I, too, am on my first heat pump.
I grew up in Central Pennsylvania in a huge Victorian-era house without AC, except for a window shaker in the (BIG) kitchen and another in my Mom and Dad's bedroom, which did nothing for my bedroom. Ugh.
The real special one was my first couple summers in DC. Had a top floor south and east facing apartment in the city in a 1920s steel and concrete building. Had an AC in the bedroom, but it did virtually NOTHING to knock down the EZ Bake Oven aspects of that building.
I love my heat pump for summer AC, but as I've recounted many times here, I've always hated it for "heating" my home in winter. Hence, the pellet stove.
Even with central air I still have to run dehumidifiers in the house because the system is sized for the heat loading as it was when I bought it and it had, at best, R 15 worth of insulation in the attic. I'd lie in bed in the evenings in the summer and I'd feel as if I were in a broiler because of the heat radiating down from the ceiling.
Back in 2010 I jumped it from an R 15 to an R 50 and that made all the difference in the world, both summer and winter, but it also meant that since I didn't get the heat loading in the summer the AC was now way oversized and it didn't remove the humidity like it used to.
All in all, however, given how much electric I am NOT using in the winter to heat my house now that I have my pellet stove I figure I have the right to use electric to run the AC to cool my house and the Eurotrash can go EFF themselves with an iron stick. The ones who screech the loudest have no conception of what summer can be like in much of the United States.
