Ductless systems, also sometimes called mini splits, are a great way to cool your home with no need for ductwork. This is perfect if you live in an old home that never had ducts, or if your ducts are in shabby condition. Installing a ductless system is certainly more affordable than replacing all the ducts in the house! But as great as they are for cooling, they’re not just for AC.
Ductless mini splits are also great for heating your home, especially in a warm climate like ours where the temperature rarely drops below freezing. We’re talking about heat pumps! Using a heat pump with a ductless mini split allows you to heat and cool your home all year round with great efficiency and total comfort. Here’s how.
The Ductless Advantage
It’s estimated that 30% of heated and cooled air, which homeowners pay a great deal for, is lost through leaks in ductwork in the average American home. That’s average—many homes have much leakier ductwork! And with heating and cooling making up the lion’s share of the energy we use in our homes, that’s a lot of money spent on heating and cooling you don’t get to enjoy.
Even if your ducts are in great shape, having your air heated or cooled in a central location and then distributed through ducts is less efficient than having the air heated or cooled right at the vent as it enters your living space.
Thermic loss is the term for the evening-out of temperatures when something cold and something hot are close together. That’s why your icy drink eventually ends up at room temperature. As the heated or cooled air flows inside the ducts, air of the opposite temperature is right on the other side, causing that thermic loss. So a ductless system is doubly efficient by avoiding that issue as well.
The Heat Pump Advantage
Cooling with ductless AC is great, but it’s the heating where the most impressive energy savings can occur. You see, it takes a great deal of energy to produce heat, whether you do it with electricity or by combusting fuel. A heat pump can cut that by a huge percentage because it doesn’t produce heat at all! It only relocates heat that already exists.
It might seem difficult to believe! How can a heat pump relocate heat from outdoors and bring it inside, when it’s only, say, 45 degrees out? This miracle is achieved by refrigerant, which has such a low boiling point that it can absorb heat even in surprisingly chilly places. It evaporates as it does so, turning into a gas the way water boils into steam. When it condenses indoors, the heat it carries is released.
Gas furnace efficiency is often around 90%, meaning that nine-tenths of the energy used actually becomes heat for your home. Electric furnace efficiency is 100%, because none of the energy is lost as exhaust. The most efficient heat pumps today can be up to 400% efficient. That means they can provide four times the heat for the same amount of energy!
Are you ready to experience incredibly efficient ductless heating in Mandeville, LA? We’re ready to help.