Maybe I have scar tissue from COVID prices but $20k to install a ductless heat pump vs. a $200 to throw a window A/C in or $700 for a portable heat pump. While I get that these heat pumps are better for the environment and much more efficient it's a last mile issue. The installers charge an arm and a leg and I'm not hurting enough to self install. I'm hoping the window heat pumps that just run off mains will be available to more markets soon, I could buy one of those for every room in my house for less than the install on a single mini split.
Where it did make sense was when I was getting solar. It was only a few thousand since I already had the trades out and reducing the load was important for the ROI on the panels.
For comparison, I just bought a house here in Japan. Installed 6 minisplit heat pumps across various rooms in the house. All together it cost me 750,000 yen ($5,000) for the hardware and 90,000 yen ($600) for the install.
Japan is where early air-source heat pumps first achieved market success, so it's unsurprising that they are much cheaper to install there, because of the relatively large number of installer options.
In the US, they are struggling to break out of the eco-luxury product niche (where they have been stuck for a long time).
Compared to a conventional A/C compressor (which they replace), heat pump compressors are much smaller, quieter, and less ugly.
As for the indoor units, they can either be the "ugly" ones (the indoor head units visible on the wall), recessed "cassettes", or they can use traditional A/C air handlers in a utility room to distribute conditioned air via existing duct-runs and registers.
There are also companies like Quilt that are making heat pump systems with much more attractive indoor wall units.
I was curious about sound for both the indoor and outdoor pieces. The outside condenser for my current AC is very loud. Are the heat pump units quieter, and if so, why?
Better variable frequency drives for both fans and compressor is a big part of it (see other comments about being less prone to short-cycling).
This isn't exactly new or unique to heat pumps (and some older heat pumps lack both), but as the technology has gotten cheaper and more reliable, coupled with the drive for better efficiency, it has become commonplace.
Speaking as an apartment dweller, my new apartment's ductless setup is much quieter (inside) than my old apartment's blower. At the old place, the fan was either on or off and must have added another 10 or 20 db of noise forcing you to always keep the TV remote nearby in case the fan turned on or off. It's very convenient that I can control my ductless unit's fan speed with a remote.
Can you do the installation yourself? In my country i have to make a HVAC technician come to check the installation and sign a paper before i can start mine (200€ for a 15 minutes job, but it's less than the 2-4k it would cost to not do it myself)
[edit] i say that because my hardware is 2.5k euros, so ~3k¯dollars, so we probably have the same high end stuff, and i guarantee you it's not hard to install, and it can be quite fast if you have help from your SO.
Depends on where you live. Someone that has the tools can do it themselves and then shut the fuck up, which is how I suspect most of them in America get installed. Code/planning enforcement commonly surveils residences via satellite or air images but they're not noticing a mini split installed.
Newer units (not all) in the US come pre-charged up to a certain size of lineset. Manufacturers can sell you a whole unit with a charge. The rest is easy to source locally though I haven't tried to get nitrogen myself.
Of course you have exactly one chance with your install this way until you have to call someone.
Central air system with indoor blower & outdoor condenser generally don't come with pre-charged lines so self-install without certification isn't really an option in US.
I got my EPA 608 universal for free after 2 night of cramming and an online proctored test. Skillcat, I think they charge like $50 if you want a printed card, worth it to me because I wanted to be able to walk into supply houses and buy refrigerant.
I almost did this after I helped a friend install a mini-split.
Having just installed a mini-split in my office shed with a pre/charged unit. I told him it was easy and helped him. We ended up needing to buy an extra long line set to make the distance work, which needed more refrigerant.
I called 15 different places and finally found one that could come out and charge the line for under $350. Which was hard to stomach with the whole unit costing only $750 from Amazon.
Getting the 608 is mostly rote memorization and the only thing required at the federal level. On the state level if you want a trade license that generally takes 4 years, but where I live residential owner-builder doesn't need it.
Me too, except I got it in the SkillCat free trial. Did it while rocking my then baby over a few weeks. Super easy for anyone that is a “good” test taker and has high school level reading
It's not just certification/permitting. The manufacturers often state that the unit must be verified to be installed by a qualified technian or the warranty is void.
Around here anyway, I was getting quotes of 20k for the install & equipment of a central air handler and the outdoor unit.
I'd be dead before the thing paid for itself in electricity cost savings. $20,000 ÷ (~90yrslife - 40yrsold) = $400 / year of neccesary savings to break-even as my casket is lowered into the ground.
Most don't have a payback if the cost of electricity is too high. Let's make them lower cost up front and lower running costs so it's a no brainer when replacement is due.
This is similar to just about everything mechanical (e.g. auto maintenance). The labor is always the biggest fraction of the cost, not the parts. You always have the option to DIY.
Another person living in Japan. Sounds about right. A unit from a good brand (daikin, mitsubishi) costs ~$800? More or less depending on the room size. We had them installed when we built the house, installation price included. Two are enough to keep our house cool or warm in any season (it's a well insulated house). We have another in the guest room, use it only for when guests stay.
Our renovation company had rip-off pricing on years-old models, so we just asked a few electronics stores for quotes. First looked up the cheapest online options as baseline pricing, and then used the in-store sale deals to stay at the same total price but get the units in the bigger rooms upgraded to fancier/higher grade options.
