iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shreyas Sudhakar @shreyassudhakar.com · 23/07/2025

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Reposted by Drew Tozer

I'm a little jealous - it's like @drewtozer.bsky.social condensed all the wisdom from @heatpumped.org in a single video. If you're looking to get a heat pump for your house, this covers many of the key points. Give him a follow if you aren't already! www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hq1...

youtube.com

Heat Pumps, Explained (And Why Everyone’s Switching)

Chris Taggart 🏡 ⚡️ 🔌 @christaggart.com · 26/07/2025

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Reposted by Drew Tozer

If you’ve got heatpump questions, @drewtozer.bsky.social ‘s new heatpump explainer video will probably answer them! youtu.be/4Hq1dAoKZsQ?...

youtu.be

Heat Pumps, Explained (And Why Everyone’s Switching)

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

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And the risk of duct pressure issues because of the larger fan.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

To tackle the myths and misconceptions around heat pumps, we need content that’s accurate and easy to share. That means short and engaging—so we made an explainer video that’s accurate, easy to share, and shows why so many homeowners are making the switch. 📣 Who will you share it with?

youtube.com

Heat Pumps, Explained (And Why Everyone’s Switching)

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

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Why is commissioning the answer? Because it's sticky. If rebates are based on objective commissioning metrics. Contractors are forced to learn & use best practices. And that'll lead to fewer callbacks and issues. 💡 Do you think "commissioning" is the path to better rebate programs?

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

We shoehorn the wrong equipment "because it's eligible". And we get a sugar rush of quick and cheap installs. Contractors are pro-HP for the free money. But they stop installing heat pumps when the program ends. That's what happened with Canada Greener Homes grants. 🫠

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

We're designing heat pump rebates wrong. (It's a mistake to require minimum specs.) We don't need better equipment, we need better installs. How do we incentive better installation practices? With objective commissioning and reports. What happens when rebates are based on equipment specs? 🤔

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

A semi-detached is half a building—but we're shocked when it needs half the heating. "Connected" homes (semi-detached, rowhouses, etc.) have a shared wall with a neighbour, and it's sharing heat through it. If a detached home needs 3 tons of heating, why wouldn't a semi- need a 1.5-ton heat pump?

xkcd.com

Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Rip out an old and busted furnace. Install a fully electric heat pump. New hotness. The before and after is oddly satisfying.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

A single-stage 6-ton oil furnace...that's 4x too big. On the coldest week of the year, it'll run 15-min per hour. This is where heat pumps shine. It's the only HVAC system that can be properly sized to match the heating needs of this house.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I.e. “it takes time to heat stuff up.”

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

What’s the ELI5 answer for why? It happens on a daily basis too, right? Peak solar is noon but the hottest time of day is early afternoon.

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Eligibility should depend on high-quality installation, proven by objective metrics. Existing programs should add "commissioning" as a separate measure with a juicy rebate. For loans, the reduced risk of properly installed equipment should earn a reduced interest rate.

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3. Objective commissioning (with real-time measurements). Performance and reliability depends as much on installation quality as the equipment. Like triple-pane windows, a premium heat pump that's installed poorly will perform poorly and fail early. But rebate programs only look at equipment specs.

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2. Heat loads on thermostats (zero-effort heat loads). Every house has heating and cooling loads, and every house has a smart thermostat—it's just a software update to close that loop. On the coldest week of the year, how often did the furnace run? If it's 30 minutes per hour, it's 200% oversized.

1. ACs to heat pumps (stop manufacturing one-way ACs). This has broad appeal. It means less equipment to manufacture, ship, store, sell, and install. Electrification will happen naturally with every AC replacement—without a conversation about electrification or carbon savings.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Electrification means systemic changes to the industry. (Not convincing HVAC contractors one at a time.) Here's my wishlist of systemic HVAC changes: 1. ACs to heat pumps (no one-way ACs) 2. Heat loads on smart thermostats 3. Objective commissioning Those are three ways to move the industry.

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Heat pumps aren’t for everyone. They’re a tool to make comfortable, healthy, sustainable homes—but they need to be sized and installed properly. I’d rather see a gas furnace than a poorly installed heat pump in the wrong house, because we need great homeowner experiences to #electrifyeverything.

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Tell me more about "central ownership". What does that mean? Standardization is always great, but I'm not sure how much it'd help on this one. The risk is that you don't know what the other contractor did wrong, how many corners were cut, etc.

➡️ Because we treat HVAC as a commodity, we think cheaper contractors are better because it's the same product for less—but we ignore the downside risk of cheap materials, poor installation quality, and no long-term service.

