Heat pumps have gone from unusual to common here in a short time, and there is a good reason for it: our climate is close to ideal for them. Mild, wet winters and increasingly warm summers are exactly the conditions a heat pump handles well.
What it actually does
A heat pump moves heat rather than making it. In winter it extracts heat from outdoor air — there is usable heat in air well below freezing — and brings it inside. In summer it runs in reverse and moves heat out of your home, which is to say it is an air conditioner.
That last point matters more each year. A furnace heats. A heat pump heats and cools, and summers in Metro Vancouver are no longer something you can reliably ignore.
Because it moves heat instead of burning fuel to create it, it delivers more heat energy than the electrical energy it consumes. That ratio is the whole efficiency argument, and it falls as the outdoor temperature drops.
Ducted or ductless
Ducted replaces or works with a central system and uses your existing ductwork. It suits homes that already have ducting in reasonable condition and gives even whole-home heating and cooling from one system.
Ductless mini-splits put individual indoor heads in the rooms you want conditioned, connected to an outdoor unit. They suit homes with no ducts, additions, suites, and situations where you want to condition some rooms and not others. They have their own article in this batch.
What your house needs to provide
Outdoor space for the unit, with clearance around it for airflow, positioned where noise is acceptable to you and to your neighbours. In a condo or townhouse this is frequently the constraint that decides everything, and strata approval for an outdoor unit is not automatic.
Electrical capacity. Heat pumps need a dedicated circuit and, depending on the system and your existing panel, an electrical upgrade. This is one of the more common cost surprises, and it is worth establishing early rather than late.
Ducting in reasonable condition, for a ducted system. Heat pumps deliver air at a lower temperature than a furnace does — comfortable, but not the blast of hot air people are used to — which means air volume matters more. Undersized or leaky ducts that were tolerable with a furnace can be a real problem with a heat pump.
That last point is worth dwelling on, because it is the most common source of disappointment. The system is fine; the distribution is not.
Cold weather
Modern cold-climate heat pumps work well down to temperatures well below anything Metro Vancouver sees in a normal winter. Capacity does decline as it gets colder, and how a given system handles the coldest days is a design decision rather than a fixed property.
The options are a system sized to carry the load on its own, a system with electric backup heat for the coldest periods, or keeping an existing gas furnace as the backup — which is dual fuel, and has its own article here.
Where they genuinely struggle
Noise sensitivity. The outdoor unit makes noise. In a detached home with space this is a non-issue. On a tight lot with a bedroom window nearby, siting matters a great deal.
Strata approval. In condos and townhouses the outdoor unit needs permission, and some buildings do not allow them or restrict where they go. Ask before you plan.
Homes with poor insulation or bad ducting. A heat pump exposes distribution problems that a furnace could brute-force through.
Rebates
Provincial and utility programmes for heat pumps exist and are meaningful, and they change — amounts, eligibility, required equipment, whether pre-approval is needed. Check CleanBC and BC Hydro directly for what is current rather than relying on what anyone, including a contractor, told you last year.
Some programmes require application before work starts. That alone is a reason not to make this decision in an emergency.
How to approach it
Have the house assessed rather than the equipment chosen first. Heat loss calculation, ducting condition, electrical capacity, siting for the outdoor unit. Those four determine what is appropriate, and any of them can change the answer.
We will tell you if your house is a poor candidate. That is a more useful conversation than selling you something that will underperform.
Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, New Westminster. 604-865-7979.
Related: Heat pump installation · Dual-fuel heating · Ductless mini-splits
