ITHACA, N.Y. — For Ithaca-area homeowners considering replacing an oil furnace, propane furnace or boiler, a cold-climate heat pump can provide both winter heating and summer air conditioning.

That second function continues to surprise some consumers. Despite the “cold-climate” label, these heat pumps are not heating-only appliances. They are reversible heating-and-cooling systems: during the winter they move heat into the house, and during the summer they reverse direction and move heat outside.

“People hear ‘cold-climate heat pump’ and think it is only a heater,” said Brien Colgan, an Ithaca HVAC contractor and president of Atlas Heat Pumps. “But every cold-climate heat pump also air-conditions. The same equipment performs both jobs.”

Properly designed cold-climate systems can provide a home’s entire heating load through an Ithaca winter. Colgan said his company has installed approximately 30 local systems designed to operate without furnace backup.

Whether a particular system can do that, however, depends on the equipment’s low-temperature capacity, the heating needs of the house and the quality of the installation.

Under the current NYS Clean Heat program, qualifying NYSEG customers may receive a $10,000 rebate when an eligible cold-climate air-source heat pump is designed to meet the home’s full heating load and the existing fossil-fuel heating system is decommissioned.

For the full $10,000 NYSEG incentive, the house generally must be an existing one- to four-family residence larger than 1,000 square feet. Smaller homes and projects that do not qualify for the full incentive may still be eligible for different rebate amounts.

NYSEG currently advertises rebates of up to $10,000 for air-source heat pumps. National Grid and other New York utilities offer similar programs, although incentive amounts and requirements vary by utility and project.

Homeowners should have their eligibility confirmed before signing a contract. The equipment must qualify, the heat pump must be sized for the required heating load and the fossil-fuel decommissioning work must satisfy the program’s rules.

Here are three questions homeowners should ask before selecting a system or contractor.

"The short answer is yes." says Colgan. "New York State Clean Heat completed almost 17,000 projects last year and heat pump sales have been outpacing gas furnace sales for the past four years. I think if customers were cold in the winter that would be a big news item. But  a contractor should perform a Manual J heating-load calculation and compare that calculation with the proposed equipment’s documented output at Ithaca’s winter design temperature."

He has been to service calls where systems are falling short in the winter and it is always related to poor design and equipment choices.

Homeowners should ask to see both numbers. If the house requires 40,000 Btu per hour on a design-temperature night, (Ithaca's ACCA target temp is 5 degrees)  for example, the contractor should be able to show that the proposed system will produce the required heat needed and that it won't be so grossly oversized that its expensive to run, expensive to purchase and can't run long enough in the summer to dehumidify.

“The question isn’t simply whether heat pumps work in Ithaca,” Colgan said. “The question is whether this particular system was properly selected for this particular house.”

Receiving the full rebate involves more than purchasing qualifying equipment. The heat pump must be designed to serve the full heating load, and the existing oil, propane or natural-gas heating system must meet the program’s decommissioning requirements. 

You will still get a $6000 rebate if you have electric heat. "That's the bad news, but the upside of that is that you can keep that resistance heating system."

Homeowners should ask whether decommissioning is included in the quoted price, and what happens if the utility does not approve the project. 

They should also ask how the old system will be taken out of service and whether removing a boiler or furnace creates secondary concerns. For example, if a furance shares a chimney with a water heater, taking that furnace out changes the draft characteristics of the water heater left behind.

Modern heat pumps contain inverter-driven compressors, motors and electronic circuit boards that can be damaged by power surges, brownouts and abnormal voltage.

An outdoor disconnect is required, but a basic disconnect primarily provides a way to shut off power while the equipment is being serviced. It does not necessarily include surge protection or protection from sustained high or low voltage.

Homeowners should ask whether the proposal includes all three of the following:

• A service disconnect
• Surge protection
• Over-voltage and under-voltage monitoring
• 
  

A voltage-range monitor can disconnect the heat pump when incoming power becomes unsafe and delay restarting the equipment until the voltage has stabilized.

Colgan said a basic disconnect may cost as little as $30 and it's nothing more than a switch. The  voltage controller his company uses combines a service disconnect, surge protector and voltage-range monitor. 

"Our cost  on those units are several hundred dollars. So it's not just the brand of the equipment, it's also that ancillary equipment that powers and protects the equipment. That heat pump contains thousands of dollars in electronic components,” he said. “Homeowners should know whether the contractor is actually protecting those components or simply installing the least expensive disconnect that meets code.”

Electrical protection is only one part of a heat pump installation. Homeowners should also ask what testing and commissioning documentation they will receive.

For refrigerant systems, that may include a nitrogen pressure test, evacuation to 500 microns or below and a vacuum-decay test. Ducted systems should also be checked for airflow and static pressure. Consumers should require commissioning tests to be part of their proposal language.

Equipment brand, efficiency ratings and warranty coverage are important, but they do not compensate for improper sizing or installation.

“Homeowners do not need to become HVAC engineers,” Colgan said. “But they should expect the contractor to prove how the system was sized, explain the rebate requirements, handle that rebate and warranty administrative lift and document how the equipment will be protected and tested.”