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If there aren't any issues with your new system, you win! You got the same product for less. You bought a high-yield bond and it didn't default. But if the system breaks, cheap contractors are more likely to ghost you than fix it. You get nothing.

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But the higher yield (interest rate) is a sign of risk. If they default on the loan, you get nothing. And the higher the interest rate, the more likely it is to default. The cheaper the contractor, the higher the risk.

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Cheap heat pump installers are like high-interest loans. It's a great deal if you ignore the downside risk. If you make an investment that pays a high interest rate (like a high-yield bond), it's a good inestment as long as the other party continues to make payments.

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➡️ There's no "used HVAC" market, and it's not like bringing your lemon-of-a-car to a different mechanic to find the problem. The other mechanic will turn you away. In many cases, the fix for a poorly installed heat pump is to buy an entirely new heat pump (and get it installed properly).

Why won't a new contractor fix it? It's difficult to get a contractor to troubleshoot problems on equipment they didn't install, especially with new equipment that's already having issues. They don't want that risk.

Why won't the original contractor fix it? Part of the savings from cheap contractors is excluding (or underestimating) service costs. Their price covers labour and materials for the installation. The warranty is on the invoice, sure—but getting them to honour it is a different beast altogether.

It keeps turning off and rebooting. A big box contractor said it was "due to evaporator coil for heat pump restricting air flow. Installing contractor to rectify." The last sentence is the problem. The new contractor won't fix it, and the original contractor doesn't want to.

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Heat pump installers aren't like car mechanics. Once you pick a contractor, you're locked in. Homeowners underestimate that risk. Budget contractors are great when everything goes well—but I got a call from an unlucky homeowner who isn't having that experience.

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This is also an argument for upstream solutions like manufacturers only making heat pumps (not ACs), so electrification just *happens*.

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Yep! If you register, they'll send you a copy of the recording. It'll also be posted on their YouTube channel later.

Even in tight spaces, you can do a big return air drop and a thick filter. If you install premium equipment poorly, it'll perform poorly and fail early. Increasing the size of the return air drop and filter surface area can significantly improve heat pump performance. The goal is happy homeowners.

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COME TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!... I mean, uh, heat pump webinar. Today at noon. It's everything you need to know about heat pumps and building science with none of the jargon. I promise not to say "thermodynamics" even once.

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And for Canadians, tax deadline day!

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

It’s also my birthday… and my wife’s birthday! Lots of reasons to celebrate.

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FREE webinar on Wednesday (my birthday!). A group of people listening to me talk about heat pumps: I couldn't ask for a better gift! No industry jargon, no technical details, no mention of the refrigerant cycle or thermodynamics. Just simple answers to "what are heat pumps, and why should I care?"

rb.gy

Feel-Good Homes: How to choose the right heat pump

GreenHome Institute Weekly Free CE Webinar Presents:

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

A hybrid makes sense at 60,000 btu/hr, for sure. Most of the houses I see in Toronto (99% design temp of 3’F) are around 30,000 btu/hr (+/- 6,000). My pushback against the winter tire analogy is that they’re practically a requirement in Canada…and a gas furnace isn’t.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

It’s more like adding grip-chains to your winter tires. They might be useful in extreme conditions—but most years you won’t use them, and even after the worst storms, you’re probably fine without them.

Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

A homeowner 1,700+ km from me is using the book as an easy first step to learn about right-sized HVAC and home performance before upgrading. I have nothing to sell him, but it increases the odds that he has a remarkable experience with heat pumps and pushes the electrification movement forward.

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Drew Tozer @drewtozer.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Check out my thoughts on electrification, the HVAC industry, changing business models, and a framework to build a personal brand & influence. It also goes deep into a business-baseball analogy. Find out why PE-backed contractors are the Oakland Athletics of the HVAC industry. 🤔

heatpumped.org

How to Build Influence & Install Heat Pumps

Use your existing skills to create a personal brand, scale an HVAC business, and be a leader in the energy transition

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What size was the heat pump and backup heat strip? 2.5-ton and 5 kW heat strip? 3-ton and 10 kW?

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Alberta—which is maybe less surprising?

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It took two callbacks to fix the issue. The final one (from their "heat pump specialist") had it fixed in 15 minutes but noted that he does this type of follow-up service call on nearly 90% of the contractor's heat pump installations.

A frustrated homeowner messaged me because his heat pump was "blowing cold air". That can mean several things, it was literally cooling the house. The hybrid system was flipping back and forth between the heat pump cooling the house and the gas furnace heating it. Again and again.