By Lynn Bryant
What a beautiful summer we have had in Woodstock! While other parts of the globe were suffering extreme heat, we were fortunate that our high-heat days were limited and offset by lots of rain. As we enjoy these beautiful late summer days, most of us are probably not relying on air conditioning to keep our homes cool or thinking yet about pending heating costs when winter arrives and we turn our furnaces back on. But with global temperatures continuing to rise, we cannot count on future summers being as moderate as this one has been. Cooling our homes will likely become necessary even if we do not currently use air conditioning. At the same time, we all need to heat our homes efficiently, and furnaces have a life span and eventually need to be replaced. When that time comes for you, I hope you will consider a heat pump for your heating and cooling needs.
Heat pumps are an efficient way to heat a home in the winter and provide cooling in the summer, and they are environmentally friendly because they use electricity instead of fossil fuels. They work by moving heat indoors in the winter and drawing heat outdoors in the summer. Air-source heat pumps warm a home by collecting heat from outdoor air, concentrating it through a compressor, and distributing it through an indoor unit. Ground-source, or geothermal, heat pumps similarly process heat extracted from the ground. For cooling, the process is reversed: heat is pulled out of the home and released outside.
It’s reasonable to wonder whether heat pumps can hold their own against furnaces in a cold-weather climate like ours. The good news is that cold-climate heat pump technology has matured considerably. Today, equipment must carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate certification to qualify for Vermont utility rebates, and that equipment is tested for performance at temperatures as low as 5 degrees F. Heat pumps will still function at temperatures as low as -15 degrees, they just won’t be as energy efficient. Properly installed and sized cold-climate systems now routinely serve as a home’s sole heat source through a full Vermont winter, not just a supplement to a furnace. This is especially true in a tighter, well-insulated home.
Because heat pumps move heat rather than generate it, they deliver lower, more predictable operating costs over time when compared to fossil fuels. Installation costs are recouped through those savings. Of course, homeowners who install solar panels along with heat pumps will further reduce their costs—and carbon emissions—to close to zero. The incentive landscape is constantly shifting, but Efficiency Vermont offers substantial rebates in partnership with local electric utilities. They also offer cash back for weatherization projects such as air sealing and insulation. Green Mountain Power also offers rebates for heat pumps to income-eligible customers.
While a central air-source heat pump can heat and cool an entire home through existing or new ductwork, a ductless mini-split is ideal for individual rooms, small apartments, or spaces where ductwork is impractical. Like other air-source heat pumps, mini-splits transfer heat into or out of the home, but they don’t require ducts. Indoor and outdoor units exchange heat through refrigerant lines, and each wall-mounted indoor unit has its own thermostat, allowing rooms to be heated or cooled independently — useful for anyone weatherizing or renovating room by room rather than all at once.
If you’re considering heat pump options for the first time, it can be confusing to sort through what’s best for your home. Efficiency Vermont (efficiencyvermont.com) remains the best starting point: they offer guidance on system types, up-to-date rebate details, and a network of vetted contractors and installers — a useful resource given how quickly incentive amounts can change from year to year.
Once you’ve chosen a system, it’s essential that it be installed by a contractor experienced with heat pump installation, and ideally one enrolled in Efficiency Vermont’s contractor network, since rebate eligibility often depends on using program-qualified equipment and installers.
A Vermonter’s Guide to Residential Heating and Cooling, developed by the Clean Energy States Alliance (cesa.org), remains a helpful resource for understanding which system fits which household. This guide, along with other Vermont energy resources, is available on Sustainable Woodstock’s website (sustainablewoodstock.org) under the energy tab. If you have additional questions about clean heating and cooling, please reach out to us at info@sustainablewoodstock.org.
Heat pumps offer a clean technology that’s environmentally friendly, increasingly affordable to install thanks to state and utility rebates, and durable for our Vermont winters. A win all around!