How do heat pumps work? / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

...heat source in a home is an air source heat pump, as the water heater can in effect 'borrow' the efficiency of that heat pump, which on average is about 3 times more efficient than most other heat sources. See here for an article on how heat pumps work. To be able to easily compare the performance of different heat pum...

...heat pump to heat the air of the house. This gives us air that is heated on average three times more efficiently (and three times cheaper) than had we relied on electric resistance heat in the form of baseboard heaters or our radiant floor boiler.  We also have an air-to-water hybrid electric heat pump hot water heater...