Mini-splits these days are available as multi-head (I think that’s the term) units, where a single outside unit can supply 2,4, or 6 units individually and independently.
They’re remarkable, and I would go for a mini-split system over a central unit 100 times out of 100.
> where a single outside unit can supply 2,4, or 6 units individually and independently
In my current home, I have two "heads" attached to a single outside unit, but they cannot operate independently beyond setting different fan speeds or closing the vent really. If one of the mini-splits is set to heat and the other switches to cooling, they will booth start cooling, or vice versa, the head units just blindly blow air over what ever is being pumped through the line and the last unit to send a command to switch mode "wins".
Maybe there are clever heat pumps that truly allow fully independent control of the head unit when connected to multiple heads, but given the flow of refrigerant has to reverse direction completely when switching between heating and cooling, I don't see how they can operate fully independently when they are sharing the same refrigerant lines.
There is only one reversing valve inside the outside unit for all the head units connected to one outside unit in my experience, but would love to see examples of systems that do permit this if they exist.
An extra clever system would include every temperature controlled appliance in the house. Heat could be exchanged between the hvac, water heater, refrigerator, and oven.
When the oven is done cooking it can dump heat into the water heater (and or furnace in the winter). The fridge and HVAC could dump heat into the water heater before pumping it outside in the summer.
By “independently” I meant that one room could be heating/cooling while other rooms aren’t doing anything at all. Or one room could be warmer/cooler than another.
As opposed to central unit’s all-or-nothing approach.
It's units in 6 different rooms (3 bed, office, living, dining) so 6 sets of units.
After reading some other comments I realize one vital detail is that they were installed in a renovated house that already had suitable holes to the outside and power outlets where the units were going, so the install job was just mounting the units, pulling the tubing and gassing it, no cutting things up or doing electrical work.
The price would at least double if we needed all the holes cut open, and I have no idea what the electrical work would cost.
It’s very normal here in Portugal. If you looked carefully and weren’t picky about the brands, you could have 6 mini-splits installed for $3000 all-in.
I would expect that installing six is maybe twice as expensive as installing one. All the overhead of scheduling the technician, traveling to the location, getting the tools out, etc stay the same. Installing six is vastly more efficient and that should be reflected in the price
Some are trying to cut HVAC install costs in half, and a lot of people are already working on it including Jetson (where the author works) and disclaimer my company Electric Air.
Average install is about $20K in California (varies by state). Here’s how that usually breaks down:
- Equipment: $3–5K for a basic swap (some go up to $10K for single system)
- Direct labor: $3–4K (about 15–20%)
- Materials: $2–3K
- Permits and testing: around $1K total
That leaves about a 45% margin to cover overhead:
- Indirect labor: $2.5K (installers when not installing, install managers, attending city inspector visits, call backs when installers make mistakes)
I'm not sure if you're going to get downvoted here for the advertisement (not by me because I find it useful and interesting), but can you be specific about what "streamline direct labor" means? Also, with the virtual site visit, are you guaranteeing the customer that the estimate you give virtually will be the ultimate price?
Any chance you can you take on solar next because if we could get a solar system for half the price we'd sign right up. All we hear about is how cheap solar is now, but the labor costs have risen more than any hardware price decreases.
Yeah, really trying not to advertise. But add disclaimer. Thanks for letting me know it's a bit much. I tried to tone it down. Let me know if it's better or i should delete.
streamline labor: Aligning pay incentives with installers, ensure right parts and materials, make sure customer are not indecisive on the first day, mimic the 15% of installs that are side jobs as much as possible.
Virtual site visits aren't 100%. But allows us to get a price quickly, and check electrical capability. It's a bit of a test for customers, if they are interested in snapping 5 or so photos, they probably won't buy from us.
Half the time, we then go out for a site visit in-person but we're only visiting 50% of the customers. It's less expensive, however our conversion rates go down because we're not winning the customer with our personality, etc.
If we can verify directly from photos and go straight to contract, we send out a install manager to confirm after the signature. Basically, if some giant obstacle that will stops the install, we can cancel at no cost to the customer and we do that all very quickly so they can select another bid if that happens.
Solar is tough, I am a renewable energy engineer from Australia and yes, we can half the cost of solar as seen in Australia. I think Australian are simply less fussy and legally charged than governments and home owners in US and simple installs.
I now believe large central PV will likely be more successful here. 40% of electricity is often coming from solar and wind in CA and we can just keep doing that and we'll be fine.
> streamline labor: Aligning pay incentives with installers, ensure right parts and materials, make sure customer are not indecisive on the first day, mimic the 15% of installs that are side jobs as much as possible.
When I read "aligning pay incentives with installers" I remember this story.
A friend who worked in sales said the union laborers would always insist the job takes more days than it actually took. If he budgeted them for one day because it takes one day, they'd drag ass so they would have to come back the next day to finish, which upset the customer since it was an unexpected delay.
But if he wrote two days into the contract they'd finish in one day and just drag the second day out.
It's the opposite for me, much bigger ROI on the heatpump than solar. Rural property, 10 years old, ~3,500 sq ft + basement, in Canada where summer can be above 30C (86F) and winter below -30C (-20F). Electricity costs (Canadian) 7.6 ¢/kWh off-peak and 15.8 ¢/kWh on-peak here.
