We moved to heat-pump a few years ago and disconnected from gas. It's been working great. Our biggest expense was insulating our house. It is an old house and the 2nd floor was very drafty. You could feel a breeze coming through cracks in the wall. When we opened the wall there were just a few newspapers in there and no insulation.
We had the 2nd floor siding removed, an extra layer of insulated wall added to the outside and then cladded with siding. It was like putting a big insulated hat on our house. Now the temperature is very consistent and absolute no drafts.
The architect said to me that we'll never fully recoup our costs of putting the hat on the house. To which I replied that we don't always to things for economic reasons, and just do them because they are the right thing to do.
My only regret was going with a Rheem heat-pump water heater in this mix. It does not perform well at all. With hindsight I would have looked for a way to perhaps have water heating integrated with our air heat-pump system. There is a company called Arctic that has those systems.
Also with regard to heat-pump water heater, out big problem is that a hydronic floor heating system (installed when we were on gas) is now constantly drawing off heat from our tank. I'd like to find a small standalone unit to handle floor hydronic heating separate from my main water heating.
We had the 2nd floor siding removed, an extra layer of insulated wall added to the outside and then cladded with siding. It was like putting a big insulated hat on our house. Now the temperature is very consistent and absolute no drafts.
The architect said to me that we'll never fully recoup our costs of putting the hat on the house. To which I replied that we don't always to things for economic reasons, and just do them because they are the right thing to do.
My only regret was going with a Rheem heat-pump water heater in this mix. It does not perform well at all. With hindsight I would have looked for a way to perhaps have water heating integrated with our air heat-pump system. There is a company called Arctic that has those systems.
Also with regard to heat-pump water heater, out big problem is that a hydronic floor heating system (installed when we were on gas) is now constantly drawing off heat from our tank. I'd like to find a small standalone unit to handle floor hydronic heating separate from my main water heating.