...And heat pumps for all

Last year, the authorities of Sofia offered households using wood stoves to get rid of them and switch to heat pumps. Close to 9,000 households took the authorities up on their offer and got free heat pumps. They must have thought they’d made an excellent deal. They might think differently this winter.

We got a heat pump about 11 years ago because it was the most efficient option for our living room. Indeed, the electricity bill dropped. Not by much but it dropped. Sadly, so did the consistent temperature of the living room in the coldest months of the year.

Our heat pump was air-to-air and when the outside air was too cold — and especially if it was too damp — the pump started sighing, groaning, and switching off every hour or so to adjust to the conditions. It’s a high-end heat pump, mind you, which led me to believe those close to 9,000 households might come to regret their decision soon.

But air-to-air heat pumps are not the best kind, I recently discovered. It’s air-to-water that’s the good stuff. It’s also the really efficient stuff, I’m being told. And it can work in Canadian winters, I hear and have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of the statement. So why isn’t everyone lining up to order their air-to-water heat pump?