When you're trying to lower your utility bills, you might be tempted to reach for the thermostat.
That's a good instinct. Setting your thermostat strategically can help reduce your heating or cooling costs, but it's not the only way to spend less on energy. One big variable is built right into your HVAC system itself: energy efficiency.
"An efficient solution allows you to achieve the same outcome with less input," explains Cristi Pedotto, the portfolio director for Trane and American Standard residential ducted equipment.
One of the most efficient heating and cooling solutions on the market these days is a heat pump. In some conditions, these units can actually reach above 100% efficiency — usually in the range of 200% to 400% — allowing you to receive more energy than you put in to begin with.
Here's how that works, and why heat pumps are such an efficient way to heat and cool your home.
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What is energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency is a way of measuring the relationship between how much energy you put into a system and how much you get out of it.
Let's say you pay for a certain amount of gas to power a furnace in your home. As the system converts that gas to heat for your home, by burning it and then transferring the heat through ducts or radiators, some of it is lost along the way, essentially wasted. So the more heat you get from that unit of gas without losing it, the higher your furnace's efficiency rating.
"Simply put, the more efficient we are with the energy we consume, the less energy we need" to heat the same home, Pedotto says.
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