Heating and Cooling loads by location

while heating loads are strongly dependent on location:

cooling loads are mostly independent of location:

that is to say summer in Miami is only about 10 degrees hotter than summer in Chicago

but Winter in Chicago is 50 degrees colder than winter in Miami

using these calculators for heating and cooling:

we see that even in Florida if we go with 2,000 sq foot home we’re looking at 60,000 BTU of cooling but 70,000 BTU of heating

in other words you still need more heating than cooling capacity even in Florida

not sure if i buy this but let’s look at Chicago, also 2,000 sq ft house

using same calculator we get 100,000 BTU heating and 50,000 BTU cooling requirements

so moving from Flordia to Chicago your cooling requirement only goes down from 60,000 to 50,000 which is only a 10,000 difference

but your heating requirement goes up from 70,000 to 100,000 which is a 30,000 difference

but more importantly if you’re using ground source heat pump for both heating and cooling it means in Florida you only need a 60,000 BTU heat pump but in Chicago you need a 100,000 BTU heat pump

but wait … it gets worse …

not only do you need 50% more heat pump power in Chicago than Florida, you will also need that peak power in Winter in Chicago when there is basically no solar energy available to drive it …

whereas in Florida not only do you need 1/3 less power but that peak power will be required in Florida in Summer when there is plenty of solar energy available to drive it …

in other words if you live in Chicago you’re fucked. you will need to pray that Biden doesn’t disconnect the gas pipeline to Trudeau … but i think we all know that that’s exactly what they will do.

but wait, it gets worse …

in Chicago ground deep temperature is 50F, which means those BTU will need to be pumped up a gradient of 20+ degrees to reach room temperature.

while in Florida deep ground temperature is already at room temperature ( mid 70s ) which means in both winter and summer there is essentially no gradient to pump heat over.

you could literally throw out the heat pump and simply circulate water through the ground in Florida and never need any energy for heating or cooling.

so move to Florida then, right ? case closed. no real winter. easily heat your home from just solar panel power …

not so fast …

Florida is a swamp.

Before you can heat a home you must be able to build it first, and for that you must have land to build it on, and Florida has no land - it only has crocodiles and mosquitos and Cubans living in the swamp …

and in 20 years nobody in Miami will even know how to speak English as Latinos multiply like rabbits and are already the majority there …

Enter Atlanta …

Atlanta is majority black, but Blacks, like whites, do not reproduce. Blacks abort all their children ( ask Kanye ). This makes them much less of a demographic bomb than Latinos.

More importantly though Atlanta is not a swamp. You can build anywhere, have a basement and not worry about Hurricanes or Alligators.

and unlike Texas you actually have trees in Atlanta, which you can always remove if you prefer having a lawn. In Texas you are pretty much stuck with grass whether you like it or not and in Florida there is no land at all, except what you can scrape together using an excavator to make a mound to build a house on top of.

Yes unlike Florida there is a winter in Atlanta. But it’s a winter with a small w. No shoveling snow like NYC or freezing to death like Chicago.

The ground source heat pump system will need to be sized a bit larger, but i think it’s a fair tradeoff to not have to deal with mosquitos, alligators, hurricans, humidity and living in a swamp without a basement in Florida …

Live in Southern California and you won’t need either

i have lived in NorCal for a year and on one day on which i visited San Diego the weather was absolutely perfect …

i do have some issues with California though …

1 - proximity to Mexico
2 - ultra-Liberal politics
3 - high cost of living

There is no argument that climate of San Diego is excellent.