Two heating systems? Which one to use?

A PowerWise engineer recently moved into a "new" house. The previous owner had recently added an air-source heat pump, which is an addition to the oil-fired boiler. Often a renovated home has an existing heating system, which remains in place, with a newer, possibly more efficient heat source added, so this isn’t an unusual scenario.

How did the PowerWise engineer choose between these options to heat the home? He monitored electrical circuits for the heat pump and for the oil furnace. Each system used the same amount of electricity. However, with the oil furnace, he also needed to pay for oil, in addition to the electricity costs.

The air-source heat pump is the easy choice, because he had numbers to make this decision. Plus, the heat pump could easily bring the house to 70 degrees when outside temperature dipped below freezing.

If you are presented with a similar scenario, PowerWise recommends you make a choice based on numbers. If you guess at the numbers, you could be making the wrong choice and waste hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Making energy-efficient decisions is much easier when you use monitoring technology to give you the numbers.