By Andy Armstrong, Johnson Controls

Ah, the sounds of summer. Birds are singing. Lawnmowers are roaring. There’s baseball on the radio. And when I switched on the air conditioner, it sounded like somebody was pounding on an empty barrel with my three wood. That was right before the grinding and screeching. Followed by the utterly depressing silence that only a dead AC can make on the first hot day of the year.

Sound familiar? Shopping for a new air conditioner – like me? Here’s a suggestion: do what I’m going to do and go hybrid – as in a hybrid comfort system.

Where I work – York, a Johnson Controls brand – we make these hybrid systems. When you hear “Johnson Controls” and “hybrid” in the same sentence, you may think “batteries” – the ones we manufacture for hybrid vehicles. But what’s amazing about the hybrid comfort systems we make for home heating and cooling is that they provide one of the same advantages hybrid cars offer: the ability to switch between fuel sources – in this case, between natural gas and electricity. Here’s how a hybrid comfort system works:

Inside your house is the furnace component. It runs off of natural gas, and it looks and works just like your old furnace, only it uses a lot less energy.

Outside your house is the heat pump part of the system. It’s powered by electricity and looks just like your now-dead air conditioner, but it functions much differently.

In winter months, when natural gas prices are typically higher, you can use the heat pump to capture the warmth that’s always present in the outside air (even in winter) and pull it inside to warm your house. When it’s especially cold outside, the furnace automatically kicks in to supplement the heat pump and provide additional warmth. And if electric rates shoot up in your area for some reason, you can use the electric heat pump less (or not at all) and rely on the gas-powered furnace for heat. In other words, you can switch fuel sources based on what’s going on with prices. Clever you!

But who wants to think about winter the week before Memorial Day? Let’s talk about summer. When it’s hot, the heat pump works in reverse: it takes the heat out of your house and pumps it outside – which is exactly the same process that an air conditioner uses. So you get the same cooling you’d get from your AC – that is if your AC had a pulse.

Here’s something important to think about: When heat pumps first became popular back in the seventies, the technology was a little behind the curve. The equipment wasn’t very durable, and the defroster systems that kept the coils on the heat pump from icing over didn’t always work very well. The good news is that’s changed completely. Today’s systems work well and are designed to provide reliable heating and cooling year-round with little or no maintenance. And the best part is you can get some help paying for a new system. Under the federal stimulus package, you can get up to $1,500 in tax credits when you spend money to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Hybrid comfort systems that meet certain efficiency standards – and ours do! – qualify. The tax credits are good through the end of 2010. You may also be able to get a rebate from your utility for installing a heat pump. Utilities like heat pumps because they use electricity in the winter when the demand for natural gas is heaviest.

So don’t just sit there sweating. If you’ve got to replace your AC this year anyway, go hybrid with a comfort system that:

• Keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter
• Gives you the option of choosing which fuel source to use based on price
• Qualifies for tax credits and rebates to help you foot the bill