A service guy the other day informed me that the future of energy was heat pumps and natural gas. Setting aside that we need to stop burning natural gas, and pretending for the sake of the argument that heat pumps are gonna be useful for large numbers of households in urban areas, not contesting either idea. It turned out, he corrected me, that what he meant by “heat pump” was in fact an air heat exchanger.
And not being the quickest wit on Earth, I regret not having thought fast enough to reply that where he was standing, next to the hot water heater, thirty years ago he would have had to be careful not to very painfully hit his head, which I did several times, on a great big air heat exchanger.
We called it “the monster.” It was absolute shit and I feel certain consumed more joules of electricity than it saved in heat. At some point in the 90s I think, maybe later, I finally disconnected the stupid thing, lowering it carefully to the floor with ropes and pulleys, it was heavy. When the stupid Godzilla intestines that connected it were also removed it was a day of celebration.
There are still some legacy damages to the house from that dumb chapter. Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.
