Ready for an HVAC upgrade? Then you're ready for a heat pump.

Absolutely and extensively. Every Forge electrician and HVAC technician is fully licensed, insured, and lead compliant. 

Our licenses include: 

• Mass. Lead Safe Renovation Contractor License
• Mass. Lead Safe Renovator Supervisor Certificate
• EPA Lead Firm Certified
• Freon Recovery License (#BSST101950611) 
• HIC (#205113)
• Electrical (#51711E)
• Master Sheet Metal License (#6978)
• Oil Burner License (#BU-059796)

A good installation is the key to heat pump happiness. Yes, you need the right equipment for the right house and the right climate. But a bad installation of even the best equipment can lead to suboptimal efficiency, poor performance in cold weather, and reliability problems down the line.

When you first contact an HVAC contractor, they might be able to give you a general idea of what a heat pump installation could cost without visiting your home, if you can provide accurate details. But this is uncommon, and most contractors will need to visit your home. Here’s how it works at Forge:

• Give us a call or complete the form on our website to schedule an appointment for one of our home energy advisors to visit your home.
• At that visit, you’ll do a walkthrough of your property with the home energy advisor. 
• They’ll want to see your existing heating system and any ducts you have in place. 
• They’ll also look for places to fit your new equipment: the outdoor unit, the indoor air handlers, and the lines connecting everything. 
• They’ll inspect your electrical panel to make sure it can support a heat pump. (You may need some kind of electrical upgrade.)
• They’ll take some measurements along the way using an iPad — room sizes, duct sizes, number of rooms, etc. — to do what’s called a Manual J calculation and determine what size heat pump your home needs.
• After that, we will recommend the best system for your home and work with you to determine if you want to move forward with your project.
• If you do, we’ll get your project on the schedule and install your new heat pump.
• Afterwards, we’ll handle your Mass Save rebate application so you don’t have to worry about it.

You’ll find at least a handful of models that will work well in your home and meet your heating and cooling needs. 

But even if you identify what you think is the perfect heat pump, it might not be available when you want to install it. Or it might not be eligible for some rebate that you want. Or the installer offers an equally good option for a much better price. Or they might prefer to work with a different brand and will offer a better warranty for that equipment. It’s much more important to have a great installer and a well-designed HVAC system than to have a particular brand or model of heat pump. If you keep up with basic maintenance, there are usually any number of heat pumps that will serve you well for many years.

There sure are. Let’s go over some definitions.

Ducted / ductless

This tells you how a heat pump delivers warmed or cooled air throughout your home. They use the same underlying technology to produce warmth or cooling, but they deliver it differently. 

Ducted systems connect to ductwork through an air handler that usually has a large fan.

But in a ductless system, you’ll usually have one air handler (or “head”) per room, attached to the wall or ceiling and connected to an outdoor unit by a long tube running through a 3-inch hole in the wall.

Mini-split 

This is another name for a high-performance air-source heat pump that’s more efficient, more flexible, and more comfortable than duct-only systems. 

Many people use “mini-split” and “ductless” interchangeably, though that’s not exactly right: ductless heat pumps are nearly always mini-splits. But mini-splits aren’t always ductless; a lot of brands sell ducted systems that they call mini-splits.

Air source / ground source / geothermal / water source 

This tells you where the heat pump gets heat from (or where it returns it to). Air-source heat pumps are by far the most common type in the U.S. They look (and, for the most part, work) like central AC units. When people talk about heat pumps, they’re almost always talking about air-source heat pumps.

Ground-source heat pumps, sometimes called geothermal heat pumps, rely on hundreds of feet of tubing buried in your yard (instead of one midsize box installed next to your house) to transfer heat from sources far underground.

Water-source heat pumps work like ground-source systems, except the heat-exchanging tube sits in a body of water, usually a pond or lake. 

Air to air / air to water

These are different kinds of air-source heat pumps. Air-to-air systems distribute heating and cooling into your home through a forced-air system that can be either ducted or ductless. Air-to-air heat pumps replace a furnace and central AC.

Air-to-water systems replace a boiler by distributing heat through hot-water radiators. (Cooling is more complicated.) Air-to-water is typical in Europe, and while they’re uncommon in the US, they’re available if you search hard enough.

