Minnesota experiences an extreme range of weather conditions during the year. Right now we’re in the middle of warm weather with high humidity, but at the end of the year we’ll be deep in an extremely cold winter. Your home needs to have both excellent central air conditioning and heating so you can make it through all the seasonal changes.
And why not have both heating and cooling taken care of in a single installation? This is what a heat pump offers. It’s a comfort system that operates like a standard air conditioner, but with the important difference that it can change the direction of heat exchange so that instead of removing heat from the indoors to the outdoors, it brings heat from the outdoors to the indoors!
That sounds great… but will this actually work for my home?
First, let’s talk about the heat pump’s cooling mode—because right now your mind is probably focused most on staying cool. A heat pump is as powerful a cooling system as any air conditioner of the same size. It also has the same level of energy efficiency. A heat pump has a SEER rating, just like an air conditioner, and if you exchange your AC for a heat pump with the same SEER rating, you’ll continue to receive the same energy efficiency.
Heating is a bit different. Because the heat pump absorbs heat from the outside of a house, it can encounter a problem in extremely low temperatures. There’s always some heat in the air the heat pump can access (unless it’s absolute zero, but this is a theoretical temperature), but below freezing it can suffer efficiency loss. Newer heat pumps can work in much lower temperatures than ever before, but you’ll need to do some research to find a heat pump that will handle the job you actually need from it.
The best way to decide if a heat pump is a good choice for your home is to ask! Call our technicians to talk about your home comfort options. We’ll help you select the ideal system for your heating and cooling needs as well as the one that best fits your budget.
Freedom Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. installs and services heat pumps in the Minneapolis, MN area.