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Who else with mid-efficiency furnaces is pondering their next HVAC purchases?
We've got both baseboard heating and ducting for a furnace in our home. Unfortunately, our baseboards are upstairs where it gets the hottest during heat waves. Our furnace is 26 years old and while we get it serviced each year, eventually it's going to go. With the way our house is laid out, a heat pump is not going to completely solve our cooling issues, but it will help a lot. I don't think we would ever invest in mini-splits for all of our bedrooms as an upgrade of that nature would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars when all said and done.
Governments are throwing money at people to switch over to electric heat pumps. Operating costs may be higher, but the capital cost incentives are pretty enticing for your typical cash-strapped family trying to juggle costs.
A high-efficiency furnace with A/C costs about 12-15K. Natural/renewable gas is going to become more expensive in the future with the planned increases to the carbon tax as well as potential changes to how FortisBC will spread the costs of their renewable natural gas supply across their customer base. I imagine that a high efficiency heat pump probably is about 15K, but government rebates could bring that cost down significantly. But, use of the heat pump and our baseboard heaters in the winter would definitely bring us into Tier 2 electricity rates considering the amount of windows (double-pane vinyl, 25 years old, no plans to replace in the immediate future) that we have.
There doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there in terms of analyses around long-term operating costs. Not an easy decision to be sure...
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