Heat Pump Myths Debunked

Matt is at the Build Show Boston site with Dave Hazel talking about how incredibly efficient their heat pump is and how it can create heat in -13 degree weather. The industry has had a lot of opinions about these types of machines, but it looks like we've entered a new age with this technology.

Check out Mitsubishi HVAC:

Subscribe and follow my Podcast on Apple or Spotify!

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter:

To sponsor a video or advertise with us visit:

Huge thanks to our Show sponsors Builders FirstSource, Polyguard, Huber, Rockwool & Viewrail for helping to make these videos possible! These are all trusted companies that Matt has worked with for years and trusts their products in the homes he builds. We would highly encourage you to check out their websites for more info.

[jdlambert]

A heat pump myth I encountered was when I started looking into replacing our 25-year old gas furnace and AC heat pump. Multiple vendors/installers told me that whole house heating & cooling heat pump ads claiming they pay for themselves are wrong, and that heat pumps never pay for themselves. They offered to install one, but insisted it was a waste of money. And yes, they also said it wouldn't heat below about 40 degrees. Well, we got a top of the line Carrier whole house heat pump system, and it will pay for itself in less than 4 years, because we're paying about $1, 200/year in electricity now, and we were paying over $6, 000/year for propane for heating plus several hundred a month for electricity for cooling in the summer. And our indoor temperatures automatically stay within a 4-degree target range year round. Oh, and our new system includes HEPA air filtration and whole-house humidity control.

[KPHVAC]

I'm in NW Washington State and we install a lot of the Mitsubishi Hyper Heat systems! They work great as long as the home is insulated, and the ductwork is sealed & insulated.

[DeuceDeuceBravo]

Our 1973 ranch in New England had an old mini-split AC unit with single wall mount (except it wasn't "mini"; the outdoor unit was enormous). We replaced it with a 20k BTU Mitsubishi heat pump 8 years ago. It's now our main source of heat (1, 300sf). Works great, even with terrible insulation. We have electric baseboard in the bedrooms if needed, but they're rarely used.

[dosadoodle]

Folks with natural gas forced air systems may also be able to get a heat pump installed within their existing system while keeping their natural gas installed. It's a nice option to get A/C while adding a particularly efficient heating system with natural gas as the backup. This allows for doing a smaller system at a reduced cost.

[dodgev]

My brother installed a mitsubishi mini split in his addition. Last December it was -10 and blowing wind for 3 days. It was till putting out 120° air from the vents the entire time. I ended up going with a bosch split system and has been doing well but so far the coldest has only been like 29 or something.

[michaelmiller]

I installed a heat pump; Mitsubishi Electric with main air handler, 4 mini splits, and a backup resistive heat in case it ever goes apocalyptic. I did it because of your show. The main thing I like about it is Variable Refrigerant Flow. Most of the time the house circulation fan is just running very low, no noise, and maybe a few degrees different than the ambient air of the house. You don't notice or care about the temp at the register because it is holding the house at the temp you specified. My only complaint is for the cost Mitsubishi doesn't provide any IOT. No more changing the house temp from my phone.

[steve]

We remodled our 1960s ranch in 2008. I put a top tier Trane system in. We're total electric. Over the years, I've played with my outside air temp change over. Currently, we switch at 18F to the heat strips. There's only a few weeks a year that we have to rely on them. People said i was crazy for spending 2X the cost. Here we are 15.5 years later, and I've had one service call on the system, and electricity costs have only gone up ever since. When we pay $2-300 less a month for electricity than a lot of our neighbors, it didn't take too many years to recoup the cost.

[alberthartl]

As a general contractor I have installed heat pumps in over 100 homes in the last 30 years. It has ranged from Southern California to Northern Wisconsin. This is what I have learned...
1) The capacity of the unit has to be matched to the HEAT load.
2) Both ductless and ducted indoor units are available. It is easy to replace a furnace with an air handler.
3) If the outside air temperature can go below 32°F, you need a cold weather version. If you live in an area where it goes below-10°F, you need a dual fuel system or a ground source water to air systems.
3) If budget is no issue, heat recovery systems are available. You can heat domestic water with heat removed while air conditioning your house.
4) The local price of natural gas and electricity will determine if a heat pump will save you any money.
5) If cost is the most important thing, Gree (mr cool) is worth considering. Otherwise, Mitsubishi is the top of the line but also the most expensive. LG makes equivalent equipment for a lower cost. Daikin has a smaller lineup but is also worth considering.
If you do not have a local contractor that will sell this equipment you can get it online from sites like Build with Ferguson or Supply House.

