upgrade as necessary, their furnace, attic and wall insulation, and upgrade to EnergyStar certified windows and doors. In some cases, it may not be necessary to upgrade an existing furnace in order to install a heat pump. Complete Home Energy can provide you with a free home energy assessment, and discuss the options with you. Simply click on the Free Estimate button on this page.

What should you know about high-efficiency and mid-efficiency furnaces?

If you are replacing an old heating system, you should always consider the most efficient unit available. Even if you pay more for it, you can realize significant energy cost savings - and you can reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. A high-efficiency furnace, also known as a condensing furnace, is the most efficient furnace available, because it provides your home with ideal heating comfort while using less energy than other models. High-efficiency furnaces are designed to extract additional heat from natural gas and, when they do, the flue gases condense, or turn to water - hence, the name condensing furnace.

Mid-efficiency gas furnaces mainly use a naturally aspirating burner and do not have a continuously lit pilot light. They are equipped with a powered exhaust, usually with a built-in induced draft fan, and they do not have a draft hood. With more heat exchange, no dilution air, and high resistance to flow during the off cycle, seasonal efficiency is much higher for mid-efficiency gas furnaces than for conventional furnaces, offering energy savings of 23 to 28 percent over conventional gas furnaces.

If the furnace has an ENERGY STAR label on it, it means that it is an excellent energy wise choice. Only furnaces that are exceptional in energy efficiency (AFUE rating of 90% or more) earn the ENERGY STAR label.

What is a heat pump?

An air source heat pump is an electrical device that draws heat from the outside air during the heating season and dumps heat outside during the summer cooling season. A heat pump is essentially similar to the cooling system on your refrigerator, except that it is fully reversible, so heat pumps can provide year-round climate control for your home - heating in winter and cooling in the summer. As such, heat pumps are generally a more cost effective solution for homeowners than air conditioning only, and heat pumps are in certain cases eligible for utility company and/or government rebates.

A heat pump generally requires that the home have a ducting system throughout the home, and a fan system to circulate air through the ducting, which is typically supplied by the furnace fan system. In cases where there is no ductwork, there are also high efficiency ductless heat pump solutions available. Complete Home Energy can provide you with a free home energy assessment, and discuss the options with you. Simply click on the Free Estimate button on this page.

What about chloroflurocarbons and damage to the environment?

All air conditioning and heat pump equipment use special refrigerant liquids, which produce the heating or cooling required for each application via the liquids expansion into a gas (cooling) or compression into a liquid (heating). Furnaces do not use these liquids.

Chloroflurocarbon liquids originally used for this purpose were found to be a major contributor to the depletion of the ozone layer in our atmosphere. Since that time, a less damaging but still problematic refrigerant known as R-22 has been used. R-22 refrigerant will be banned in Canada beginning in 2010, and a new refrigerant known as R-410, with no environmental impact, will become mandatory in Canada. HVAC equipment which use R-410 refrigerant are available now with almost no additional cost to consumers. Complete Home Energy is committed now to providing our customers only equipment which uses R-410 refrigerant.

Efficiency ratings for furnaces and heat pumps:

The Office of Energy Efficiency, a department of Natural Resources Canada, administers the energy efficiency ratings of furnaces and heat pumps through the EnerGuide labeling of most equipment sold in Canada. Look for the EnerGuide label on the equipment. Furnaces are rated as to their Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency or AFUE rating. This should be 80% or higher. Heat pumps are rated as to their Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating (SEER) for cooling and the Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) for heating. You will generally see heat pumps sold on their SEER rating, but both values are important. A SEER value of 13 is the minimum now required by the Canadian government. The HSPF rating should be no lower than 7.5. A SEER rating of 14 and an HSPF rating of 8.0 is now required for EnergyStar certification and eligibility for federal government grants.

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