When I needed a new air conditioner a couple years ago I was quoted $17,000 for a heat pump. I can only guess at that point whatever energy cost savings it would bring would never be realized within the service life of the system. I went with a $6000 standard replacement AC unit.
Unless the installer was ripping you off those were not comparable units. I've seen the manufacturer MSRP sheets and the cost difference between heat pump and non-heat pump for the same unit is small. Nowhere near enough to account for $11k.
It sounds like they quoted you a bottom of the range 11 SEER A/C vs a top of the line multi-stage compressor variable speed blower 19 SEER heat pump system. Those are not the same thing.
Might have been what I call a "fuck off" quote. That is, the people who gave you the quote didn't really want to do the job (too small, inconvenient location, or who knows what) and so quoted you an outrageous price figuring you'd either decide not to do it or if you did, you'd end up paying enough to make it worth their while. Happened to me a few years ago when I needed to re-tar my roof. The first guy quoted a figure that was like 4x what the next guy quoted.
Not a handy man, but we build power electronics and a lot of customized stuff. I also often give quotes that are really high for stuff that we don't actually want to do. It's kind of better than saying we cannot do it (because then they will never ask again) and if they agree to it we make a lot of money. For larger investments it makes sense to get a second quote.
Agreed. Ours is at least 5 years old if not more now and was way cheaper. That said there is a difference between mini-split and something you hook up to internal ducting where your furnace used to be and prices have increased in the meantime.
That said there was basically no difference in putting in an A/C only unit vs a combination. Technology wise it's the same so to speak just running in reverse in winter vs summer. We use the heat pump down to -15C-ish then I usually shut it down and just use the baseboard or if awake the stove (looks much nicer ;))
It was a no brainer to get the combination unit really. I don't get why it isn't the default nowadays and A/C and heating are thought of as separate concerns. We just don't have ducting, else we could A/C the whole house vs. just one floor.
Mechanically, there’s a reversing valve and defrost elements and controls to turn an AC into a heat pump. (So, it’s small, but not zero, mechanical differences.)
And I can definitely attest to the heating element aka defrost. We don't have actual resistive heat in the pump as we have the baseboards anyway but the lower the outside temp goes the more it has to defrost the outside as it freezes up. As winter goes by, icicles form underneath the outside unit where the defrosted ice drains out and refreezes.
It's actually amazing that the thing can extract heat from -10C air outside to heat up air that's already 21C inside to heat it up even further!
> That said there is a difference between mini-split and something you hook up to internal ducting where your furnace used to be and prices have increased in the meantime.
Generally true, as the mini-splits (have) tend(ed) to operate down to lower temperatures, but the heat pumps that look like 'traditional' outdoor A/C units are getting down there as well: for example this Lennox unit can work down to -4F / -20C:
That'll provide pretty good coverage of the year in many parts of North America before something like a gas furnace needs to kick in. (Speaking as someone who lives in Canada.)
Depends on whether they are reversible or not. Reversible ones, which can act as AC in summer, simply reverse themselves and act briefly as AC, essentially using heat taken from inside the house to defrost themselves. Only a little heat is needed relative to heat capacity of a warm house. Mine does that. However, it still has resistive heating strips for emergency heating and for when the temperature falls too low for it to keep up.
I have a 4 ton air source heat pump. It has both an internal heater and will run a defrost cycle by using the furnace in winter. I put in the full system a couple years ago. The entire system (100k BTU high efficiency furnace with variable output and 48k BTU, 22 SEER2 and 10.5 HSPF2) and the entire system was less than $17k. I also got over 4k in rebates (fed, state and manufacturer).
I'm well north of Chicago. The heat pump is rated to -22F but have the lockout set to 15F to cut over to the furnace. Mostly for wear and tear reasons. But it has a COP rating of 1.75 at 5F. So still more efficient than any furnace well below where I run it.
My understanding is that heat pumps operate at less than 100% efficiency at those levels. They don’t start blowing cold air, rather the air isn’t 90 degrees coming out any more.
What size? The last split system I bought cost about AU$1600 installed ( ~$1060) for 3.5kW... Looking at prices now, even going up to a ducted 14kW Mitsubishi Electric heat pump/AC is only AU$5000 (before installation, and you would need to add ducts and vents etc. - that's just the controller, outdoor unit and in-ceiling unit, but still)...
