Heat pumps and mini splits in Guide Meridian

The houses in Meridian

Meridian is the neighborhood either side of the Guide Meridian corridor, and it reads as layers: 1960s and 70s ramblers and split-levels on the streets nearest Cornwall Park, newer detached subdivisions and townhome clusters north of Telegraph, and apartment blocks and retail along the arterial itself. Crawlspaces are the norm on the older stock, slabs and shallow crawls on the newer. Lot sizes shrink noticeably as you move from the older streets to the recent plats.

What is probably heating yours right now

The older houses are mostly gas furnaces on original crawlspace ductwork, with a minority still running an electric furnace from the all-electric era. Newer subdivision houses came with gas furnaces and, increasingly, a heat pump. Apartments along the corridor are electric baseboard, which is the qualifying condition for the PSE conversion rebate if you own your unit.

What makes a Meridian install different

The wrinkle in Meridian is noise, in both directions. Houses fronting the Guide already live with arterial traffic, so homeowners are less sensitive to outdoor unit sound but more sensitive to where it sits relative to the fence; in the newer plats behind the corridor, the association rules and the ten-foot side yards make sound rating and setback the deciding factors. On the older ramblers, the original crawlspace ducts are usually undersized for heat pump airflow and want sealing and a trunk resize before we set equipment. Everything here is inside city limits, so the permit is a City of Bellingham mechanical permit through eTRAKiT.

Sizing for 19°F

Every Bellingham address shares the same code design temperature — 19°F at station Bellingham 2 N, colder than Sea-Tac's 24°F. What differs street to street is the envelope. A 1910s one-and-a-half storey with knee walls and original single glazing carries a very different load from a mid-2000s two-storey built to a modern code, even at identical square footage. That is why we run the load rather than multiplying square feet by a constant.

We know the streets

If you are near Bellis Fair Mall, the Guide Meridian (SR-539) corridor, Northridge Park, we have worked nearby. Ask and we will tell you honestly what we have run into on that side of town.