Dear Editor:
In the middle of an unprecedented global pandemic, a heat dome over B.C. was still probably the strangest event of the year. Who had ever even heard of a heat dome?!?! Texans, that’s who, because heat domes aren’t supposed to land this far north.
Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Rona, Walmart, all of them have been cleared out of portable air conditioners, fans, kiddie pools, garden hoses and misting devices throughout the Lower Mainland, like toilet paper shelves at the onset of COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. Except this time the panic was justified.
Do you know who wasn’t panic-buying window units and water toys? People with heat pumps, like me.
Heat pumps are like refrigerators, they move heat from one space to another. So, in the winter we set it to move heat from outside to the inside, and guess what, in the summer, we reverse it to move heat from inside to the outside.
Mind blown? Wait until you hear that by switching from a natural gas furnace to an electric heat pump, we have cut our carbon emissions by an estimated 90 per cent. 90 PER CENT! That’s a reduction rate that would be enough to actually keep the whole planet cool. If everyone would “jump on a new heat pump,” as the North Shore municipalities are phrasing it, B.C. buildings would be well on their way to being low carbon.
Not only that, while we were shattering temperature records across the province, B.C.’s heat-induced death rate doubled, and now over 200 fires are burning across the province, still weeks away from the height of summer. Do you know what the next threat is? Smoke.
Recall 2017 when we had poorer air quality than Beijing? Well, guess what’s coming next? What’s your cooling plan other than opening windows that let in the yellow smoke and ash hovering over us, trapped in the mountain valleys?
Do you know who can stay cool while keeping their windows shut during smoke advisories? People with heat pumps. And even smarter people have added heat recovery ventilators that can have HEPA filters installed to bring in fresh air and trap toxins like smoke and pollution.
As I write this, I’m listening to the sounds of crows while a gentle breeze pushes heat out of my house through my open windows. My heat pump is idle, ready for whatever hot or cold conditions are thrown at it, but if you think we won’t see heat like that again, don’t hold your breath. Climate change is bringing weather events that are more extreme and more frequent, and in some cases to places that have never experienced them before and are unprepared to cope, like B.C. under a Texas-style heat dome.
So if you’re wondering when the right time is to invest in a heat pump, it’s now. The rebates currently offered through CleanBC are likely the best we’ll ever see because our governments are doing everything they can to get us to take important actions against climate change.
So what is holding you back? You could be breathing easy with a heat pump.
Betsy Agar
North Vancouver
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