Heat pump compared to wood boiler?

[pawpaw]

Just had some contractors come by. One gave a hard sell for a heat pump/ductwork installation to heat our 2500 sq ft, 1830 farmhouse. Said that with proper house insulation, ongoing monthly cost would be reasonable. Here in SW VA, winter lows avg low-mid-20s, highs low 40s.

Could some of you share monthly utility costs of heat pump vs. wood boiler, esp during temps similar to ours? Our fencelines need clearing, so cut wood readily available in our case.

 

[BrownianHeatingTech]

Heat pump efficiencies vary quite dramatically between units. The best are pretty amazingly efficient, but you pay for that efficiency. You also get A/C as an added bonus. Nothing is going to beat free wood, in terms of fuel costs, however.

Heat pumps do draw quite a bit of power, so they generally cannot be operated on a generator in an emergency.

Wood requires a good bit of labor, whereas heat pumps operate automatically.

There are many positives and negatives to each.

As far as actual costs, if you know what the efficiency rating of the proposed equipment is, what you pay for electricity, and what your heat load is, I can punch it into my computer and tell you what it will cost to run (approximately).

Joe

 

[lexybird]

my sister just installed a fancy new large heat pump unit (not sure of the make) for her mildly insualted single level 3,000 sq /ft house ,I think she said it costs around 5 grand .they did this change to offset high fueloil price problems of the last years ,i wasnt going to pay for that again either so instead I bought a large indoor wood addon furunace(1300$), her husband is an electrical engineer and installed the heating unit properly ,we both made the heating switches at roughly the same time severla months ago . they like a cozy mid 70's house in these colder months ,her old electric bill was slightly over 100$ per month it now has jumped to about 600$ per month to supply the new heat,meanwhile my bill was pretty much unchanged and by purchasing my wood by the dump load locally and already cut and split i have manged to pay only about 100$ per month and for alot more heat (80 degree temps ) out of my Englander addon wood stove ,granted that isnt a boiler gassifer or anything but it could give you an idea