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DunkinRadio t1_j431695 wrote

Lowell area. Had a whole house ducted Bosch heat pump installed last summer. $10K rebate from MassSave made it go down pretty easy. Kept gas furnace for backup. Heat pump is supposed to work down to 5F, at which point it will fall back to the furnace. Of course that has not been tested out yet.

No functional issues - keeps the house warm fine. Of course, hasn't been deathly cold yet. Just a couple of mornings below 20F. Back of the envelope calculation for December shows that heating cost was more or less the same as if we'd used the gas furnace. Used much less energy though and (presumedly) generated less CO2. We'll see what happens this month. If it's outrageous, we'll go back to the furnace full-time.

TL;DR - you'll probably save energy with a heat pump, but due to the high cost of electricity around here, you probably won't save much money. Remember that heat pump also covers your A/C needs.

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Dmurphy2016 OP t1_j4330jj wrote

I wish we could take advantage of mass save! Unfortunately our town has a municipal power co so we can’t take advantage of the rebates. But our power is a lot cheaper. We are building a new construction so trying to decide our heating/ cooling. Definitely doing forced air. Thinking of doing heat pump and oil backup/hot water (have had oil never propane so not sure about that route) but may do propane not sure yet.

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wolf95oct0ber t1_j437ypd wrote

Still check if your town has incentives and don’t forget about federal tax breaks too.

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KKay62 t1_j43jvby wrote

Who did you use to install your heat pump? I'm in Westford and have an ancient gas furnace/forced hot air, plus two small heat pumps serving two rooms without furnace ducting.

I like the two mini-splits, have had them for 7-8 years and there have maybe been handful of days where those rooms were uncomfortably cold because the heat pumps couldn't extract heat from below 0 outside air.

The rebates/tax incentives for whole house heat pumps are looking pretty attractive, especially since we don't have central air now.

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DunkinRadio t1_j46euji wrote

Milltown. They handled all the paperwork for the rebate as well. All in all I was happy with the work - they had some issues with the thermostats and controls but they kept on it until they (and I) were sure it worked correctly. You also get a year of free service contract as part of the install.

Note that you'll need to get the MassSave efficiency assessment done to get the rebate, and also might need to upgrade your insulation.

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[deleted] t1_j43cp1n wrote

In RI, we can choose our electricity provider. I selected one that’s 100% renewables. The entire state is targeting 2035 for 100% renewable electricity. I’d be shocked if Mass wasn’t going in a similar direction.

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