Is this in the US? Maybe the market is distorted just because not enough people are buying them yet, so nobody has much stock and there's little competition... We have that problem I think for air to water - super common in the UK and Europe, but since everybody uses air to air, split and ducted systems are super cheap but air to water are quite expensive. I really would quite like some heated floors in my bathrooms if I end up doing a big renovation, and don't want to go electric in-floor because hydronic with a heat pump should be more efficient.
For whatever reason both solar and heat pumps are insanely cheap in Australia vs America. It’s mostly in the labor part for some reason. This comes up all the time in the solar subreddit where Americans are routinely quoted at $4.00+ per watt for solar and $20,000+ for heat pump installs.
Heatpumps I kind of get because they’re still rare here (us). But solar is everywhere. I don’t understand how a 350mil person market is so much more expensive for solar than a 30mil one.
The US generally has cheaper labor, less construction rules, and cheaper components due to volume . the solar thing is mysterious to me.
What kind of a system were you installing? We had a heat pump installed three years ago for less than $5k Canadian. Can't remember if we got a rebate on top of that or not.
I can only speculate, but in my last replacement scenario, higher-SEER units (17+) had dramatically higher quotes, to the point where it was difficult to justify financially. On top of that, there were dramatic (~100%) variations in prices on similar equipment (but different brands) between installers. I can only imagine that regional differences are yet another source of variation...
All that is to say, my first guess is that the GP was quoted a high-SEER unit for name-ish brand equipment.
Not sure if it's a bit over-priced, however, we replaced a gas furnace without A/C. The variable speed air-handler is amazing for constant low speed circulation and the energy savings with moderate temperature for 60-75 degree weather is incredible.
Also, I have 15k BTU available for one or two additional head units. I opted for this approach instead of under-sizing the heat pump or assuming we'd need the extra head unit and buying them during initial install. Half of our basement has no ducting so we thought a unit for heat would be nice. Also considered adding another unit in second floor landing for additional capacity. Not sure yet if we will.
Your temperature controls are dependent on a "Kumo" cloud? that's rather terrifying. What if your internet goes out, or what if the cloud gets attacked (or your smart device)? Does that mean you lose control of your climate control?
Kumo cloud is beyond terrible and requires wildly overpriced hardware to find that out. I’m so displeased with it I’m on the brink of organizing a class action.
I have a sneaking suspicion that green rebates are being exploited by historically shady businesses (contractors and car dealers) by baking in the cost of the rebate into the final price.
There’s a local lot with a used 2021 Ioniq with the usual “used car dealer” hand-lettered sign proclaiming the $5,750 provincial rebate. I’m also fairly certain the car had its price inflated by that much by the dealer, or will climb by that as soon as negotiations start.
I had the exact same experience last month. I was really excited to go heat pump. It ended up being $8k vs $12k (dual stage) vs ....... > $20k for the heat pump
The guy made no attempt to upsell me and if anything was pushing the cheapest option
Suffice to say I don't plan on staying at that house long enough to ever get my moneys or enjoyment out of it. Bummer.
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I think it's true that the cost only goes up "a little" between models, but the issue is, they make you go up across the board of equipment and it all adds up dramatically. The high end option requires buying their custom thermostat which was $1200 alone
The differences are usually overall efficiency (that Trane is one of the most efficient models, SEER rating of 29.5), noise and overall capacity. This was for a >4000 sq ft house with extensive west facing glazing, not an ideal scenario.
The difference of heat pump an AC is pretty much just a reversing valve, so as others have noted this is probably not an equivalent unit.
One caveat to that is if you have a furnace, they may have wanted to install a full new air handler and run electric emergency heat vs just swapping the coil and condenser.
You can configure a heat pump coil with a furnace as the emergency heat but it might take some more thinking than an off the shelf AHU condenser pairing that maybe the contractor wasn't comfortable with doing that.
Not too far off. I got 5 quotes recently. Most are from $17,500 for $19,000 for a 3.5 ton Mitsubishi heat pump, with an outdoor condenser unit and an indoor fan+coil unit. Permit and inspection from the city add another $1,000.
