Who has a heat pump?

[miss_chance]

Totient and I are looking to replace our quarter-century old oil furnace with a modern system. The buzz-words for the thing we're thinking of getting include:

Mini-split (small units in each room, connecting to a single heating unit outside),
Multi-zone (separate controls for each unit),
Ceiling Cassette (vs wall-based), and
"Hyper Heat" or something

Comments

[ron_newman]

This might be a good question to ask in davis_square too.

[blk]

I have a lot of similar curiosities, as we've looked into getting a heat pump just for my unheated third floor/attic. No answers for you, though.

[aroraborealis]

I've experienced that kind of unit providing air conditioning, for which they are remarkably quiet and seemed (to my relatively inexperienced self) to be as effective or more so than window units, but much more pleasant due to the whisper quietness of operation in the room. It's hard to imagine heating would be louder than a/c, but I guess you never know!

[tamidon]

I'm going to follow this as I also have a bad third floor heating issue

[dalesql]

If you have visited a house with central air conditioning with the coil outside, then you have heard how loud a heat pump is. There are three sources of noise. The compressor, which is usually located outside or in a mechanical room. It generally makes a low pitched hum that varies from whisper quiet to quite loud for large industrial units. The second source of noise is the fan for the outside coil, this one is usually rather noisy, as little effort is put into silencing it. But fan noise blends into the ambient noise fairly quickly, so this is not a big deal. Indoor fan noise is is the one you probably care about. The manufacturers put more effort into keeping them quiet, but you generally get what you pay for. There is nothing to do but listen to it yourself. They publish noise measurements, but those are difficult to keep undistorted by marketing