Pumped to be hot, hot, hot
 
A Bangor company is making a high-efficiency heat pump designed to work in cold climates. 

By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer
 
November 25, 2007
 

Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
Scott Gagne, a technician for Hallowell International, attaches a control board to a 360C Acadia Heating and Cooling Unit on an assembly line at the Bangor facility. Karl Mock brazes a copper line on a booster compressor at the rear.

Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
Duane Hallowell, president of Hallowell International, explains the technology that distinguishes his heat pump to the president of Unity College, Mitchell Thomashow, during a tour of his facility by a group from the college earlier this month.

Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
The Acadia heating and cooling system was designed with both primary and secondary booster units and a high-tech control board.

BANGOR -  A headline last year on the cover of Architectural Record magazine posed this provocative question: "Can a new kind of heat pump change the world?"
The answer is being formulated now in a small warehouse here.

This is the headquarters of Hallowell International. The two- year-old company makes a combined heating and cooling system that uses patented technology to improve the cold- weather efficiency of the basic heat pump.

Electric heat pumps extract warmth from air or water and transfer it in order to cool or heat living space. They're the dominate heating and cooling source in the Southeast.

But heat pumps are rare in Maine, where eight in 10 homes burn oil. One reason: Conventional air-source models don't work well when the temperature drops below freezing.

If somebody could design and sell a high-efficiency heat pump that keeps a home comfy at minus 30 degrees for half the price of heating oil, well, maybe that could change the world. Especially a world reeling from high energy costs and the growing impact of climate change.

"It's a pretty bold statement," said Duane Hallowell, the founder and president of Hallowell International, reacting to the magazine headline. "But at the same time, yeah, it should be our mission."

The new heat pump being manufactured and sold by Hallowell has been 12 years in the making. After one false start, the product appears ready for prime time.

The company has lined up 2,000 dealers in 35 states and all Canadian provinces.

It has sold roughly 2,400 units this year and installed 1,000 of them.

It has five related products under development for roll-outs in 2008.

Also next year, the company expects to expand into a refurbished mill in Old Town to produce a commerical-size unit.

Hallowell won't discuss finances at the privately held company. But he said his five partners and 50 investors have the resources to grow and diversify.

Challenges remain. Hallowell International doesn't have the brand recognition of the big dogs, like Carrier and Lennox. The unit's not inexpensive, either; installation runs $8,000 to $12,000, roughly 20 percent more than a conventional heating and cooling system.

And like any startup with a hot new thing, Hallowell could implode if it doesn't have the management oversight to control manufacturing and installation quality.

That said, maybe timing and technology finally have intersected to put a Maine-made heat pump on a world map.

The technology being sold today by Hallowell International was formerly called the Cold Climate Heat Pump. It recently was renamed the Acadia Combined Heating and Cooling System.

The technology was developed in 1995 by David Shaw, a former compressor designer at Carrier Corp. in Connecticut. Shaw was inspired to design a low-temperature heat pump after getting a high electric bill in his condo, which was heated by a conventional pump.

Between 2002 and 2005, a subsidiary of Nyle Corp., a heating and cooling technology firm located in Brewer, licensed the rights to Shaw's patent and produced more than 150 units. The product never really took off, however. News reports attributed the failure in part to installation and manufacturing problems.

Hallowell, a Bangor native and engineer, then purchased the patent from Shaw, who currently serves as the company's chief technology officer.

Hallowell worked with state and local economic development officials to lease a city-owned warehouse.

He won a $200,000 loan from the city, to pay rent and buy equipment. His loan agreement requires the company to create 20 jobs this year and 50 next year. The work force has already reached 26, Hallowell said, with manufacturing wages topping $14 an hour.

Hallowell has spent a lot of time testing the unit, receiving industry certifications and setting up a distributor network.

The company also attends trade shows and courts the industry media. Earlier this month, Duane Hallowell was in New York talking to home magazines and meeting with builders and condo associations.

The Acadia has caught the attention of The Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration News. The Acadia won a dealer design award sponsored by the magazine.

Mike Murphy, the magazine's editor in chief, said the market for heat pumps is growing fast, up from 5 percent in the 1980s to nearly 30 percent of all combined heating and cooling units sold today.

