What’s More Efficient: Heat Pumps or Gas Furnaces?
The short answer is that most heat pumps are more efficient than gas furnaces, but let’s focus on why.
Operational Time
You want your home to be a certain temperature, so you set your heating system to maintain that level of warmth. A gas furnace will turn on and stay on until it reaches the desired temperature and then it will shut off. To keep that comfort consistent, the gas furnace has to continuously turn on and off.
Heat pumps will consistently measure, cycle, and react to existing temperatures to ensure warmth is evenly distributed throughout your home while using less energy. Further, the inverter technology in the Daikin FIT heat pump and air conditioning system, for example, allows the temperature to remain consistent—similar to how cruise control on a car works. This improves efficiency by eliminating the continuous start and stop nature of non-inverter technology. Inverter technology also reduces the wear and tear on the compressor, contributing to the longevity of the HVAC system.
Energy Sources
A gas furnace burns fuel to operate, which means it needs to create heat in order for your home to reach the desired temperature. Heat pumps transfer existing heat from outside into your home by extracting heat from the outside air, moving that heat through refrigerant lines to the indoor unit, and dispersing that warmth into your home—a much more efficient process than creating it. This makes the cost of a heat pump more consistent as well because it is less dependent on the fluctuating price of fuel.
Heat Pump Model and Installation
When you decide on using a heat pump system as your main home heating source, make sure a certified Daikin dealer helps you choose the best model for your home and conducts the heat pump installation. This is an important factor in maximizing the efficiency of your heat pump, as the installer will know the best place for it to meet your home heating needs.
If you want to weigh your options based on more than efficiency when it comes to a heat pump versus a gas furnace, read our article: Heat Pump vs Furnace: Which is Better?
Find your nearest certified Daikin dealer to book your heat pump installation or service.