I recently attended a writing retreat where I got to live in a newly remodelled house and enjoy the latest in heat pump, HVAC technology. The owner of the house meant for this place specifically to be used by hobbyist writing groups to get away and have time for our first love: writing our novels. For the group, she added two more wings on the house, which enables the home to have three more bedrooms in each wing which can sleep six people or more. Along with the bedrooms, she added a new kind of home heating I have never seen used this far up north. For the wings’ climate control, she added a heat pump. I can recall always being told we can’t use heat pumps way up north. But that was some time ago. Today, heat pumps can genuinely be used to heat homes in temperatures that are pretty cold. The heat pump is robust enough to keep working to bring in warm air in temperatures that reach fifteen degrees. With a simple remote control to manipulate the heat pump for each bedroom, these ductless mini split units are really effective at keeping the rooms warm. The owner decided to put one in every new bedroom, so each guest could adjust the heating and cooling without troubling anyone else. The heat pumps where installed by the HVAC contractor but are very discreet, especially because they’re far up on the wall. I love these new heat pumps. I was able to stay warm and comfortable all night long at the retreat.