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Hey Ed, Neel Asks if It Make Sense to Retrofit a New Build Home With a Conventional 93 AFUE Propane Furnace With a Hybrid Heat Pump System


In this edition of "Hey Ed," Ed talks about if it make sense to retrofit a new build home with a conventional 93 AFUE propane furnace with a hybrid heat pump system.

Hey Ed, Neel asks, does it make sense to retrofit a new build home with a conventional 93 AFUE propane furnace with a hybrid heat pump system? I believe that anytime you can add a heat pump to either an existing system or to a new build, it is going to be beneficial to the occupant. And when I say beneficial, it will almost, I won’t guarantee it, you got to do some math, but in most instances it will have a positive return on investment and number two, it can be more comfortable. And when I talk about more comfortable, I talk about, if we were to compare a fossil fuel furnace that is multi-stage versus a heat pump in a fuel fuel application, what we end up with is a heat pump when it is our first heating source or the first stage of our heating source, it has a smaller capacity than the lowest stage of our fossil fuel appliance. What that translates into is more run time when it’s not as cold out. And I think everyone should be familiar with the idea that more run time is more better and that’s the way I see it.

Ed Janowiak

Ed Janowiak is the Manager of HVAC Design Education at ACCA.


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