I spent C$40K (about US$30k) on a ground source aka 'geothermal' heat pump to replace furnace powered by propane tank. I kept propane for on-demand hot water and whole house generator. I have no options for utilities other than electricity.
A couple of years later I spent another C$40k for a 20kW rooftop solar system, with net metering and no battery. Net metering was critical for getting any return at all. A battery is next to useless here- I generate almost all of my solar electricity in May-Oct but use the majority of it in Nov-April. Net metering lets me 'store' excess from summer and use it in winter.
Annual costs:
Before:
C$8,000+ propane (heating + hot water)
C$2,500 electricity (cooling + misc)
$10,500 total
So I'm seeing about C$8k/yr saving for C$80k investment. The heatpump saved me over $5k a year and the solar about $2,500 a year. The heatpump has pretty much paid for itself after 5 years, the solar will take at least 15 years (unless prices go way up) although should eventually see some return 15-20 years out.
In reality it might have cost even more than that to heat with propane. On the propane furnace we barely heated in winter, burned a lot of firewood to make part of the house livable. I'm trying estimate how much it would cost to heat the house to a comfortable 20C (68F) although the thermostat now with the heatpump is set to 22C (72F) in winter so there's an improvement in comfort as well as the ROI.
> Net metering lets me 'store' excess from summer and use it in winter
FYI net metering is unsustainable for the grid and policies will probably change (reducing rates for energy, increasing rates for delivery fees to offset the "freebies") as soon as adoption reaches a critical mass.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘unsustainable’ nor ‘critical mass’ here. Of course not everyone can net meter- on a sunny but mild day with no-one using A/C nor heating and everyone contributing back to the grid it doesn’t work.
My local utility is well aware of that, applications for permits to net meter have to be made, and only a fraction (something like 15%) of properties in each area can net meter. Also the government is aware and there are no grants for net metering, only for battery systems.
I’m giving details about my personal system for one property in one location, not in any way making a statement about what works for anyone else.
Sorry, I should've been more specific, I can explain.
> My local utility is well aware of that, applications for permits to net meter have to be made, and only a fraction (something like 15%) of properties in each area can net meter.
Okay, that changes things. The way it worked here is that anyone in the country could install solar and get grandfathered into net metering (perpetually), and then at a certain point they decided to cut it off completely. So you have people from before with who have net metering, and anyone installing it later doesn't have it.
People would install 10-20kW worth of solar, overproduced massive amounts of energy in the summer and then in coldest part of winter (with heat pump COP dropping below 2), people expected to draw 4-10kW of power for heating and pay close to nothing all year round.
The government decided that this was unsustainable so they changed the distribution rates. In effect anyone who doesn't have solar pays roughly the same as they did before, but anyone who has net metering pays substantially more than they thought they would when they signed up.
Ultimately I think this is fair but many people felt cheated by this change. I'm assuming the same could happen elsewhere so I wanted to warn others who might be looking at net-metering deals that look "too good to be true".
> People would install 10-20kW worth of solar, overproduced massive amounts of energy in the summer and then in coldest part of winter (with heat pump COP dropping below 2), people expected to draw 4-10kW of power for heating and pay close to nothing all year round.
So this is more or less the exact same position that I'm in in northern New Mexico. We have 6.7kW of ground mount PV; we generate roughly 3x what we need in the summer, and roughly 1/3 of what we need in the winter (air source heat pumps for heat). Overall generation is close to 100% of our annual use.
In some ways I agree with the analysis but there are some mitigating factors. We live in an old adobe home that requires almost zero cooling during summer. For better or for worse, most new construction in the area is stick frame wood construction which even with reasonable insulation requires cooling during the summer. Guess who provides the power for that?
New Mexico is in a good position to combine solar PV with wind and be able to meet base load demand more or less continuously. It likely requires storage facilities that are on the order of 5-7 days of load, which would be enough to bridge most gaps in generation.
Our local utility actually provided two options for metering: one was what you're calling net metering, the other was credits for surplus on a monthly basis, with the credits generally being priced slightly below the purchase cost for the same energy. I would have been happy with either - the latter is perhaps fairer. However, they also stipulated that if you took credits, they could claim your PV as part of their own PV-adoption goals. So we took net metering instead.
That makes more sense, but your utility's failings are not necessarily the same as mine nor anyone else's.
I wish I'd never mentioned solar nor net metering now- I'm not on some crusade to promote either, I was just explaining the economics of my personal setup.
You can't store energy year-round. I explained the situation in more detail in a sibling comment but the tl;dr is that people expected to run net-metering households expected to run their brand new heat pumps full tilt in the winter for ~free, the economic reality disagreed, and rates were changed to reflect that.
I meant distribution. Our electrical bill roughly consists of: energy production (per kWh) and distribution fee (per kWh). When you're using energy you accumulated through net metering, the "energy production" portion is free, but you still pay the full rate for distribution.
At some point our previous system became unsustainable and they were forced to rebalance the rates and those who have solar panels with net metering now pay significantly more than they expected they would. I explained in more detail in a sibling comment.
I'm jealous of your financial learnings. However, your model is not accurate as it doesn't factor in the 4 degree improvement in comfort and indoor pollution from propane furnaces: Propane furnaces can cause indoor pollution through the release of pollutants like carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (\(NO_{2}\)), and benzene, which are byproducts of combustion.
