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Comment by macinjosh | Hacker News Reader

Half way through the article the author is touting how these can work in cold climates like Norway, then their example homeowner immediately states they have this but also they still have a furnace for when it actually is cold. Why do journalists try to pull crap like this? Contradictory information in the same paragraph!?

If you have to have a backup it is _not_ a replacement and it will not get us off of carbon. Most people cannot afford a heat pump system much less a heat pump _and_ a furnace. Heat pumps seem great for moderate climates but it is not gonna happen up north where things actually get cold and stay cold for long periods of time.

Anyone who actually has experienced this type of cold would run in the opposite direction of a heating technology that produces less warmth the colder it gets outside. Literally the opposite of what is needed for existence.

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If you read the article carefully, it notes that part of the problem in some colder climates is a lack of home insulation. Norwegian homes are well-insulated and therefore very suitable for heat pumps. The home owner with the furnace was US-based, by the way.

The author is not "pulling crap" because they point out the real experience of Norwegian home owners while also describing the diversity of heat pump installations and outcomes.

They're actually being very honest.

A solution doesn't have to move us away from fossil fuels all by itself to be a useful piece of the puzzle. Even if heat pumps were only viable in places that don't regularly get super cold in the winter (which isn't true), that's a huge number of places covering a large portion of the population. A lot of the US, for example, gets hot enough in the summer that you want central air conditioning but also gets moderately cold in the winter. A heat pump system can cover you all year round with the same exact system. If you install a backup heat source, which can be electric by the way, that covers even more potential installation locations.

It's not that black or white. I only need a backup for my heat pumps for perhaps a week each winter. The heat pump still saves me 40% on my heating costs throughout the year.

Also, Norway doesn't get as cold as you might think. They get some heat from the gulf stream in the Atlantic ocean like the UK does. Russia and Canada get a lot colder in their northern parts, like -40C quite often and sometimes even as low as -50C. Heat pumps aren't very viable below -25C, but work is ongoing to make the more efficient at lower temps.

I’ve been wondering where the break-even points will be for ground source systems, too. I was talking with an architect a couple weeks ago who has looked into that for several projects and didn’t find the number close to working out, but that was in Boston where the winter climate is nowhere near that extreme and the labor/land costs are very high and space issues meant they’d have to do the most expensive vertical boreholes.

10 years ago the average heat pump had a CoP of 3. Today they are 4 or a bit higher. Some ground source heat pumps have a CoP over 5. I saw one unit with 5.3. Of course, with a ground source heat pump, you can actually get that CoP when the outside air is -50C.

Here in Sweden your backup system could simply be a fireplace, at least if you refer to extra heating and not for cases of power failures.

This works great since all houses, including those 100 years old, are well insulated.

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