Single-zone / multi-zone

These terms describe the number of air handlers or ductless heads connected to one outdoor unit. If it’s a simple one-head / one-compressor configuration, that’s a single-zone system. 

If multiple air handlers are connected to a single outdoor compressor, that’s a multi-zone system (also known as a multi-split). Single-zone systems are more efficient, but if you need to heat or cool multiple rooms and don’t have ducts, it’s usually more practical to install a ductless multi-zone system. Most multi-zone heat pumps can connect to up to five heads, though having a maximum of three heads per outdoor unit may be the most efficient setup.

An inverter, or variable speed, heat pump should take your heating and cooling system to the next level. Here’s why:

• Inverter heat pumps can keep temperatures and humidity levels steady. Usually, HVAC systems are either fully on or completely off, but inverter heat pumps constantly adjust to maintain the precise temperature they are set at.
• Low fan speeds and an emphasis on quiet design mean they are quieter than most other HVAC systems, especially window AC units.
• You don’t have to turn your thermostat down at night to save energy. High-performance heat pumps work most efficiently when you leave the thermostat alone.
• HVAC systems of all kinds that constantly move air through a properly maintained filter remove a lot of dust and particulates from indoor air while keeping humidity levels steady. 
• When heat pumps don’t result in greater comfort, it’s not the heat pump, but the way it was designed or installed — or some other factor, like having the right kind and amount of insulation — that’s the culprit.

If you install a high-efficiency heat pump in Massachusetts, you can get up to $16,000 back in rebates — plus, an additional $2,000 in federal tax credits. Rebates are based on whether your heat pump system will be serving the whole-home or partial-home and whether you are eligible for the enhanced incentive based on your income.

Whole-home rebates are available to customers who install heat pumps as their sole source of heating and cooling. This rebate is $10,000 per home.

Partial-home rebates are offered based on equipment size (tonnage) to customers who plan to keep an existing boiler or furnace in place to supplement a new heat pump system. This rebate is $1,250 per ton up to $10,000.

If you qualify for the income-based enhanced incentive, you could get a rebate of up to $16,000.

For more information about rebates and incentives, visit the Mass Save website.

According to recent studies, anywhere between a third and half of US households will find it costs less to operate a heat pump than other comparable HVAC systems. Will yours be one of them? That depends on a number of factors, including your home, your daily climate, local energy prices, what kind of heating fuel you’re replacing, and your contractor.
There’s no simple answer to who will save money by getting a heat pump, but here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Heat pumps compare extra favorably to propane, electricity (i.e., electric baseboard heat), and heating oil. Virtually any properly installed heat pump should cost less to run in winter than systems that run on these pricey fuels, although the heat pump might cost more to install to begin with.
• Mini-split units usually cost less for central cooling. Installing ductwork can be very expensive if your home doesn’t have it already, and then there’s the added cost of a ducted heat pump. Ductless mini-splits are usually easier and cheaper to retrofit.
• If you also go solar, heat pumps can save even more money — a home solar system that produces enough electricity to offset your heat pump’s energy use can have total costs that are very low indeed.
• In cold climates, heat pumps may not cost less than heating with natural gas as long as natural gas prices are lower than electricity prices, so a hybrid or dual-fuel system could be the most economical choice. And of course, weatherizing your home can help you save no matter what kind of HVAC system you have.
• And this all assumes your heat pump was installed properly. That’s a major reason to go with an experienced installer like Forge.

Heat pumps can have an enormous impact on reducing our carbon emissions, so the federal government and several states (with Massachusetts leading the charge) now offer huge incentives for installing them. That’s the main reason interest in heat pumps has reached an all-time high in the US. Here are a few more:

• Heat pumps both heat and cool your home, usually using a lot less energy than inefficient old air conditioners, boilers, furnaces, and electric heaters.
• They’re incredibly versatile and can heat and cool your entire house, a single room, or anything in between. They can work with ducts, without ducts, and sometimes even with hot-water radiators.
• They can be installed just about anywhere — virtually any single-family house and many townhouses, condos, and apartments.
• A heat pump can be used with or without a backup system. The best choice for you will depend on your home and the cost of energy where you live.
• Compared to other HVAC systems, heat pumps usually cost less to operate, plus you’ll likely be eligible for thousands of dollars in rebates and tax credits.
• Heat pumps and solar are a match made in energy heaven. With a large enough number of solar panels, you might never see another heating or cooling bill!