By Kate Harvey
Content Manager | Pou Whakahaere Ihirangi
With winter around the corner, you might be getting a new heat pump installed. Deciding which is the best buy can seem like a daunting task, though. There are so many options and it’s hard to know which’ll do the best job of making your home cosy.
We’ve tried to make that job easier by assessing 324 heat pumps from 14 brands.
We also asked our test team manager James le Page what mistakes shoppers should avoid when they’re setting out to choose one.
1. Buying an unreliable brand
James says there are some brands of heat pump that are more likely to have problems. Hitachi is the brand we’ve given the lowest reliability and satisfaction scores to, based on what people tell us in our annual survey. “And Haier didn’t do much better,” James said.
If you’re a Consumer NZ member, it’s easy to see which heat pumps are the most reliable.
2. Getting the wrong size
James says getting the wrong size of heat pump will cost you in power. “If it’s too small it will be struggling to warm the space and if it’s too big it’ll be inefficient,” he says.
To find out the size that’s right for your room, check out our heat pump buying guide.
3. Not thinking about noise
You’ll know if you get this one wrong. A loud fan in a heat pump’s interior unit will mean you have to turn up the telly, while a loud fan in the exterior unit could annoy both you and your neighbours at night.
Check how loud the interior and exterior units are for each of the models in our test results.
4. Not getting WiFi
WiFi on your heat pump might seem a bit gimmicky, but we think it’s a pretty handy feature.
If your days tend to be unpredictable, it can be tricky to program the timer to come on before you get home. But if you have an app on your phone, you can turn the heat pump on remotely as you begin your homeward commute. Using an app also means you don’t have to worry about attaching the remote mount to the wall – just use your phone or another device to control the heat pump.
5. Ignoring the energy star rating
This one will literally cost you. The more energy stars an appliance has, the more efficient it is, which means you’ll be paying for less power when you’ve got it switched on. Heat pumps have a star rating for both their cooling and heating mode. We include the star ratings in our test results but also give each heat pump heating and cooling efficiency scores out of 100 to make it easy to compare them.
The best heat pumps we’ve found
If you’re a Consumer member, we’ve made it easy to see what our favourite heat pumps are on our heat pump overview page.
You’ll see our choices for:
best heat pump for a bedroom
best heat pump for a lounge
best heat pump for open-plan living areas
best budget heat pump
best heat pump for colder parts of New Zealand.