It also doesn't include the negative externalities because of tragedy of commons. Sadly, these kind of flawed 'financial' calculations are widespread.
What is inspiring from the OPs comment is that this is doable in harsh Canadian winters with negligible solar and it breaks even. Most of the world is living in significantly more sunshine, so it should work out a lot better financially for >99% of the population.
I've lived most of my adult life in houses with forced air furnaces (albeit powered via natural gas, not propane), and what you are saying is inaccurate regarding indoor air pollution unless your furnace is in need of immediate replacement.
A modern furnace works via a heat exchanger, where the combustion produced pollutants never mix with the indoor air being pushed through. All pollutants are expelled outside via a property functioning chimney. This is one reason why you should have the furnace (and chimney function) inspected annually. Aging heat exchangers will show hotspots before there is a possibility of air being mixed, giving plenty of time to plan for a replacement. Of course there is a possibility of failure, which is why you should have a carbon monoxide detector.
For externalities or immediate health benefits, heatpumps are pretty defensible. However, solar isn't a saint. Rare earth/mineral mining is hazardous plus only a fraction of solar panels are getting recycled properly.
> this is doable in harsh Canadian winters with negligible solar and it breaks even
It's doable alright. OP got subsidies (See comment re: risk free loan and grants). Talk about externalities, this is definitely wealth transfer.
Can you please share your definition of "whataboutism?" And explain how bringing up a single alternative (plus flaw) is addressing the critique and NOT changing the subject?
"Whataboutism", like "dog whistle", is a name for an imaginary discussion pattern that doesn't occur in real life, but is super easy to point out in most conversations, allowing one to cry foul and "win" the argument (or whole discussion) through violence instead of reason.
This is pretty much the same as accusing a colleague of insulting you through PR they asked you to review, because there's an added line that says:
class HOLEInstance ...
i.e. obviously they're calling you "assHOLE".
- "But wait, it's no such thing; it's a Handle for OLE component instances - it's part of support for COM stuff in those legacy reports..."
- "AHA! See also here, dear readers:"
class HOLEClientSite // TODO: : public HOEComponent?
"Surely, you see how bad my coworker is! They badmouth our customers too, and even call them public harlots! Don't believe their lousy defense that this was a typo, either!"
This is what pointing out "whataboutism" and "dog whistles" is. Artificial, cross-cutting pattern that match easily, but don't correspond to any real phenomena.
Adults don't talk like this. The parent shared they would be far less likely to have moved forward without the subsidies. Now, you implied that someone (me) pointing out a tradeoff of solar subsidies must be non-critical of O&G subsidies, yet you provided no proof that I wasn't ALSO critical of O&G subsidies.
Meanwhile, I would love to learn more about the financials of your non-profit, ChargeFoundation.org that has mailing to a residence in Austin, TX. I'm not seeing any 990s.[0] Can you please post your foundation's financial reports on your site?
I hope we can agree that fossil fuel consumption is something to be avoided. Subsidies are an effective means of incentivizing people to avoid fossil fuels.
If you believe the externalities of solar are a problem, what do you propose to do instead? Should we subsidize some other alternative? Redirect resources from oil to nuclear? Other?
You're making different/absolutist arguments. Even the most ardent electrification proponents agree that you can't replace downstream chemicals/materials.
As for subsidies, you're thinking too narrow if you feel it necessary to only spend limited government budget on energy to improve lives.
At no point did I make an absolutist claim. If I meant “fossil fuel use should be eliminated”, I would have used those words. Do you agree that it should be avoided and/or curtailed? If not, there is little point in continuing to discuss here, as we will likely never see eye-to-eye on this.
> you're thinking too narrow if you feel it necessary to only spend limited government budget on energy to improve lives.
I also did not use the word “only”. Governments are quite capable of doing more than one thing at once. Should governments not consider spending money on energy to improve lives?
Indoor propane furnaces exhaust outdoors in most cases. Space heaters that exhaust indoors are rare - more used for garrage heat than house. If you use them of course actount for it, but most are not.
Theoretically yes, in practice no. There is (according to my sensors) a fairly large CO2 increase inside a room when a modern furnace (with external exhaust) is running. I've confirmed this with several units (all made in the last 10 years), and it's not that the windows are closed - when the furnace turns off, the CO2 drops. And it's not that the exhaust is placed in a bad spot either.
Yes, fossil fuels are the best to keep pollution away, just need to installed perfectly, configured and maintained regularly, monitored to make sure everything is running correctly, and have additional properties lying around vacant just in case there are leaks, misconfigurations, poor installation, etc. But we must use fossil fuels, there are no other options!
I had a gas furnace that wasn't properly maintained as far as cleaning. Result: insufficient air flow for full combustion. Secondary result: CO build up in basement space. Tertiary result: asthma-like symptoms for me.
Your control for this test should be (and maybe was, you don't say) running the furnace circulation fan without running the burner. CO2 levels are unlikely to be uniform throughout a building, and thus mixing will change (raise, lower) the CO2 levels depending on where you're measuring.
Looks pretty good to me over 25 years. Not many safe/guaranteed investments that will reliably return 8% these days. And as utility rates will no doubt rise over time, savings in future years will be greater.
