HVAC
Heating services in Kansas City

If you’re in the market for a new heating system for your home, you have a couple of different options available to you. One of the most talked-about options is the heat pump. We’re going to discuss what this system is and whether it’s a great investment compared to a traditional furnace for your Kansas City home.

What Is a Heat Pump?

A heat pump is an all-in-one HVAC system that can effectively heat and cool your home, depending on your needs. It works by using a substance known as refrigerant to absorb heat from one location and transport it to another location. In the summer, a heat pump’s refrigerant will absorb heat from inside your home and transport it to your outdoor condenser unit. This is where heat is released into the air outside.

During the colder winter months, refrigerant will absorb heat from the air at the outdoor condenser unit. Then, the heat pump’s compressor will pump the refrigerant to your indoor air handler unit for the heat to be dispersed into your indoor air. This dual-functioning system can use traditional ductwork or be integrated with a ductless mini-split system.

What Is a Traditional Furnace?

Furnaces are by far the most popular home heating system used today. Models can run on electricity, natural gas, propane, or even heating oil. With an electric furnace, an internal heating element powered by electricity will warm the air as it travels through your furnace. With a fuel-burning furnace, like natural gas or heating oil, fuel is fed into the furnace, where its internal burner will burn it.

Known as combustion, this fuel-burning process creates heat that is blown throughout the various rooms of your home through ductwork. It’s important to note that this combustion process can create toxic exhaust fumes. These are directly vented to the outdoors for your safety. However, if a malfunction does occur with your system, these fumes can potentially backup indoors. This is why it’s an absolute necessity to have carbon monoxide detectors in your home if you rely on a fuel-burning furnace for heat during the wintertime.

Operating Efficiency

When you initially start comparing traditional furnaces to modern-day heat pumps, one of the first areas you want to start is with operating efficiency. Most fuel-burning furnaces will have an efficiency in the 80% range. You can purchase higher-efficiency units that have efficiencies in the 90% range. On the other hand, electric furnaces can have an operating efficiency of 100%.

Heat pumps have been shown to have operating efficiencies of up to 400%. This makes them much more energy-efficient than any other heating system on the market today. However, there is a big caveat to their efficiency. They can only operate efficiently at temperatures above freezing. When temperatures dip below freezing, a heat pump will struggle to remove heat from the air outdoors.

At this point, your heat pump will switch over to auxiliary mode. This mode works very similarly to an electric furnace, where it uses a heating element to heat the air for your home.

Operating Cost

While efficiency is extremely important regarding choosing a heating system, you also need to think of it with respect to the cost of fuel to run particular systems. For example, while an electric furnace has a higher efficiency than a standard natural gas furnace, it’s typically more expensive to run.

This comes down to the fact that the amount of electricity needed to heat up a set amount of air is going to cost more than the necessary amount of natural gas to heat up that same amount of air. In most cases for furnaces, natural gas is going to be the cheapest to burn, followed by propane, heating oil, and finally electricity.

If a heat pump is operating above freezing temperatures, its high efficiency level is going to well offset the amount of electricity that it uses. This makes it more cost-effective for homeowners to operate in mild climates.

Upfront Cost

When it comes to comparing the upfront cost of purchasing a furnace versus a heat pump, there’s a clear winner. Furnaces are going to be two or more times cheaper than investing in a heat pump. Electric furnaces are going to be the cheapest to purchase as compared to fuel-burning furnaces. However, it’s important to not take price at face value in this instance.

Heat pumps will provide both heating and cooling for your home. Therefore, it’s not a true apples-to-apples comparison when it comes to purchasing a heating system. To provide a fair comparison, you would have to look at the cost of both a furnace and a cooling system as compared to a singular heat pump.

Climate Conditions

It’s no surprise that Kansas City experiences many temperature extremes. It’s not classified as a mild climate, as temperatures can dip below freezing for a week or more. For this reason, it doesn’t make sense for homeowners to totally rely on a heat pump to provide heat for their homes throughout the winter months.

Your heat pump will struggle whenever temperatures get below freezing and cost you a substantial amount of money to use their auxiliary heating mode. When temperatures get below freezing, a furnace is always going to be the most cost-effective option for heating your home. However, you don’t have to settle for one system or the other.

Which Should You Choose?

You can invest in both systems and get the best of each world. A furnace can be your backup heating system for whenever temperatures dip below freezing. Otherwise, you can enjoy the high efficiency that a heat pump offers for both heating your home in the winter and cooling it in the summertime.

If you don’t have the money to invest in both a furnace and a heat pump, then you’ll likely want to choose a traditional furnace. This type of system won’t be as efficient as a heat pump, but it will effectively be able to heat your home. This is true no matter how cold the temperature gets in the wintertime. You may want to consider investing the extra money in getting a high-efficiency furnace to help cash in on energy savings throughout the winter months.

It’s important to note that purchasing a heat pump does come with a federal tax incentive that can allow you to receive up to $3,200 back from the purchase of your new system. You may find that some local municipalities and governments offer tax incentives for the purchase of these energy-efficient systems. Some high-efficiency furnaces are eligible for tax rebates as well, depending on the specific model that you purchase.

Reliable Heating System Installation Service

MVP Air Conditioning, Heating, Plumbing & Electric provides reliable heating installation service to residents throughout the entire Kansas City, KS community. Our technicians will be more than happy to assist you with all your cooling, heating, electrical, and plumbing needs. This includes, routine maintenance, new equipment installation, drain cleaning, excavation, generator service, EV charging stations, and much more. Simply contact us today for further assistance and to schedule an appointment for your furnace.

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