Heat Pumps vs Air Conditioners: What's Best for Cooling My Home?
Finding the best way to keep your home cool in the summer is crucial to your comfort here in Finger Lakes, making the decision for a new air conditioner an important one. As you’re weighing options for a new cooling system, you have probably found yourself comparing a heat pump and traditional air conditioner. While the two systems are very similar, there are a few key differences between them that can impact what’s best for your home.
At Halco Energy, we’ve been providing high-quality energy solutions to the Syracuse area since 1984. Our experienced team can help you evaluate your cooling needs and choose a new heat pump or AC that meets them.
Home Energy Assessments: The First Step to Choosing the Right Cooling System
Before deciding on a new cooling system, Halco recommends starting with a home energy assessment. Our team can determine your home’s cooling needs to properly size your new system as well as identify inefficiencies with your insulation that could be contributing to energy loss. From there, we can provide guidance to help you find the best cooling system based on your budget and current incentives or rebates are available.
Heat Pumps vs Air Conditioners: How They’re Different
Both heat pumps and air conditioners run on electricity and work in similar ways—using a line of refrigerant to transport heat outside of your home. Where they are different is that heat pumps can also provide efficient heating in addition to cooling. There are a few other key differences in their energy efficiency, lifespan, and cost that can help make your decision between a heat pump and air conditioner easier.
Energy Efficiency
Since heat pumps and high-efficiency air conditioners work similarly throughout the summer, not every homeowner will see a drastic difference in efficiency between them in cooling mode. However, when a heat pump is used to also replace your traditional furnace their efficiency is unmatched because they move heat rather than generate it.
Ductless mini split heat pumps offer additional energy efficiency with zoning abilities to customize the temperature between rooms and save energy by not heating or cooling unoccupied areas of your home.
Lifespan
While the exact lifespan of your cooling system varies depending on regular maintenance and usage, both a heat pump and air conditioner can have a lifespan of over 15 years. Generally, an air conditioner will last slightly longer because it is only being used during the warmer months where a heat pump can be used year-round.
Cost
There are many variables that go into determining how much your cooling system will cost, like your energy needs and the model you choose. However, there are usually more rebates and incentives available for heat pump installation due to their high-efficiency. The team at Halco makes sure to stay up to date with the latest incentives in order to help homeowners in the Finger Lakes area maximize their savings on a wide variety of our services.
Halco Energy: Your Finger Lakes Cooling Experts
From high-efficiency air conditioners to both air-source and geothermal heat pumps, the team at Halco installs them all. We’re focused on providing high-quality and reliable cooling solutions to our clients and want to make the process of choosing a new system as simple as possible. Whether you’re looking to replace your old, inefficient AC or just want to upgrade to a more efficient model—give Halco a call.