Yes the people selling solar systems all factor in aggressive future electricity increases, it's best to also see how it looks with more conservative rate increases. By my calculation in a reply above with the interest free solar loan it's an 8% return over 14.3 years.
It will be interesting to see if this will make natural gas a more attractive source of residential heating as the price has remained relatively stable over the past 20 years.
The push for electrification seems like it relies on us metaphorically drowning in excess cheap electricity and want somewhere for it to go but right now the opposite it happening.
There’s also the argument to be made (this has manifested in other countries) that as gas usage wanes and more homes electrify, nat gas costs will increase as the infrastructure costs are spread among fewer and fewer people
> There’s also the argument to be made (this has manifested in other countries) that as gas usage wanes and more homes electrify, nat gas costs will increase as the infrastructure costs are spread among fewer and fewer people
This has kinda wonky incentives though - if your fixed costs for gas are high but your marginal costs remain low and for whatever logistical reasons you can't cut the gas connection entirely, then your motivations are to move as much of your heating load over to gas as possible.
I'm currently facing this dilemma when it comes to my new water heater purchase. The $/kJ actually delivered into the water difference is so significant despite gas being less efficient that I'm probably going to switch to gas. Electricity has gotten so expensive that even with an efficiency advantage it still loses on the order of $500-800 per year.
Is gas actually less efficient? I haven't had to work out the math myself yet, but there are some very salient variables - e.g. what's the energy source of the electricity? If it's a natural gas power plant, you're looking at like 30-60% efficiency of gas->electricity in the first place. Are you looking a at a heat pump heater? If so, how much of its energy would be pulling heat from the house that needs to be replaced by the home's heating supply anyway?
This is the kind of thing where a carbon tax is great for sorting out the pricing to match the externalities.
You might be right, I'm just talking about "last mile" efficiency. I get electricity at $/kWh and gas at $/therm and then an electric heater is x% at converting that electricity into hotter water and a gas heater is %y. From what I can find y < x for water heaters on the market. But even despite that my $/therm is so low that it still comes out ahead.
> ”Are you looking a at a heat pump heater? If so, how much of its energy would be pulling heat from the house that needs to be replaced by the home's heating supply anyway?”
Heat pump water heaters pull heat from the outside. Usually with a split outdoor unit, just like normal A/C and heat pump systems.
I’ve also seen models where the entire system (integrated storage cylinder for the heated water) is installed outdoors, but those are presumably meant for more mild climates.
In any case, they certainly don’t pull heat from inside the house.
Heat pump dryers don’t cool the room either because they work in a closed loop. There’s no external vent removing hot air to the outside like a conventional dryer. So they pull heat from the room but also put it back in the room, and the overall effect is to warm up the room slightly.
I skimmed the article (so forgive me if I'm off.) It appears to reference non-US markets and the parent was assuming US (my assumption).
AFAIK, the US has a mid-long outlook of gas oversupply. EU's market is broken and has 3x the price (c.f. Henry Hub v. TTF). I haven't seen any major forecasters predict reaching parity anytime soon. Hence, LNG export projects keep getting (over-)built to chase the arbitrage.
That doesn't make any sense. Bitcoin miners get wealth from people buying Bitcoin, not from electricity customers. Same for AI. It's a wealth transfer from electricity customers to electricity producers if anything.
Most likely most of the increase is just temporary though. Electricity supply will increase to meet the sudden and unpredictable increase in demand.
Which to me is funny, when the electricity prices will clearly not rise when there is solar energy production from said panels. But might in other times.
I think the argument is that on average people are buying heat pumps and EVs faster they are installing solar panels but it’s not completely convincing though, power stations can be added.
Further north where I am solar can only ever be a small component of total electricity generation due to the dark snowy cloudy winter months with close to zero solar generation for weeks on end.
The issue for me with batteries is that in the summer I can produce in a day much more than I can use, and in winter I consume a lot and barely produce anything. This is where net metering steps in- I can ‘store’ all of my excess summer consumption in the grid in summer and get credit for it in winter.
A cheaper smaller system right sized for summer consumption with a battery would have my second best option, but for me never showed any potential payback due to the fixed costs of installation and the extra battery costs.
The point of my original post was that I’ve seen a much greater ROI on my own heatpump than solar, even though I don’t regret the solar installation. I wasn’t making any claims about sustainability/scalability of solar, just showing how it worked for me.
My comment was regarding net metering policy, not solar itself. Solar is great, and even better (for you) if you have net metering. But it’s not sustainable or scalable for utilities to keep offering net metering, and ultimately it creates wrong/distorted market signals: an incentive to generate more electricity when it’s abundant and to use more when it’s scarce.
Yes the figures are my approximate bills so include net metering revenues.
You're right about the 8 year negative IRR for the heatpump, although I'm being very conservative about propane costs, it's likely much shorter. I was pretty conservative about the solar savings too, I generally go for the worst case in these estimates.
Your overall NPV calculation seems a bit off. It's ~21 years to zero NPV at 8% discount rate, spending $80 up front to save $8/year. Factoring in the 10 year interest free government solar loan makes it more like 14 years. My working:
For me it helped with the ROI because I couldn't go any larger than a 6kw array due to roof shape/exposure. Only roof mounted solar is permitted in my community :/ So a ductless saved us energy in the summer months vs. window units, so I could bank more with net metering when the sun was shining.
