A Heat Pump is essentially the same as an air conditioner, but with one extra feature added. On cold days, a heat pump reverses its operations and heats the house instead of cooling it. What makes heat pumps stand out among other heaters is their heat gain. Today's heat pumps at 0 Degrees Celsius outside return 3kw of heat for every 1 kw of electricity fed into them. It sounds too good to be true and immediately begs the question: Why don't we use heat pumps in Toronto?

Low efficiency used to be the main reason. Up to 2006, most heat pumps were based on low-efficiency 10 SEER air conditioners, and they could not run at low outdoor temperature. In 2006 manufacturing of new units with less than 13 SEER efficiency was outlawed. Virtually overnight, new heat pumps' efficiency increased by almost 30% and kept rising.

Company Resource:   Heat Pump, Household Heat Pump
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