Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

The question is whether there is such a thing as a heat pump that's appropriate for use in the Northeastern US. It seems unlikely to me that someone with this person's level of engagement would have stupidly chosen to install the wrong kind of heat pump or chosen an installer incapable of recommending the best options.

I live in New York State and the government is nearing the point of banning gas installations in new construction here. I have yet to see any real cost benefit analysis for such a policy in a state with such cold winters.

For instance a heat pump have much less raw materials and need far less high costs alloys than a gas heating system, essentially is cheaper to be produced, and if we can stay on electricity only we can spare the maintenance and expansion costs of gas/oil/* distribution networks.

Try to compare classical mechanical clocks vs modern electronic ones: the mechanical one it's far more costly per single unit, the electronic one cost next to nothing per single unit. For EVs it's not different: they have much less parts, less special alloys, less precision needed to produce them.

Heat pumps and EVs have both evolution margins, while classic ICEs and gas heating systems have already reached a sort of evolution plateau.

Those are the reasons of the Green New Deal: ecology is advertised as the only reason, in reality is a MARGINAL reason, the main reason is reduce much the demand of raw materials (once the transition will be done, of course) and lower much overall production costs. I imaging such reasons are not advertised because most of the benefit will go to those how steer the transition, not to those who pay it. But that's is and understand it and it's need means also steer the actual transition in a way more interesting to the people than a very small cohort of cleptocrats.

HVAC installers are not merely system assembly specialists, they're system design specialists as well in nearly all cases. Or at the very least they outsource HVAC system design to experts who are familiar with required air flow, static pressure, air changes, condensation formation and evacuation, and yes of course whether the system is appropriate for cold climates (cold climate heat pumps are notably different from temperate or hot climate ones: coils are larger to capture more heat from the air outside temperatures are very low); they have different refrigerant systems; and way more insulation to prevent the cold affecting operation; some even incorporate resistive heating elements... or a gas furnace in cases where their efficiency would drop below an acceptable threshold.

One of the biggest and most important part of an HVAC system design is sizing for climate and dwelling. It should be extremely suspicious to any installer that their design system efficiency would be so much higher than the real world system performs.

I'd be shocked if professional HVAC installers couldn't spit out several reasons why the system might be performing so poorly just by reading this blog post. Notably the absurd assertion that the installers were professionals despite wildly overpromising and underdelivering. Some contractors acting professionally doesn't make them professionals.

As others point out in this thread, implementing a system that meets the stated design goals roughly on target is what a professional does. I've seen some absurd lambasting of PV solar installs as an example of empty promises. Again, those are tell-tale signs of deficiencies, not an indictment of the underlying technology.

Which is the most irresponsible part of this senator's post. Given your post and prominence, the least you could do before publishing something like this is check your basic assumptions: that the installer did a fine job.