I was looking for a whole home heat pump and got some quotes that started at $27,000 for a home that is 1800 square feet. That price is a bit hard to swallow. I really don't want to just cool one or two rooms in the house.
Are you sure you aren't getting quotes for a ground-sourced (AKA geo) heat pump? We just installed a 4.5 ton (overkill for your sqft) 20 seer unit for $18000.
I got a very similar quote ($27k for ~2000sqft home) in seattle a few months ago.
Salesperson said there is excess demand for both labor and machinery for heat pump installations in the past few months. I wondered at the time to what extent this is a regional phenomenon (seattlites are nerds who like energy efficiency) vs. supply chain issues vs. a sales technique.
Interestingly, I learned that it will be too cold for heat pumps <10 days out of the year, so most people either keep their gas furnace as backup, or install an electric furnace for these rare days.
I had an AC unit installed just after the heat dome. Interestingly, while there was a lot of interest in people getting AC installed, few people were willing to put down 60% of the cost of the unit, which meant I was at the front of the line.
I was interested in doing an air-source heat pump (because hey, my furnace was 19 years old and would have to be replaced soon anyway), but due to the excessive cost, the payback time was figured to be something like 50 years. I would have loved to do that, but it just doesn't make sense. Instead, it was new AC unit + new natural gas furnace.
Nevermind ground-source, which would have been much more expensive.
Getting anything at all done in the Seattle area is super expensive. Not sure why. The rep is wrong about the too cold bit though, even just what's in stock at Lowe's is rated to well below record lows for the region.
Price gouging. I've gotten quotes for fence replacements, heat pumps, roofs, window restoration. There is nothing that isn't ridiculous price in my experience. Every company has the same, supply/demand and reference to pandemic statements to substantiate their costs.
We have heatpumps in Seattle. They have integrated resistance heating (like baseboard heaters) for cold weather situations where the heatpump doesn't work well -- no need for a separate unit.
I'm in Seattle, my new-ish townhouse has a heat pump and it's never been too cold for it to be functional - it's worked hard some of the really cold+snowy days the last few years, but never to the point where it wasn't heating the house up perfectly fine.
I am not sure I would pay $27k for the whole install, but once it's there I've found it to be great. Extremely inexpensive to run and with all of Seattle's power being carbon-neutral, totally guilt free to set it to 68F at night during a hot summer day.
I am starting to wonder if there is just that much demand in the PNW. Maybe due to a large amount of older construction being built without ducting (baseboard heating)?
I checked with them on an uncommon configuration (combo hydronic heat and hot water for the taps to replace the two gas units we have now) and their estimate was a lot of money but they were also the only company that seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. The reviews I read do suggest if you have an alternative it might cost less though:
That seems crazy high too though, I just got a 5 ton for a 2300 sq ft house with 12kw heat strips including duct work for 10k. The duct work was $3800.
I agree that seems expensive, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if a high-SEER, "name brand" unit with a pricey contractor could get that high. I had >100% cost variation for similar equipment between HVAC contractor quotes the last time I replaced a unit.
Yep, the price delta is definitely because of the high seer rating. That being said, we were quoted about the same price for a 16 seer unit from another contractor (McCarthy). It's definitely worth shopping around.
This kinda sounds like the installer had a queue of much larger / more lucrative projects to tackle, and quoted you a high price to get you to go away... or pay the ridiculous price and make it worth their time.
A decent heat pump sized for that square footage should cost well under $10k, and it's pretty unlikely your house would need so much work to install it that the labor involved could make up for the rest of that quote.