top | item 46169355

From Rockets to Heat Pumps

12 points| ssuds | 2 months ago |heatpumped.org

10 comments

order

jamesbfb|2 months ago

I’m always fascinated by how heat pumps (or reverse cycle units for Australians) are not the defacto standard in other countries and somehow come up for debate in the US. I remember watching one of the many TechnologyConnections videos on the subject and was wondering although interesting, what is with this focus on heat pumps being better than XYZ? Is the resistance to change really that great?

Being Australian, at least in Victoria, I don’t know of many houses that have gas heating. I also think it’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen household evap cooling, which I find has slowly been replaced by reverse cycle units given the climate has changed for us in VIC that the humidity increase over the years tends to make the evap units far less effective.

moribvndvs|2 months ago

The US economy is basically one big pyramid scheme that has been divided amongst several cartels. If you try to exit or interrupt the momentum, they get very mad and pull the levers on the various influence channels they also own (industry, media, government, etc.). Individual consumers are then frightened, overwhelmed, or priced out of change, assuming they’re even aware of it.

esseph|2 months ago

I say this full of ignorance, honesty, and curiosity:

Don't heat pumps suck when it gets Actually Cold in the winter? Let's say -40F to 0F (-40C to -18C)?

If so, that would be why. A lot of places here get quite cold.

petermcneeley|2 months ago

I appreciate the honesty (or at least appearance of so) but it is a bit of a shame to go from a 'rocket propulsion engineer' to a heat pump sales man.

malfist|2 months ago

Why do you say that? This guy clearly finds meaning and significance in what he does.