Heat Pump Calculator

This calculator is designed to help you understand how you could financially benefit from switching to a cold-weather air-source heat pump for heating and cooling your home and producing hot water. As well as saving money, there are important health benefits to be gained from eliminating gas from your home.

The calculator compares the cost of replacing conventional gas-fired equipment with slightly more efficient conventional units versus switching to proven heat-pump technology. To use the calculator, you need to know your current annual gas consumption (in cubic meters), which you can find by logging into your gas utility account (for Enbridge customers, see “view your gas use history” or “annual statement for taxes”). The assumptions built into the calculator are outlined below. The calculator will show you projected costs over 15 years, the minimum lifespan for most heating and cooling equipment. It provides an estimate only. To properly understand costs, you will need to get equipment quotes from a contractor.

Incentives and financing

You can now receive zero interest financing from the Greener Homes Loan program.  Ten-year loans for up to $40,000 are still available through this program.

If you live in the City of Toronto, you can access additional financing for a variety of measures through the Home Improvement Loan Program at a below-market rate (currently 4.09-4.69% depending on term).

Additional incentives and/or financing may also be available to residents of Ottawa, Kingston, and Durham.

More about heat pump technology.

Assumptions

We are comparing the cost of buying a new gas furnace, water heater and conventional AC to the cost of a cold climate air-source heat pump (for space heating and cooling) and a heat pump water heater.

We are assuming 85% of current gas use is for space heating and 15% is for water heating (also assuming you currently have a gas water heater). We have not factored in any cost savings from ending a water heater rental agreement when moving to a heat pump water heating system.

We assume full disconnection from gas service with heat pump conversion. If you have a gas stove or fireplace, you will need to continue to pay a fixed monthly service fee (currently this amounts to approximately $360 per year) or convert these to electric. See this article on the health impacts of gas stoves. We assume you will switch from a gas-fired water heater to a heat pump water heating system (separate from space heating and cooling heat pump system). Costs for this new system are included in our calculations.

We assume new heat pump will have a seasonal heating efficiency of 270%.  See our factsheet for more on choosing a high efficiency heat pump.

We assume new furnace and water heater will be 5% more efficient (use 5% less gas) than current equipment.

We assume you will qualify for federal zero interest Greener Homes Loan and that, alternatively, you would finance new conventional equipment with a secured loan at 5% over 10 years (e.g., secured line of credit). Many consumer loans carry higher interest rates.

We have assumed you will secure a $1500 rebate on the heat pump heating and cooling equipment and a $500 rebate on the heat pump water heater through Enbridge Gas.

We have assumed that you will not need to upgrade your electrical service. There are a number of ways to avoid such an upgrade described in our Heat Pump Primer, including simply choosing a heat pump with a smaller resistance heating backup (e.g., 5 kW rather than 10 kW). In southern parts of the province, a large backup heater is likely unnecessary as our factsheet on cold weather performance explains.

We are using an average cooling load of 20.7 Gigajoules per year. Your actual cooling usage may be higher or lower. Cooling cost using this average is about $3450 (over 15 years) with a conventional AC unit and about $3000 with a heat pump.

Costs are projected over 15 years, which should be the minimum to average lifespan of the equipment.

We are using Toronto prices for electricity and natural gas, plus a fixed annual gas service charge of roughly $360 per year. We have held these prices constant (no increase) over 15 years.

This is a rough estimate calculator and should not be relied on for making financial decisions. You need a proper quotation from a contractor to fully understand costs. But this will help you get a sense of whether it is worth pursuing that and how you might benefit from converting to a heat pump system.

Heat Pump Savings Calculator