Heat pumps – why aren’t we all using them

My entire life growing up I remember being uncomfortable.

Literally.

My mom was an extremely stringent woman, and we didn’t have much cash to work with anyways. As such, we really weren’t allowed to too many household Comforts in my adolescence. For instance, I remember her yelling at us for leaving on lights. Sure, don’t leave on a light if you leave the room, but she literally would yell at you for using a light while you were sitting underneath it. She would ask if it was really necessary that you use that electricity when you could easily pull out a flashlight and somehow dangle it from your teeth and study. She also never wanted to run the central heating and cooling system. As an adult I totally understand. As a child, I was pretty upset with being miserably cold all winter and disgustingly hot all summer. She really would only run the heating system when it dropped below 20 degrees outside. She only wanted to run the cooling system if the humidity was above 100%… Raining, essentially. As an adult now, I’m a bit confused about why we didn’t just find a better Heating and Cooling solution. For instance, I just recently learned about these things called geothermal heat pumps. Maybe you haven’t heard of them, cuz I had no idea that this form of heating and cooling existed. These are little systems that connect deep down underneath the ground and funnel energy back and forth from your house and the dirt. If the ground is warm, the energy flows into your home and heats it. If the ground is cold, the energy flows from your house and cools it. The best part is, there’s no energy expenditure. This means my mom would have had no excuse to freeze or burn us alive. I guess hindsight is 20/20.
gas furnace