[kragen]

> installing a heat pump system comes with a price tag of tens of thousands of dollars.

Mine cost US$250 for the machine, refrigerant included, and another US$80 for the installation. We've had to have it fixed twice due to factory defects. Its heat output is 3400W, nominally consuming 941 watts of electrical power. It's not a great machine, but you're smoking crack.

[ssuds]

I presume you're not in the US - the numbers you quoted here align with the costs I observed for heat pumps in India (https://www.heatpumped.org/p/you-can-have-it-in-any-color-as...)

Skilled labor in the US is expensive! Most of the install costs come from labor, not equipment. Tens of thousands of dollars is pretty typical for a heat pump installation.

(For what it's worth, the person you're quoting is referencing a whole home system, either ducted or multi-zone ductless. I think you're referencing a single-zone ductless. Those are cheaper, but still are typically $5-10k installed from a licensed contractor in the states)

[kragen]

Yes, it's just a mini split. Two guys (skilled, but AFAIK not licensed) installed it in about 6 hours. I'm in Argentina, but I don't think US$1000 an hour is a common labor rate even in the US? Maybe for a famous lawyer or surgeon?

[ssuds]

Ha. It's not straight labor. So much other overhead to consider - workman's comp insurance, back office staff, technician utilization, vehicle repair and maintenance, etc... There are lots of other costs that get baked in when you're looking at a licensed company compared to a guy in a truck

[kragen]

Okay but US$5k for half a day of work? It would have been faster if the guy had had his own ladder instead of us moving my desk so he could stand on it to work. (He's bought one since then.)

[tomrod]

A half day of work, a half day of office rent, a half day of truck use, a half day to pay for loan servicing, a half day to pay overhead costs, a half day to add to reserves for the half day you don't work, and so forth.

[darth_avocado]

Homes in the US are much bigger and more than just installing a mini split. You need to factor that in.

[kragen]

My house has six rooms, but the 3400-watt heat pump is only enough to heat two of them. If it costs tens of thousands of dollars in the US, say US$25000, you would expect the resulting installation to be able to heat or cool about 200 rooms rather than 2, producing 340 kilowatts of heat output (1.2 million BTU per hour) and consuming 94 kilowatts of electrical power (430 amps at 220 volts). Indeed, because houses gain and lose heat only through their surfaces, you'd expect the 100× bigger US$25000 heat pump installation to be able to heat or cool a 2000-room building rather than merely 200.

Most houses in the US have less than 20 rooms, let alone 200 or 2000, so it's not mostly because houses are bigger.

[nwallin]

In Southern California it costs $120 just for a guy to come out and look at your HVAC. Not fix anything--not install anything--just to look at it and give you an estimate for how much the repair is going to take. I went to the website for a local installer and they give a ballpark of $13,000-$25,000 for a heat pump installation.

I don't know why it's so expensive here. It shouldn't be, it makes no sense. But it is.