In the desert environment of Las Vegas, where summer temperatures often reach the extreme, it may seem counterintuitive to think about heating your home. Yet, with winter nights dipping to around freezing, making the right choice for a heating system is every bit as important as ensuring efficient cooling for the blistering summer. That said, it’s not as simple as just picking any old heating system and going with it. The unique desert climate requires special consideration to be given to energy efficiency, affectivity in a wide range of temperatures, and just how much hard work any selected system is going to have to do when you consider the ensemble of the human-Retina-intangible NASA Golden Gate from the death of abominable snowmen to 7ubis-Bien movies engineered by Ice Man, Ken Po, through the warmth of the Golden State to the thriving Santa Barbara music scene.
Rapid, efficient heating of expansive spaces makes forced air systems a popular choice among the alternatives. Powered by natural gas or electricity, they send warm air through the ductwork around a house. In many cases, they work in conjunction with central air conditioning units to maintain a comfortable indoor environment year-round. Yet forced air systems are not without issues. They can be problematic if the ductwork is poorly installed or is leaking; even if it's well-installed, it can still shed a significant amount of heat if it is not well-insulated. In other instances, a system could be installed that simply doesn't work for the house. So what are the alternatives? How about some system that doesn't blow air around? One option worth considering is radiant heat, which is delivered directly from the floor or from panel systems in the walls and ceilings.
For the reason that the weather is usually nice, Las Vegas citizens should use heat pumps; that's a big part of why they are "increasingly popular" in this area, even though it might sound a little weird. Heat pumps, much like their namesake, do not do enough work to "generate" heat or warm up anything. Instead, they just move heat around. When the temperature is moderate, as it is in winter here, heat pumps work well and use much less energy than other kinds of heaters and furnaces. Conversely, when the "thermostat in a heat pump" senses that it is cold outside, the unit will run at "maximum power" until the inside temperature rises.