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Heating Choices in Southwest Florida

Heat pump versus Straight Cool with Electric Heater

In Southwest Florida, with our generally mild to moderate winters, we have two primary heating methods available for homes and businesses – heat pumps or straight cool with an electric heater.

The location of your home or business and the evaluation of your HVAC professional will help you decide which heating and cooling method is best for you. The more popular heating method in the northern area of Southwest Florida is the heat pump. In the southern region where the time frame for using heating is limited to a few weeks or months you will be more likely to consider the straight cool with electric heater system.

Let’s look at what these two heating methods provide and how they operate.

Heat Pumps

A heat pump is a refrigeration system that extracts heat from one source and transfers it to another. Air-source heat pumps use heat from outdoor air, compressor heat and heat of compression and transfer it to your indoor air to heat your home or business. Heat pumps are like an air conditioner operating in reverse while heating. Heat pumps also use electric heat to aid in extreme weather conditions and during defrosts.

Heat pumps offer an energy efficient replacement for furnaces in areas with mild to moderate weather. Heat pumps can provide up to 4 times the amount of energy they consume. This means for every dollar you spend on electricity you get four dollars worth of heat. During the cooling season, heat pumps act as a normal air conditioner and absorb heat from inside your house and discharge it outdoors.

Straight Cool with Electric Heat

For residents further south in Florida you may find the straight cool with electric heat strips method a better choice than the heat pump. Straight cool with electric heat provides an excellent heating solution for areas with a short heating season. This economical solution is perfect for extreme southern climates for both new construction and equipment replacement. Your HVAC contractor is your best resource for determining which heating method will work most efficiently for your home or business and geographic location.

Briefly, a heat pump uses the existing refrigerant circulating the opposite way as it does in cooling to heat the home; a straight cool uses electric coils in the air handler to heat the home. A heat pump is more economical to heat your home in the northern region of Southwest Florida; while the straight cool method with electric heat is more economical for the southernmost locations, for the few times a year that you need to heat your home or business.