My buddy in Seattle swore that switching to a heat pump would cut our gas bill by half

Six months in and our winter bill dropped 60 percent but the unit keeps choking on defrost cycles when it drops below 30 degrees, anyone else dealing with that in cold climates?

2 comments

2 Comments

fisher.taylor1mo ago

Is it just me or does it feel like every time we try to solve one problem with new tech we just end up trading it for a different one? Like, your gas bill drops huge which is awesome, but then the defrost thing is a whole new headache to deal with. I've noticed this pattern with a bunch of stuff in my own life, not just with heat pumps. You fix the leaky faucet, then the water pressure drops somewhere else. You get a faster phone, then the battery dies faster. It's like nothing comes without a catch. Maybe it's just the way modern stuff is built, where they fix one thing but don't think through all the side effects. I'm honestly kind of tired of it, feels like we're always paying for one upgrade with a new annoyance.

parker5431mo ago

Nah, I wouldn't say they don't think through side effects. It's more like you can't predict every trade-off until people actually use the thing in the real world. Engineers aren't dumb, they just can't test for every weird situation someone will throw at it. The leaky faucet thing isn't really a trade-off either, that's just a different problem that was already there. You fixed one thing and then noticed the other. It's not like fixing the faucet caused low water pressure somewhere else, that's just how old plumbing works. I get being tired of it though, feels like nothing is ever just simple and done.