[Looseyboi]

I’m apart of a council here in Australia and we are working towards raising awareness about heat pump systems. For years the incorrect units where being used and they where failing rapidly due to the water type here in Adelaide. Would love to see another video like this on heat pumps but a simplified explanation on how they work and how much energy they save. I think it’d be valuable to

[jko]

A little over a year ago I had a Mitsubishi intel-Heat duel fuel system installed in my home here in South-central Wisconsin. I wanted to go completely electric but I couldn’t find a contractor that carried the Mitsubishi line up and when I did they refused to do it and insisted that I needed a duel fuel system. After TOO much back and forth I discovered that Mitsubishi was getting ready to come out with the intel-Heat system here in Wisconsin. My home was the first install of this system that the contractor had done. Fast forward to last month, when the contractor came out to do maintenance on my old Lennox natural gas furnace, the tech said they have installed many of these Mitsubishi systems now.
For some reason the system seems to act different this year so far. Last winter it kept using the gas furnace even at temperatures of 30ish degrees. This winter we had a couple days in the teens and it kept up with heating the house just using the heat pump alone. I did some research yesterday and natural gas has gone up a little bit here and I figured out that using this winter prices we spent about $16 more dollars then we would have with my old set up. Now I’m not saying that increase is all the heat pumps fault but I don’t think that we are going to see any cost savings at all. In fact we maybe spending more money with a heat pump. Time will tell.
My main worry is the extra load on the electric grid with every contractor now installing heat pumps. Again, time will tell! One other thing is I absolutely hate the Mitsubishi thermostat that they insist be used on all of their systems!

[arnoldreiter]

i installed a 9k btu heat pump in my detached two car garage this summer. In July i would use about 400w running ac mode and kept my workshop a very comfy 75f. Fast forward to November and i am using it to heat my workshop/garage and so far it has kept it 57 overnight(this is its lowest setting) and actually shuts down about half the time during the day. I live in Montana and i have seen temp extremes of 105f in the summer to -30 in the winter. I used a pellet stove last winter and burned thru over 500.00 of pellets during the winter. So far this heating season i have used 3 bags @6.00 each mainly to bring up the temp quickly when i wanted to do some work inside. I still have the pellet stove and will keep it as a back up for now. Even with the added electricity i am saving money each day that i dont have to run my pellet stove to keep my workshop/garage livable. Next spring i will be installing a mini split in my house to run ac instead of the power hog central air i have now.

[JimYeats]

Totally off-grid using Mr. Cool DIY heat pumps for whole house heating and cooling. Two outdoor units and six interior wall units.

[shubinternet]

@3:12 -- looks like from here on, it's silent black screen. Maybe the video needed to be trimmed before it was uploaded?

[nwsvndr]

What's NOT a myth is that installers are charging insane prices. They bid $78k for replacing two 4 ton units in my house. It's not a complicated install. To bid, they just take the equipment price, increase the equipment price by 50% over cost, then add a similar amount for the labor. So it ends up at 3 times the equipment cost. Multiple bidders did this. It's insane. So I had my existing AC units replaced at $7k each instead.

[ekjswim]

Here's to the multiple salesmen who have told me they don't install heat pumps because it gets too cold...in New Orleans. Sure, guy.

[TD-zczi]

Ever reputable installer I speak to in Southern Ontario who's an MEQ for purchasing a Mitsubishi multi-zone heat pump keeps saying there are considerably cheaper options like Moovair with similar performance. So few willing installers right now that I feel like I have no choice but to go with another brand in order to get long-term local support.

[ronlovell]

Key word is Work! Been a builder in central Canada for past 25 years. Over the past 5 years I can tell you there's a huge push for them from government, with tonnes of rebate incentives, but our climate can go beyond -30C in winter for several months, so you absolutely need an alternative heat source regardless. Also getting proper installation and service techs for repairs is a real bear. Most companies here don't touch em due to complexity, and many of our clients say they work great for first year and after that you're pretty much SOL. I meet with service techs at hundreds of properties almost daily, sometimes you see piss poor installs, and sometimes its just cheap junk equipment coming from overseas.

[markmuir]

I have a Lennox XP25 4 ton heat pump in Southern California. It paid itself off years ago - especially since it runs entirely off solar power, even during much of the winter. But it does blow out cold air when heating, which annoys most guests.

To be honest, the biggest problem with heat pumps is the complexity - and how well the system deals with problems. This Lennox system handles problems very poorly: the outside fan developed a problem, which caused the compressor to fail. This took down the whole system - preventing even the heat strips from working - so I went 4 weeks without heating, waiting for parts!

[ryansoo]

Matt, you've done a lot of videos on the necessity of having redundant systems in place in case of a disaster - water catchment pans under dishwashers, floor drains under washing machines, a back-up generator for electrical (especially after that Texas ice storm knocked out power for days and people homes got so cold their pipes froze and burst) so how about doing a video (or series) about how to run a house completely off grid, on solar alone?
I suspect that you couldn't do it, especially for a house the size of yours with all those complicated mechanical systems. You'd have to install the smallest units possible that used the least amount of power AND still manage to provide all the necessary equipment to enjoy a safe, healthy house. Can it be done? Do you know how?

[weirdsciencetv]

How do you get rid of frozen water on the heat exchanger in -5 weather? The one I have seems to have a cycle to heat up the heat exchanger to thaw it occasionally. It this what the Mitsubishi does?