What Drives the Cost of a Heat Pump Installation

Ducted or ductless

A ducted heat pump replaces a central AC and a furnace or air handler and uses the ducts the house already has. With sound ducts it is the most direct swap. Ductless puts a wall head in each room, piped to the outdoor unit, and cost scales with the number of heads.

Houses with no ducts, which is most of the row housing in DC, Old Town Alexandria and the older parts of Hyattsville, usually end up ductless or with a small ducted air handler in the attic. Houses with good ducts usually end up ducted. The guide on mini splits against central systems goes through the trade-offs.

Size and cold-weather performance

The heat pump is sized from the house for both seasons. A unit sized only for summer runs out of heat on the coldest nights of January, and a unit oversized for winter short cycles all summer and leaves the house clammy.

Standard heat pumps lose capacity as the outdoor temperature drops. Cold-climate models hold more of it at low temperatures and cost more. With DMV winter nights usually in the twenties, either works, but the choice changes how much backup heat you need and pay for.

Backup heat

• Electric resistance strips in the air handler are the simplest backup and the most expensive to run
• A dual fuel setup keeps a gas furnace as the backup and switches to it below a set temperature
• A cold-climate heat pump can run with little or no backup in most DMV winters, which changes the electrical requirement
• Which one fits depends on whether the house has gas, what the panel can carry and what you want the winter bill to look like

The electrical panel

A heat pump with electric backup draws more than the AC it replaces, and a lot of older panels do not have the space or the capacity. A needed panel upgrade is its own estimate line, found on the first visit, not on install day.

The ducts, again

A heat pump moves more air at a lower temperature than a furnace, so ducts that were marginal with a furnace are often not enough for a heat pump. Undersized returns are the usual finding. We inspect the ducts first and price duct work as its own line.

Permit, rebates and what you leave with

• The mechanical permit, and the electrical permit where the panel is touched, are part of the price
• Utility and government rebate programs for heat pumps exist in Maryland, DC and Virginia and change often, so we tell you what is current when we quote
• The system is commissioned with readings taken, and the thermostat is set up for staging and backup heat
• You leave with the model and serial numbers, the warranty paperwork and the written scope

The heat pump's own warranty comes from its manufacturer, on that company's terms. The install labor is ours, warranted for 60 to 90 days according to the job.