Excellent data, thanks! Net metering does look necessary for economics. Have you factored in relative replacement/maintenance costs for the geo pump vs furnace? Also curious how much your investment was discounted thanks to tax subsidies.
There was a C$7k government grant at the time for the heatpump, which roughly matched the tax.
The current Ontario solar grant is weird- it only applies to battery systems without net-metering. They also offered a 10-year interest free loan though so I took that, improves the ROI a little. I think battery systems do make more sense for people who are further sound and using more electricity at the time of year that they are generating it. The solar sales people estimated a 10-year ROI but they had to include a pretty high annual energy cost increase in their calculations (I think 8%/year), I estimated more like 15 years.
I didn't really consider replacement, by all reports the WaterFurnace pump should last 25-30 years and the propane furnace was probably 5 years old so would have lasted about the same. I would think that the WaterFurnace costs a little more to replace, maybe a winter's worth of propane.
Several people told me that ground source heat pumps were too expensive, but years later it still feels like the best investment I've ever made, the gentle heating and cooling is more comfortable too. Anyone with enough space who has to have fuel delivered (propane, oil, etc.) should seriously consider it.
Err, be careful. You made these improvements sequentially, not independently. Each one halved your costs and might still have done exactly that if done in the opposite order.
Look closer. How could his 20kW rooftop solar electricity have halved his initial monthly costs, when >3/4 of those costs were for propane heating fuel? (Vs. <1/4 for electricity.)
People told me that, but I did the calculations myself and the impact on my energy bills is real. Net metering is essential though, so not everyone can do it.
Compared to say SoCal I generate 2/3 as much per year, much less evenly- a lot more in summer than winter, whereas further south there's less variation year round. Cooler temperatures improve solar panel efficiency too. There are online solar potential calculators if you want to compare for yourself.
Right, but you have to compare it to the opportunity cost of the money. A solar panel is an annuity. There is a one time sunk cost for a relatively consistent, long-term payout.
If I put $100 into the stock market in approximately seven years I will have $200. If I put $100 into solar panels, in 10 or 15 years, I will have $100 worth of savings. Financially, it is not much better than just putting it under a mattress.
I get that the non-economic parts of solar are pretty much all upside. I’m not saying nobody should do it. Just that they should view it as a luxury, not an economic opportunity. But until the finances work out, it will not achieve widespread adoption, and the finances are a function of how much sun you have and your energy prices.
Those of us up north have little sun and lower energy prices. We would be a lot better off just putting your money in the stock market and paying for your electricity if you were only considering money. That is not true of the American southwest.
I have homes in both Phoenix and Cleveland and I have done the math on both. I actually can’t put solar in Phoenix, I wish I could, it would be a great investment. I could put solar in Cleveland, but I might as well throw my money down the drain. I can’t imagine the math is any better in Canada.
> I can’t imagine the math is any better in Canada.
I don't have to imagine, I've actually installed it and I can see the impact on my bills. By most estimates it has a 12-15 year ROI that matches the stock market, and will continue to generate electricity for another 10-15 years after that. The 'math' is a function of many things: orientation, roof angle, occlusion, installation costs, electricity cost, latitude, grants/loans, net metering terms, etc. It's a huge assumption to say that what doesn't work in one location in Cleveland won't work for a property in Canada 2 degrees further north.
It does not match the stock market in any locale in the US. Artificial externalities may make it do so (government incentives, exorbitant energy rates) in Canada, in which case ok great. But I think you’re probably doing your math wrong.
I’m guessing you’re not counting the fact that if you buy a stock for $100 you still have the $100 (you can sell the stock) but that’s not true of solar because it’s an asset whose value quickly goes to near $0 as the cost of uninstalling the panels is more than they are worth or nearly so. You’d have to be getting near 20% ROI annually for it to match the stock market in that time frame. A quick google shows that even the Canadians selling solar don’t claim that. You don’t even get that in California, where the panels produce a multiple of what yours will and all of the other factors (incentives, latitude, high energy prices and net metering, etc.) lean toward solar so I’m guessing you’re erring.
Easy to verify though: what was your install cost and how much is it saving you on energy bills?
> I’m guessing you’re not counting the fact that if you buy a stock for $100 you still have the $100 (you can sell the stock)
Your guess is wrong. A better term for what I calculated is the IRR of a series of cash flows. You're correct that stock is a liquid asset, I'm obviously aware that I can't liquidate the panels attached to my roof.
This whole thread got out of hand, I was just giving the anecdote that I saw a much better return on a heatpump than a solar installation. I don't care who believes or doesn't believe my calculations.
> Easy to verify though: what was your install cost and how much is it saving you on energy bills?
A rough estimate is given on my original comment in this thread.
I see it as insuring myself against electricity price rises. If it's a roughly neutral cost today, but saves me a lot if electricity prices double or triple, then that's a good deal.
Right, that’s a bad financial investment. If I put $100 in the stock market, in 10 to 15 years, I will have $200 to $300, on average. If I put $100 into solar panels, in 10 or 15 years, I will have break even.
