One point in Robert Wood’s recent commentary about heat pumps struck me as worthy of comment: “Average Vermont houses are poorly insulated ….”
In 2008 I bought an older home in Windsor County. One of the first things I did was have Efficiency Vermont conduct an energy audit. Those recommendations cost $8,000 to implement, but saved me about 700 gallons of fuel oil per year.
Installing cold-climate heat pumps in a poorly insulated home is simply heating the outdoors, though now with electricity. Doing so with fossil fuel further compounds the carbon insult. Efficiency Vermont has resources to respond to poorly insulated houses, which should be a first step to reducing one’s carbon footprint.
In 2015 I installed cold-climate heat pumps for my whole house, through a Green Mountain Power program. Using cold-climate heat pumps along with my woodstove, I never used my oil furnace again while I owned that house, and was much more comfortable year-round.
Jim Dean
Burlington