Planet Saved, Family Hospitalized: A Heat Pump Love Story

Watts Up With That ^ | 7/12/25 | Charles Rotter

[Renkluaf]

Proof positive that the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of idiots.

[blackdog]

Just plumb your condensate into the sanitary drain stack vent as code typically requires, or plumb a drain line out to your garden away from the house. Install a lift pump if you must for $50.

Atmosphere is typically at 60% humidity. The water has to go somewhere. Mix it with 50,000 cubic feet volume of dusty air every hour and you grow stuff Anthony Fauci would feed to Beagles. Not everything is complicated.

[mewzilla]

Deep State’s frontmen are idiots.

The people hiding behind them are not.

And the intentions of the people hiding behind their idiot stooges are most certainly not good.

[RightOnTheBorder]

They are not good intentions nor idiots. Those policies are bought and paid for by friends of democrats who enrich themselves selling the “solution.” The people who implement those policies are not wrong headed they are evil. When you consider policies such as ddt prohibition, the environmentalists have an incredible body count to answer for.

[catnipman]

heat pumps are total scam in extreme climates ... here in colorado, where winters, even on the plains, can go to -23 degrees for a few days in a row, heat pumps, which are nothing more than reversible whole-house refrigerators + “emergency heat” from a giant toaster, are absolutely insane: an AC with electric heat ...

a year or so ago, there was a local article about some idiot “green” moron Karen crowing about how she had a heat pump installed AND had her natural gas heating ripped out because, you know, “green” ... no doubt she was SHOCKED, i tell you SHOCKED, when her winter electric bills rolled in ...

[vpintheak]

Have you ever heard of winter? Perhaps northern climates?
The don’t think so, Tim.

[vpintheak]

Have you ever heard of winter? Perhaps northern climates?
I don’t think so, Tim.

[SuperLuminal]

"...the good intentions of idiots."

Nope!
It's part of the well-executed plan the American Communist Party has implemented for the past several decades...

[GOPJ]

Deep State’s frontmen are idiots. The people hiding behind them are not. And the intentions of the people hiding behind their idiot stooges are most certainly not good.

Excellent overall comment about the deep state - but in this case I'm going with blackdog in the second reply spot...

[antidemoncrat]

Heat pumps are great as long as the outside temperature is above about 35 deg F. Then you have to switch to some other heating device ... like a gas, coal or fuel oil furnace. Not solar powered electric unless there is no ice or heavy snow storms ever expected.

[Tell It Right]

Heat pumps, especially those used for domestic hot water, often operate at lower temperatures than traditional boilers. This creates the perfect breeding ground for Legionella bacteria.

For the record, I always keep my hybrid water heater (usually running in heat pump mode unless I have a lot of family staying over) set to 135F, just like I did with my regular water heater. (If any FReepers have tips on a different temp I'd appreciate it.)

Let’s check the scoreboard: Your heating bill is just as soul-crushingly high as ever...

Actually no. It runs at just 380W for just 2-3 hours per day during the warm half of the year, or 3-4 hours during the winter (call it 1kWh+ per day). If I didn't have solar, it'd add just 40kWh per month to the power bill (at 16 cents / kWh, call it $6.50 per month to heat my water every month to the same temp I was heating it before with a normal water heater, again if I didn't have solar). And by the way, during the warm half of the year I direct the cold air byproduct that comes out of the water heater into an air receiver by the water heater so that the free cold air helps cool the home. (Thus the hybrid water heater saves me with more than just heating the water tank.)

Don't get me wrong. The whole climate hysteria stuff is a bunch of bunk and I almost always agree with whattsupwiththat. No one should do things like this water heater out of some stupid climate guilt and certainly not be forced with govt regulations justified by their warmageddon cult. But I want us conservatives to have our facts in order when we make arguments such as with this article. And those of us who believe in limited govt should not just want the right people in charge undoing govt overreach. We should also each be striving to make ourselves less dependent on the things govt overregulates (like the overregulated energy market). That includes things like making our homes operate with all the comforts we want and are used to, but with less energy needed from the overregulated natural gas market or overregulated grid.

[Ex-Con777]

> Just plumb your condensate into the sanitary drain stack vent as code typically requires, or plumb a drain line out to your garden away from the house. Install a lift pump if you must for $50.<

Those are good suggestions. But, a municipality that requires this crap may not let you do that.

I put in a pool and the city required that all area drains must drain to the street, which was uphill from the pool. The inspector told me I had to install an expensive lift pump that would dump the water 5 feet from a culvert, that emptied into a drainage ditch that ran immediately next to my fenceline 20 feet from the pool.

After I said, “wouldn’t it make more sense to just run the drain pipe downhill 20 feet to the drainage ditch”, it was like a lightbulb went off in he head and he agreed that this was a better idea. I saved well over $1000 in parts and labor.

EC

[dznutz]

I’m in Chicago and have a natural gas furnace with central air conditioning in my house. The AC crapped out on me and I had an HVAC guy give me a quote on replacing just the AC coil and condenser unit, the furnace was in good condition. He tried to sell me on a heat pump/AC unit, said it would be the same price as just replacing the AC, and I could use it as a back up to the natural gas furnace. I declined, figuring it is just another system that could break and cause problems down the road.

[sauropod]

.

[Keyhopper]

Tell karen to call a bear

[Semper Vigilantis]

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

I do not know if the technology has improved. Forty years ago a heat pump could bring down the temperature in Austin, for example, only fifteen degrees lower than ambient. In other words, if the ambient outside is 95 degrees then the heat pump could bring the temperature in the home to only 80! 80 is still hot! In cold weather? If it is 30 degrees outside then the temperature in the house is 45?
WTF? ;-)

[Secret Agent Man]

Good move.

[Tell It Right]

I have extended family in Colorado who wanted to add A/C to the house. I suggested a heat pump for the purpose of not just cooling the house in the summer, but being an option for heating in the cooler seasons during mild cold (still use gas furnace for extreme cold). The idea of heating during mild cold with either the electric heat pump or the natural gas furnace was to give the homeowner the option to choose whichever energy was cheaper at that moment. If their utility company, Excel, was charging a lot for natural gas, use the heat pump to warm the house (again except for extreme cold). If the utility was charging more for power, use the gas furnace.

They say it works fine in saving them money by simply having options.

[lastchance]

The problem with lower water heater temps and Legionnaires(sp) is well documented. This is nothing new.