MORE THAN HOT AIR

Switching to a heat pump saved us money and reduced our carbon footprint

- John Lorinc

LET ME CUT TO THE CARBON-FREE CHASE: I have come to love that moment each month when my gas utility company sends an email reminding me to check the gas meter at our home in Toronto and upload the number, which almost never changes these days.

In the summer of 2022, my wife and I installed an electric heat pump and a high-efficiency electric water heater (with a tank). Since then we've used an average of four cubic metres of natural gas per month. By comparison, in March 2022, we burned 357 cubic metres. It had been a cold month, and our furnace, that troll-ish contraption huddled in a corner of the basement, was running full out.

Now, our new electric air-source heat pump, which looks like a hefty mini-split (the exterior wall-mounted heating and cooling units seen on a growing number of homes) and lives on a little platform off to the side of the front porch, does all the heavy lifting. It uses electrons that come from the surrounding area, including Ontario's nuclear plants, Niagara Falls and the province's overall grid.

We didn't set out to install a heat pump, truth be told. After the federal Liberals announced the Canada Greener Homes Grant in 2021, we signed up for an energy audit, hoping to take advantage of retrofit grants to make our home more energy efficient, which at that time were up to $5,000 (and are now as much as $6,500). The auditor suggested adding insulation, stopping up drafts and getting an electric water heater; the other retrofits seemed too costly.

Having dealt with the low-hanging fruit, we turned to the trickier fix. Replacing the gas water heater meant buying out the lease and replacing an electrical panel that likely dated to World War II.