Yes and no. A house's value is largely based on the price of other comparable houses in the area that have recently sold. It's very possible to "overimprove" a house and you will not recoup those costs when you sell. Whether the furnace is brand new or 10 years old will have a negligible impact on the selling price.
This is talking about cold-climate heat pumps. A $200 window AC isn't going to heat your house when it's way below freezing outside.
$20k USD is insane though. I live in Ontario and we paid $12k CAD (pre-government subsidy) for a modern heat pump with a backup high efficiency furnace for when temperatures dip down to -40 or lower.
True. We have natural gas and an existing steam radiator setup though, for the two months a year window heat pumps can't keep up. The upfront investment alone would heat my house for 10-20 years.
Honestly, just piling more insulation in the attic and doing an energy audit will probably put the ROI out another 10+ years...
I'm hoping the newer window units that are being rolled out to the NYC market will be good enough to put downward pressure on the outrageous prices in the installation market. Or maybe I'll just dedicate a weekend to DIYing :P
There’s another alternative: a mini-split. Larger than a window unit, with a refrigerant lines you run yourself but with the actual refrigerant pre-charged inside the unit, so you don’t need to handle it yourself (which usually requires a license).
Mini-splits tend to be much cheaper than full installations.
I looked into the precharged DIY option and the lengths just didn’t work out for what I needed in my space. I ended up paying a licensed installer C$12k to put in a three head system (two conventional, one ducted), and then a separate guy $5k to do the ducting for the bedroom level.
It would have been nice to do it as one, but the HVAC firm didn’t want to get their hands dirty with my wacky ducting plan, and the duct guy wasn’t licensed to charge the refrigerant lines.
2k NZD to install minisplit vs 160KWh per winter month to heat my bedroom. Thats about $150 in power or 16 yrs to pay itself at COP 5. Or install 1 additional $130 solar panel to make about 650 KWh per year.
I do heat house main (using hp) just for comfort (and because it’s cheap). And I come from further than saaskwatch so I know what freezing pipes mean haha.
My point tho is - hp’s are not panacea in my use case.
Heat pumps are not inherently expensive though. It depends on how competitive (or not) your HVAC industry is. Sounds like New Zealand has issues with this (probably due to being a small market).
Similar for me, also in Ontario. I got a three zone mini split this year that I’m hoping can cover most of the shoulder seasons and keep me from using the gas boiler, though it remains to be seen if that’ll actually pan out; so far the kids have complained that their rooms are a lot less evenly heated when it’s the heat pump running rather than the rads.
Actually its probably most efficient way because you have best control. That said having whole house ducted you also get benefit of fresh air via ERV (arguably more important than heating).
Its most simply summed up as what I call the tradesman's protection racket.
On one side of the coin you have any moron, calling himself a repair man which can and does end in disastrous jobs which can be unsafe. This though has much lower pricing.
The flip side is, basically a protection racket where suppliers only sell to you if you have a 'loicense' and the hurdles required to become said VIP are so high, giving your body to a master tradesman to get a piece of paper over many years and be allowed to practice installing said systems results in a huge shortage of qualified people. Prices then skyrocket.
I wish I could live in a world somewhere in the middle, but as I've seen both ends of the spectrum, they both suck for different reasons.
> giving your body to a master tradesman to get a piece of paper over many years and be allowed to practice installing said systems results in a huge shortage of qualified people.
The job is physically difficult and does not provide steady hours. It involves driving long distances each day and working in hot and cold and rainy conditions, in cramped corners, in houses with varying levels of cleanliness.
People with options tend towards other careers, resulting in lower supply of qualified people, and hence higher prices to compensate for the drastically lower quality of life at work.
Have you considered that the second path you outlined, "giving your body to a master tradesman to get a piece of paper over many years" (in the figurative sense), is in general a necessary prerequisite to avoid the first path of any moron being allowed to "[call] himself a repair man which can and does end in disastrous jobs"?
> I wish I could live in a world somewhere in the middle […]
This world would just be a mixture of both, with many more semi-skilled tradesmen doing many more half-assed jobs, but not having to train as long.
I've done a lot of that type of work myself. It isn't hard to learn how to do it right from books - and I have passed inspection reports to prove it. I've also seen those professionals do a terrible job - to the point inspectors admitted to hurrying my job because they knew the next would be a mess.
I believe you. But not everyone is an autodidact. Most people, for whom becoming an electrician or plumber is the best option among all viable careers, do not have the discipline, aptitude, and intelligence to learn the theoretical and practical knowledge of a trade completely on their own. And vice versa, people who would be able to pull this of, typically have options that are better-paying, higher-status, or less physically demanding.
You think HVAC is bad, plumbers and electricians have their protectionism written into law in many states. You must pay for their stamp. "Here is what I have and it is demonstrably within code" is not sufficient.
We just got quoted $20k for the minimum setup for our house. Meanwhile, I have two "free" window units which probably cost me an additional $300 in the summer. I really want heat pumps, but I just can't see how I can justify it for $20k.
Yup, got similar quotes. I'm really not going to pay that for a day's work (2 people). The price difference over installing A/C is staggering and don't know where it comes from.
