The Juneau Carbon Offset Fund is thrilled to announce the completion of it’s 10th heat pump installation! The heat pump installed at Janarose Odenheimer’s home in the valley will eliminate the production at least 12,000 pounds of annual carbon dioxide!

This installation is the 10th for Renewable Juneau’s Carbon Offset Fund. With each of these money saving, emissions slashing projects, we’re learn new things – about heating habits, about heat pump use, about heat pump placement, and more. Every home is different and every family’s needs are unique.

Janarose’s home features a large open living area right inside the front door. Straight back from the door is a hallway that leads to bedrooms and bathrooms. Placing the inside air handler for the pump right above the front door allows it to send heat through the living area and into the hallway, moving warm dry air into both the home’s primary spaces as well as the sleeping areas. With the boiler’s thermostat located in a back bedroom, it is possible to keep the boiler setting low to allow the heat pump to do the bulk of the heating. When winter arrives, the boiler can be fired up on occasion to provide extra warmth to the bedrooms.

The challenge in this setup is that baseboards are located in the living and kitchen areas. When the boiler fires, warm water will enter these baseboards, potentially telling the heat pump that it is not needed. In an ideal arrangement, a separate heating zone would allow the boiler heat to be turned off in the heat pump’s primary ‘work area’. Janarose will pay attention to this situation when it is colder outdoors and may want to have a plumber create a new heating zone to allow the boiler to do less work. Whether or not this pencil’s out financially is yet to be known.

In the end, Janarose should see a reduction in her heating bills of up to $800 a year and her carbon footprint has taken a major beating. In these days of seemingly endless troubling news, this seems like a cause for celebration!