Humble heat pumps are having their moment. Last year, Americans installed 4 million of the ultra-low-carbon heating and cooling appliances — beating out gas furnaces for the first time. In Europe, where countries have embraced heat pumps as a way to avoid Russian fossil fuels, sales have similarly skyrocketed. The oft-hidden devices have been turned into mascots, compared to George Clooney, and floated as a way to achieve peace in Europe.
But the heat pump still faces one remaining obstacle: Its name.
“It isn’t sexy,” said Lloyd Alter, a lecturer in sustainable design at Toronto Metropolitan University. “It doesn’t say anything to people that ‘I want this.’”
True, the name “heat pump” does describe, in the most literal fashion, what the machine does. To put it simply, a heat pump pumps heat: It is an electricity-powered air conditioner that also works in reverse, moving heat from outside into the home as well as moving heat from the inside out. Because heat pumps move heat instead of creating it, they can be three to four times more efficient than conventional heaters and cut a home’s carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 8 tons per year.
But “heat pump” sounds industrial, noisy, and well, hot. “There are some people that think that heat pumps only do heating — because they’re called heat pumps,” said Andy Frank, the founder and president of Sealed, a company that helps homeowners insulate and electrify their homes. In a 2020 survey that his company conducted, about half of the respondents had no idea what a heat pump was, and many others did not understand that the device both heats and cools.
Getting a heat pump to heat your home? Smart. Getting a heat pump to cool your home? Seems backward.
Experts have come up with a variety of somewhat tongue-in-cheek alternatives for the name. The climate scientist David Ho prefers “electric heater cooler machines” or “IcyHot fan blasters.” Others have suggested “clean green comfort machine,” “two-way air conditioner,” or even “Heaty McPumpface,” in an homage to the famous internet naming contest that almost resulted in a British research vessel being called “Boaty McBoatface.”
Alter suggests “the Kelvinator,” after Lord Kelvin, the 19th-century scientist who first suggested using heat-pump technology for space heating. (Unfortunately, that name is already taken by a brand of commercial refrigerators.)
But the larger problem faced by heat pumps is that they do not follow the normal patterns of American consumerism. Heat pumps are not charismatic: They don’t star in TV commercials, make it onto billboards, or sit in a driveway attracting neighborly envy. They hide in plain sight, along walls or stuffed into hall closets. Unlike cars or McMansions, they aren’t hallmarks of American conspicuous consumption.
“When people buy a home, it’s not like they say, ‘Oh, no, they put in an A.O. Smith and not a Mitsubishi,’” said Lacey Tan, the manager of the carbon-free buildings team at the think tank RMI. “But I bet you could tell me all the makers of cellphones.”
While the switch to electric vehicles has spawned Super Bowl commercials and hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spending by major automakers, the big players in the heat pump world are not spending a lot of cash on marketing. Few customers are going on Amazon or to the hardware store to purchase heat pumps themselves. Instead, most homeowners go through contractors or HVAC technicians who purchase and size the appliances for them.
And those contractors are busy. “These are pretty small companies, and they’re managing crews, dealing with government paperwork, incentives — it’s just a lot,” Frank said. Those contractors are not going to add TV commercials to their workload.
That could make it harder for people to quickly adopt carbon-saving heat pumps. Conspicuous consumption can help move buyers along: Research has shown that installing solar panels, for example, can be contagious; neighbors see panels go up and want to have them for themselves. Electric cars follow the same pattern — if one person gets a Tesla, friends and relatives are more likely to buy Tesla’s as well. But heat pumps, by their very nature, are concealed, and — at least for now — not particularly brag-worthy.
Is there a way to make heat pumps more cool, and more visible? Tan points out that these days, even kitchen appliances have cachet; just think of pastel-colored KitchenAid mixers and toasters designed to fit into a mid-century modern aesthetic. “It’s a bit of a stretch, but what if manufacturers put out differently colored heat pumps?” Tan said, only half-joking.
It is possible that a single company could turn things around. Tesla, first with its Roadster and then with the Model S, turned electric cars from an economically sensible option into a status symbol. The company now also sells home batteries, but under a flashy brand: The wall-mounted battery is called the “Powerwall.” A smartly branded heat pump — that, like the Powerwall, includes delivery and installation — could help to boost the technology.
For now, some clean-tech entrepreneurs are relying on outreach and community groups. Energy consultants are springing up all over the country to help homeowners find contractors and electrify their homes. Travis Estes, the chief operating officer of Abode Energy Management, an energy-efficiency consultancy in Massachusetts, says the communities where heat pumps are really taking off are often where volunteers are helping to spread the word or where homeowners are opening up their houses to show off their shiny new heat pumps. “It requires such a high degree of education,” Estes said.
There is, of course, a bit of an irony here. Should American consumerism — which gave us plastic bags, gas-guzzling cars and toxic chemicals — really be harnessed to try to speed the transition away from fossil fuels?
For Tan, there’s little doubt: “We have an opportunity to move into a new era. We have to embrace it.”