Dual fuel heating system offers cost-saving benefits
A couple of years ago, our furnace quit completely.
The heating system was too old and outdated to make a repair worthwhile. Replacing the heater was the smart choice. This presented an ideal opportunity to upgrade to central air conditioning. Since moving into the home nearly ten years before, we’d gotten by with window air conditioners and box fans. When I asked the HVAC contractor who was handling the furnace installation about cooling options, he recommended choosing a heat pump. Since a heat pump is far more expensive to purchase than an air conditioner, my husband and I were skeptical. However, once we did some research, we changed our minds. Pairing an electric heat pump and a gas furnace into a dual fuel system provides a lot of cost saving benefit. The advantage of a heat pump is that it’s far more energy efficient than a furnace. The system works by simply moving heat between the indoors and the outdoors. In cooling mode, it operates just like a conventional air conditioner. In heating mode, it reverses the flow of refrigerant and pulls ambient heat from the outdoor air. The process avoids the safety and health risks of the combustion of fossil fuels. It significantly lessens impact on the environment and running costs. It’s also helpful that the heat pump effectively handles excess humidity in summer and won’t overly dry out the air during the winter. We chose a top-of-the-line heat pump that features adaptable-speed technology, which maintains very even indoor temperature and achieves outstanding efficiency ratings. For the majority of the year, we rely on the heat pump for comfort. When the temperature drops below freezing, the system switches to the furnace. The furnace is powerful enough to handle the especially cold weather.