If your home is heated by natural gas or oil (like most in Quincy), there’s no getting around it: You’re burning a lot of carbon each winter. And probably a lot of money, too: The price of gas and oil heat is expected to jump 30% or more this winter. But a heat pump can efficiently heat your home — even on the coldest New England winter day — without burning fossil fuels.
What is a heat pump? It’s essentially an air conditioner that can also run in reverse. In summer, like an air conditioner or refrigerator, it removes heat from your home. And in winter, as long as there is some heat energy in the air — and there’s always some, until we reach absolute zero, a.k.a. negative 273º Celsius — the outdoor condenser pulls whatever heat it can find out of the atmosphere and uses a special refrigerant to send that warmth inside to the blower unit.
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