This year I installed a heat pump with a 10kW auxiliary heater for my home in southern Ontario. With an appropriate air handler, both the heat pump and auxiliary heater can run at the same time. The setup seems fine to me.
If anything having a backup heat source makes me feel secure. A lot of things can go wrong with a gas furnace; some things can go wrong with a heat pump; but 10kW of electric restive heat is dead simple and just by itself it can provide 34000 BTU/h, which is 60% of the output of my old gas furnace. I don't think the duty cycle of my gas furnace ever exceeded 60% running time.
The auxiliary heater consists of two 5kW heaters, so even if one fails, there is still the other.
True, but you could always have a battery back up for the blower and such.
Do you have a wood burning back up? At my house in Massachusetts, we had a wood-burning stove that we could always fire up in a pinch. It never came to that, but it felt good knowing that we can always just burn a super hot fire and not freeze to death.
While I could have had a battery backup for the blower, I never did, so I guess I'm not missing out. :)
I live in an urban environment, so I'm not too worried about losing power for an extended period of time, and if I do I would probably just leave temporarily.
In my rural living fantasy I have a Ford F150 Lightning which I use as a "portable" backup battery that can be recharged by driving it to a Level 3 charging station. That and either a pellet stove and/or a Masonry Heater fireplace that sits opposite to a large equator (south) facing window.
If anything having a backup heat source makes me feel secure. A lot of things can go wrong with a gas furnace; some things can go wrong with a heat pump; but 10kW of electric restive heat is dead simple and just by itself it can provide 34000 BTU/h, which is 60% of the output of my old gas furnace. I don't think the duty cycle of my gas furnace ever exceeded 60% running time.
The auxiliary heater consists of two 5kW heaters, so even if one fails, there is still the other.