That is insane. I paid 1000EUR for an install on two floors (two indoor units) plus a few hundred for extra copper pipe not included in the quote. Took two guys about 7h. At least an hour of that was figuring out how to get power to the unit with a big enough fuse (my bad)
That’s wild. Is it something that plugs into a central air so not the usual consumer heat pump? I just got a nice heat pump in Finland for two floors with two indoor units for about $3000 with install. It should handle 99% of our heating needs. The most expensive units on the market are about $3000-4000 and for install I got quoted $1k fixed without shopping around. That includes drilling through two brick outside walls. The units are all made in China and labor is cheaper in the US if anything. Where are these prices coming from ?
The materials they install are small copper pipes and insulation and a 16A capable electric cable and some plastic. Maybe $100-200. I feel like you guys are getting screwed.
My 30 year old central air which covers 1 floor of my home went out recently so I got a bunch of replacement quotes, most vendors I asked for both a traditional central air & a heat pump central air quote.
The quotes were generally 50% more expensive for the heat pump option.
Vendor A: $12.5k AC, $17.7K Heat Pump + extra electrical work for the heat strips.
Vendor B: $8K AC, $11K Heat Pump + they don't think the existing ductwork is sufficient for comfortable heating and would recommend redoing some of it.
And I wouldn't qualify for any tax credits because it doesn't cover full home (there are upper floors without ducts that already are on mini splits & baseboard heat).
Also worth noting the range of HVAC quotes for the same spec cooling in the same home are insane. Every quote I got seemed to widen the range.
Of the $20k, let's assume $5k is the hardware. Now $15k is the work. Let's consider the installation a highly skilled job, commanding $100/hour. This is 150 hours, or a tad more than 6 business days for a team of 3, working with full load 8 hours a day.
Does a split system indeed take so much work? What is so effort-intensive?
2-3 hours planning, parts list, client management,
4-6 hrs to run electrical,
2-4 hrs to mount condenser,
4-8 hrs for medium line set,
4-8 hrs air handler, duct, platform integration,
1-2 hrs with thermostat and condensate protection,
1-2 hours nitrogen testing and pull vacuum,
1 hr documenting photos for incentive programs,
1 hr spending time educating customer about the system.
Messing up a parts order and figuring out a solution 4 hrs too often.
Total: 28 hrs, or 2-3 days of 2 people depending on the travel from their shop to customers home. I agree. Let's get that down to 12-16 hrs or single day and the best shops and installers can do that.
CA Labor law allow about 6-7 hrs of work on site as installers often have to start at their shop.
$3-4k of labor cost for small-mid size. Best might be be 2-3K labor cost. Minor equipment 1-2K, permit and testing required $1K. Then 50% gross margin is the target, net costs $2.5K indirect labor, $2K sales cost, project management, trucks, insurance, software, 10-20% net margin.
I live in Asia and I'm in charge of air conditioning at my company. A ductless A/c is approximately $1,200 installed. $20k? You should put a split unit in each room. If one breaks, go sleep in the other room. I have 6 of them installed in my apartment.
COVID prices just aren't a good comparison. I needed to replace a tankless water heater and was quoted $4k. I laughed, paid $1100 for a top of the line one and had my neighbor help me who used to be a plumber. Took 30 minutes and a bottle of a tequila for my neighbor.
One question I would have is how distorted is your area, economically?
I live in the Appalachian mountains, so one would think it should be reasonable labor rates for an area with a middle-low cost of living.
Except that we have a lake the next town over which is entirely covered in millionaire lake houses, so anyone working a trade here can and will charge obscene rates to local, normal people because they can command that rate from a rich transplant that is price insensitive.
You can occasionally find a good, reasonable guy or company still, but you’ll be calling around for days to find them.
Having previously spent a decade in a hot-market (Charleston, SC) you’ll find similar stories, there are plenty of workers in the area, but they’re almost always expecting to charge rates to wealthy price-insensitive transplants.
You've kind of exposed me, I'm not in the US, my question was in the first person but it was more that I'm curious as to the causes of what the commenters report. You may be right about the area just being HCoL, though.
Not in a HCoL area, quite the opposite in fact. Rural Maine.
Heat pumps are still a luxury product here that you only see on new homes or well financed gut remodels, which I think is the problem. As market is largely price insensitive individuals here, there’s no downward pressure.
Note that in some places (the EU for instance) self-installation is illegal since you need an F-gas certified installer. Of course, this may result in higher emissions than letting people DIY it, since it discourages switching away from gas....
If they’re really charging $10-20k then just fly someone in from a cheaper area with a reasonable hourly rate lol. It’s about 3-6h of not very intense labor
It's a good idea. I'll do that in the Spring. Any recommendations on makes / series that do well in the cold and support some form of home assistant offline control (no cloud integration, zigbee or matter or similar)?
Edit: it seems that the market has decided that every manufacturer will ship the same cloud garbage and that the community has decided it actually isn't that hard to bypass and replace their wifi modules with ESPHome devices.
Agreed. They feel massively overpriced. Covid and government rebates had everyone using them as cash cows.
I installed a 24k btu one for my recording studio myself. Took me 3 hours. It’s a cheap Mr Cool one, but seems good enough for me and has been problem free. $1300 from Costco.
The quotes I got were $10-30k for one to five head units around my house. Nope!
If I’m going to spend that much I’m going to be looking into geothermal for heating
Where it did make sense was when I was getting solar. It was only a few thousand since I already had the trades out and reducing the load was important for the ROI on the panels.