I hear your concerns! Just want to reiterate (since this is one of the top comments) no internet connectivity is required to operate the system. We will have integrations that also allow you to change the setpoint with your home system of choice. We're not interested in holding people hostage, we want to make the best way to heat and cool your home, and make it easy to get. If you're willing to turn on wifi, you can ingest demand response, weather and rate plan signals to optimize energy, and remotely operate the system.
Yeah, good question. The system is not meant to be DIY. The same contractor that does install also offers service. Logistics for replacement parts is important we will have quick, easy access for contractors.
I like the out of the box thinking! Unfortunately I think this one doesn't quite pass first principles. Any pumping action from the vehicles would be extra work they have to perform, so you just shuffle the energy expenditure from your local heat pumps, to a fleet of vehicles.
A few options for you, if you have a viable mounting situation for the condenser (big if), you can use an Electric Air unit with wall unit. Otherwise you're best off with a drop in heat pump PTAC, or a heat pump window unit like Gradient.
We have a way of running HEPA with not unreasonable pressure loss, and then dialing back the amount of filtration when PM2.5 levels are reasonable. Separately a homeowner can request a high filtration mode.
Humidifying is though a system similar to a whole home humidifier - a small bypass from the supply side of the furnace evaporates water off a media.
Yes, through a combination of reheat and coil temperature control we can change the sensible/latent cooling ratio.
HRV/ERV only makes sense in certain applications. We're looking at making one integral in the system, but it will come down to minimizing total cost for homeowners. Comfort metrics will be unaffected.
You're right about switching everything over all at once. That would be a big step change in grid load! But large scale heat pump adoption is going to take a decade or more, and in the meantime we can work to build out the grid, and also on technologies that make load shifting more feasible.
Definitely agree that a good customer experience is key here. We're not shipping half baked hardware to end customers. That's what engineering development (alpha build, design validation build, production validation build, home pilot) is for. After all that happens, then customers can an install (and one that's well designed and tested).
You got it. A brief technical aside, heat pump performance is hurt by frosting, which happens at intermediate outdoor temps (~35-50F). Basically the outdoor coil is both below freezing, and below the dewpoint of the air. The frost forms a thermal insulating layer around the coil, and intermittently you have to run a defrost cycle to melt off the ice. This is a small hit to system efficiency.
Talking about capacity for heat pumps is tricky, their available heating power changes continuously as a function of outdoor temperature. The convention is to refer to the available capacity at 47F for 'normal' heat pump and the capacity at 5F for a cold climate heat pump.
Thanks for the feedback! What was install like for you, any issues there? Do you have any comfort issues that you'd like to address, say a room to hot or cold?
There are ways of working with local HVAC contractors that provides value to them and doesn't just undercut their current way of business. Electric Air can provide lead gen, tools to support install, improved payment terms on jobs.
Good questions. A heat pump is 3-5 more efficient than any fossil fuel furnace. Fossil fuel furnace is 70-96% efficient, heat pump is typically between 300-500% 'efficient'. COP varies depending on the outdoor conditions, but you can infer COP at various temperatures by looking at the HSPF2 (heating season performance factor) which is the weighted average of the btu output/watt input at various outdoor/indoor conditions.
Condenser can be typically ~25ft from the air handler. It would have to be outside, otherwise it would act as a refrigerator for the garage, and tank the efficiency of the system. System size - we're working on an online tool to get you close to the right size. In the current flow you preorder and a contractor will prepare the final quote and system sizing (we give them a web app to turn a utility bill into a heat pump size).
I'm sure there's some contractor unit that lets you see the live readout of compressor speed. As for Electric Air - we want to give visibility into system operation, what's the input electrical power, what's the output thermal power, how much have you spent on heating so far, and what's your average COP for a given time period (ratio of heating out/electrical in).
Great point. You don't source from the same spot you source combustion air - you run a separate fresh air intake. This system has HEPA, fresh air intake and humidity control packaged/integrated together well. The fresh air wouldn't come from a garage or crawl space, but from the outdoors via a dedicated (small) duct.
Thanks for the feedback. If you feel comfortable saying, what region are you in? I think where you might start running into friction is if you want a heat pump vs a furnace. There's a lot of variation between local markets in terms of heat pump install competence.
Yes, making spare parts and service work is super important. We'll likely set up regional distribution points for spare parts so anything critical can be easily sent next day.
A common misconception is that you can use your forced air furnace when the power is out - you can't because the blower relies on electricity to move air around. Your point on the cloud service is a good one, which is why cloud services are value-add but unnecessary for core system functionality, ie your system works if there's no internet.
If people have a preferred way of integrating their devices, like home assistant, I'd want to make that possible for people to do with Electric Air.
Re the sizing question - this is a part of the site that needs improvement. 12kbtu is 1 ton. The 48kbtu system is a 4ton system, but rated at 5F, if you're in a more temperate climate, two of these will likely have plenty of capacity for you. It's also likely that your current system is oversized.
Heat pumps are really important for reducing fossil fuel use in homes, and we need better products. Scaling this sort of company has unique challenges, but it would be a net positive if more people build good products/services in this space.
Great question - this will be R454B (GWP 467) vs R410A (GWP 2000) and R32 (GWP 675). GWP is global warming potential, the relative emission factor of a substance relative to CO2.
In the process of building out a tool that allows you to do just that on the website. You need some basic info about the home + a recent energy bill to do this. You can also go more bottoms up where you have all the geometric/thermal + air leakage properties of the home and the local weather, this is more involved.