In some New York public-housing buildings, tenants used to open their windows in winter. The old boilers made the rooms that hot. Now a saddle-shaped box sits in the window instead, and each apartment sets its own temperature. In two city pilots, heating costs fell by about 56%.
The Journal's Lisa Ward reports on a new kind of heat pump. It installs like a window air conditioner. The older kind meant cutting a hole in an outside wall, and ductwork if it heated the whole house. The new one slides into a window. A newer cold-climate model keeps heating when winter gets real. It exists because New York City and state asked for it. Five years ago their Clean Heat for All Challenge promised to buy about 30,000 window heat pumps for 10,000 public-housing apartments.
The city's housing authority picked two makers, Midea and Gradient, and ran two pilots. That's 24 apartments and 72 heat pumps. The energy needed to heat the apartments fell about 84% compared with the original gas boiler. Overall heating costs fell about 56%. Part of the win is that the old system was so wasteful. The authority plans the pumps in 20,000 apartments by 2031. Boston's housing authority put 100 in a 50-year-old complex and wants about 200 more over the next 12 months. New York's program also gives building owners a $2,250 credit for each heat pump installed in low- to moderate-income buildings. In market-rate buildings the credit is $1,500. Those are New York numbers, not a federal credit.
The catch, and the cold
For a homeowner, the math is less tidy. Midea sells its unit through distributors for about $3,100. Gradient sells to apartment buildings now and says a rollout to homes is coming. A unit weighs about 150 pounds and often takes several people to move. You also have to pull out the old heater and seal the gaps around the window. In bitter cold the pumps use more electricity. When New York City dipped into single digits last year, both models still gave full heat, but they ran less efficiently. Jordan Bonomo, a senior program manager at the housing authority, told the Journal they're "still more than twice as efficient as a fossil-fuel boiler." In Vermont, where winters can drop below zero, a pilot from Efficiency Vermont is testing how they handle the cold.
Friday's paper shows the other side of the heating bill. The Journal's Lindsay Wise and Jennifer Hiller report from Anchorage that high prices for diesel and home heating oil have voters angry as winter sets in. The paper's chart of average retail diesel prices puts both Alaska and the U.S. far above where they started the year, with Alaska a bit higher. We're leaving the politics out of it. A heating bill that jumps like that is a cash-flow problem no matter who you vote for.
Our read
This is a Cash Flow · M5 story with a Housing · M6 edge. A $3,100 unit against a 56% cut sounds like an easy payback. It isn't, unless you know your own number. The New York pilots replaced boilers so hot that tenants cooled off by opening windows. Your house probably isn't that wasteful, so your savings would likely be smaller. Your electric rate matters too, since the pump runs on power, not gas or oil. Lucas Davis, a professor at Berkeley, says the pumps could suit apartments, smaller homes and people who want extra heat in another room. We'd add homes with heat so old that nobody makes the parts, like some of New York's 80-year-old radiators.
The thing in your own plan this story touches is the heating line in your winter budget. This week, pull last January's gas, oil or electric bill and write the number down. If you heat with oil or propane, ask your supplier about a pre-buy or budget-billing plan before the first cold snap. Alaska shows what a fuel price can do to a household that can't switch. If you're pricing a heat pump, start with what you'd really save in a year, not New York's 56%. Divide the $3,100, plus what a crew charges to install it, by that yearly savings. The answer is how many winters it takes to pay back. You buy the coat in October, not in the first blizzard. If you'd like a second set of eyes on the winter budget, that's a short conversation.