Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Need advice about the need for furnace with a heat pump.

I live in Omaha Ne which is generally considered to have too cold a climate for a heat pump without a furnace. However, I live in a condo with neighbors below and on 3 sides. My furnace rarely runs. In fact when the outside temp is 70 and somewhat below I often have to run the air conditioner. I don't understand why. I do have a gas log fireplace but haven't run it in 10 years or more. It makes my condo too hot.

Can I get by with a heat pump but no furnace?

My condo is 1035 square feet - how large a heat pump would you recommend?

John

omahan

you need a properly performed load calculation.

there are times that properly insulated interior condos have very low BTU requirements in heating and cooling. This makes it difficult if not impossible to find a correctly sized forced air furnace.

A high eff HP system might be a good answer for you. I believe your location has very reasonable electric rates as well.

IMO
Good Luck!
:)

It appears you have a unique situation where your have lower than normal heat loss during the cold months, but conversely higher than normal heat gain. Given these facts, I believe, as you suspect, you might be a good candidate for an HP. The old belief that HPs cannot be used in northern climates is not completely true.

However, an HP is best used to reduce operational heating cost. Given that yours are minimal it might take a very long time to pay off the up-front cost.

To get a better sense tell us what is your current furnace's AFUE? What type of A/C do you have? What are your utility costs including taxes: electric, NG, propane, etc.?

you do need to do a heatloss calc. however just going by what you said it sounds like a 1.5 ton unit will be plenty enuf for you. Especially if you are going to use the furnace for backup heat.