> I am living with one now. I think you will see significantly higher bills
> with a heat pump, unless it is the ground source variety.
A pretty recent development is solar/heatpump. Use a fluid-based solar
collection system to heat an insulated tank. The normally ground-based
heat-pump would cycle through this tank instead. As water is a pretty
good thermal mass, but not the best form of thermal mass, you can
construct a tank that is a combination water and other materials with
greater thermal mass.
When the furnace in our solar house finally blows a cork (it's 30
years old and original to the house), we're likely to implement some
form of system like this. The side benefit is that the same collection
system is used for hot-water preheat. We're told by the previous
owners that they went almost five years without ever using the
furnace--just the gas fireplace downstairs.
Another thing we might implement, as we've got some minor plumbing
work to do, anyway, is to install heat exchanges on the outlet pipes
from the showers and kitchen sink/dishwasher. All that hot water going
down the drain passes through the traps, but would also go through an
exchanger system to recover the heat from the draining water. This
warmed water cycles back into the thermal mass.
But first, we need new insulated window shades to keep from losing our
heat through those massive windows at night.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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