I live in northern BC. They have advertisements for heat pumps on our local radio. When I was looking to upgrade our home furnace and install an air conditioner, I investigated the heat pump as an option.

The research I did found that I would need a secondary unit (gas furnace) for when the temperature went below -20°C when the efficiency would drop. And after -25°C it would not be able to keep up to heating the house.

As much as I would have liked to use one unit to heat and cool my home, the tech wasn't there to get my family through the winter. We have weeks of -30 during the day and it is consistently -20 over night for 5 months a year.

Fingers crossed when the time comes to replace my furnace and AC units something else has been figured out.

[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why not get the heat pump with an inline gas furnace then? There is the clean BC rebates for the heat pump, there is a dual fuel rebate from the gas company to get the gas furnace, and everyone north of 100 Mile House gets the northern top up of a few thousand more on top of the other rebates.

I just got approved for the clean BC rebates, one thing I'm annoyed by is that the rebates go to the accepted installer and the other installers I know in town will install everything cheaper, the accepted installer ups the price of everything so you just pay the same as everyone else and the rebate goes to them as a padding in their pocket. At least the Fortis rebates go straight to the home owner.

[–] twopi@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's how business works. They take from the government and then complain about taxes.

[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah I really wish it was end user rebates so the installer doesn't need to know that the rebates are involved at all.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The standard kit for Ottawa is

electric heat pump
gas furnace

It's in every place I ever saw, and it uses just the heat pump except for the -25 days (or 4 months of the year, for Ottawa) when it kicks the furnace on.

In short, it's a very workable system.

[–] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

ya, a 'duel fuel' system, got a quote to replace my aging furnace, but couldnt make it work at the time. still high on my list to do.