Hallowell's product, Murphy said, must carve out a niche in places where heat pumps are common, like the Southeast, and gain market share in the Northeast, where homeowners are shifting away from oil heat.

It also must compete in cold climates with so-called ground source or geothermal heat pumps, which are efficient but require drilling or underground loops.

"There are a lot of heat pumps being sold," he said. "It's going to take something to grab market share from the big players."

The Acadia's top markets now include Canada, which has plenty of homes with expensive electric heat, the Middle Atlantic states, where oil and natural gas costs are rising, and the Pacific Northwest, which has limited natural gas distribution.

The unit works well in cold weather, according to Jim Chaters, national sales representative at Mits Air Conditioning Inc. in Mississauga, Ontario. It's generating interest in Manitoba, where winters are severe.

Chaters has 27 years experience in heating and cooling, and is promoting Hallowell in Canada. Electric resistance heat is common in Canada, Chaters said, but builders are looking for cheaper alternatives.

The Acadia also is drawing interest from green builders. Two low-energy subdivisions going up in the Ottawa area will use the Acadia because its high efficiency will allow contractors to reduce wall and window insulation levels and still meet green building standards.

The technology is sound and easy to maintain, Chaters said. The major challenge for Hallowell is to make sure it expands through a well-trained dealer network, so installations are done correctly.

"We're very excited," he said. "It has a huge potential, if it's handled properly."

The Acadia is likely to generate the most interest in areas where homes need both heating and air conditioning. But savings on heating bills alone can make the unit cost-effective, according to an online calculator on Hallowell's Web site.

For instance, a 2,000-square-foot home in Portland that costs $2,724 a year to heat with oil could be warmed for $1,393 with the Acadia, roughly half the price. Calculators also are available to compare propane, electric heat, conventional heat pumps and geothermal systems.

Jared Ashley considered a geothermal system for his new 2,400-square-foot Cape that he built last year in Levant, west of Bangor. But he heard about the Hallowell unit and had one installed, for roughly $10,000. Operation is quiet and the duct temperature, while not hot like an oil-fired furnace, is steady and comfortable, he said. The company periodically monitors his unit to track real-world conditions.

Inside Hallowell's 90,000- square-foot factory, engineers monitor performance in insulated chambers where the temperature is kept well below zero.

On the factory floor last week, workers were welding compressors onto the unit bodies. Further down the assembly line, the bodies were mounted in cabinets and wired with control panels. The crew can assemble 20 or so units a day.

That output isn't meeting demand. But standing last week beside 75 units boxed for shipping, Duane Hallowell said he had to balance growth with the need to maintain quality control.

It's an interesting challenge for a small company with a hot product.

When the Bangor Daily News covered the Acadia's official product launch last month, local residents came to the factory and tried to buy units off the assembly line.

A PRIMER ON HEAT PUMPS
WHAT IS A HEAT PUMP? An electric heat pump extracts warmth from air or water and transfers it in order to cool or heat living space. Think about a refrigerator: It takes heat from inside an insulated box and dumps it into the room through metal coils. Heat is released by the energy stored in the refrigerant, when it changes from a liquid to a gas. That's why the coils feel warm. In the summer, a heat pump works like an air conditioner. It takes heat from inside your house. In the winter, the pressurized refrigerant can capture heat contained in the outside air, even when it's cold. But conventional heat pumps don't work well when air temperatures fall below freezing. Then they use a backup heat source, often electric resistance heat. The low-temperature heat pump made by Hallowell International uses a patented technology that introduces a second compressor to boost system performance and function efficiently down to minus 30 degrees. The unit looks like a central air conditioner and is installed outside. Copper pipes move refrigerant to and from an air handler, connected to ductwork inside.

DOES HALLOWELL INTERNATIONAL'S ACADIA HEAT PUMP SAVE A HOMEOWNER MONEY? 

According to an online calculator on Hallowell's Web site, a 2,000-square-foot home in Portland that costs $2,724 a year to heat with oil could be warmed for $1,393 with the Acadia, roughly half the price. Calculators also are available to compare propane, electric heat, conventional heat pumps and geothermal systems.