If you’ve ever been to a friend or family members house, you might’ve seen what’s known as a heat pump. It is essentially an external form of heating and cooling that takes air from the outdoors, and converts it to either warm or cold air depending on the season. However, is it better than heating oil? Let’s find out!
What is a Heat Pump?
A heat pump is a heating unit that is located outdoors. It doesn’t use fuel to produce heat. Instead, it extracts heat from the outside air and pushes it into your home. Think of it like air conditioning, but the exact opposite.
However, during the spring and summer months, you can change it into it’s cooling mode. In this cooling mode, it extracts cold air from outside and pushes it into your home to keep you nice and cool.
Similar to oil tanks, there are different designs and styles for heat pumps. The two most common being the Air-Source and Ground-Source heat pumps. Ground-Source heat pumps are more expensive and extract heat from the outside ground. The heat pump then pumps hot or cold air into your home. When comparing them to the Air-Source heat pumps, they are generally more efficient.
Heat Pump Benefits
So long as the outside temperature remains above freezing, heat pumps tend to be very energy-efficient. They produce a natural form of heat and cooling that will ultimately result in a lower energy bill. Additionally, they don’t require you to burn fuel!
They are very versatile and they see usage for both heating and cooling. Air quality will not be an issue either, so long as your neighborhood has decent air quality! You also won’t have to worry about carbon monoxide leaks, because heat pumps don’t contain CO!
What are the downsides of heat pumps?
With the good benefits of heat pumps, there are quite a few downsides. They produce less heat compared to your furnace. They also will not make your home as hot and toasty as you might like. When comparing this to heating oil, your furnace will burn oil significantly hotter than this.
Additionally, heat pumps will often lose efficiency the colder it is outside! With below freezing temperatures, heat pumps will often have to work harder to heat up the house because the air is coming from the outdoors. They are unreliable in environments with erratic weather and freezing cold winters.
What are the Benefits of Heating Oil?
Heating oil produces more heat compared to a heat pump. The heat produced from your furnace using heating oil is often significantly hotter than a heat pumps.
A gallon of heating oil produces 138,500 BTUs (117,725 effective BTUs) per gallon of heating oil. While a heat pump will only produce 60,000 BTUs for your standard 2,500 square foot home. With heating oil, you are effectively producing twice the amount of heat compared to a heat pump.
What are the downsides of Heating Oil?
While heat pumps might be odorless, heating oil unfortunately isn’t. While an oil leak from your tank is rare, they can still happen. If your tank where to have a leak, you will most definitely smell it. Constantly checking your tank is a requirement to ensure that you never have a leak. If your oil tank is leaking, you MUST call an HVAC technician ASAP.
Additionally, oil prices also fluctuate constantly! They are commonly affected my global changes in oil price. Oil prices where at an all time high back in 2022 when Russia invaded the Ukraine. However, when COVID-19 first started, oil prices where as low as they have been in a long time. Prices where as low as $1 per gallon!
If you aren’t careful in keeping track of your oil level, you could run out! Running out can cause serious problems for your home. During the cold winter months, if you run out of oil, your pipes could freeze. This can cause some serious damage to your home! Be sure to have a Smart Oil Gauge installed onto your tank to monitor your oil levels! If you recently ran out of oil, check out this article to know what to do incase this happens again!
Conclusion
While heat pumps are fantastic for both of your heating and cooling needs, they are often unreliable the colder it gets. Additionally, because they produce less heat, your home will not be as warm as it would be with a furnace.
Where you live is very important for purchasing a heat pump or not. If you live in an area with mild winters, a heat pump would be best! With much colder weather up here in the northeast, heat pumps are simply less reliable compared to heating oil.
Heating oil is not only reliable, it also creates more heat compared to a heat pump. It’s not reliant on the outside temperature for it’s functionality and can be used regardless of the outside weather. Ultimately, heating oil should be your primary source of heating in the northeast.
Happy Heating,
Hunter
