Why renters cannot get a normal heat pump
If you rent, the usual route to a heat pump is closed. A normal system needs an outdoor unit bolted to the building, refrigerant lines run through a wall, a drain, and often a bigger electrical service. Every one of those is a construction project on property you do not own, and it needs a landlord who wants to spend money on it.
What a window heat pump is
A window heat pump puts the whole thing in 1 box that straddles a window sill, the way a window air conditioner does. The compressor, the condenser and the evaporator all sit inside it, so nothing has to pass through a wall. It runs on a standard 120 volt outlet, which means no electrical upgrade. The maker says it goes in inside 30 minutes with no refrigerant handling, and claims it can cut energy costs by up to half.
It also uses R32 as its refrigerant, which carries about a third the warming potential of the R410A in most existing equipment, so a leak does less damage. Monitoring in New York found the units used far less energy than the steam boiler they replaced, and less daily electricity than the old air conditioners, though they pushed up peak demand at first in summer.
What New York did with it
In 2022 the state and the city put up 70 million dollars and ran a competition to get somebody to build this machine at all. Two makers won, Midea with an order for 20,000 units and Gradient with 10,000. In 2023, 72 units went into Woodside Houses in Queens for a winter of monitoring, and that pilot reported cutting energy use by up to 87%.
Prioritizing green investments in public housing ensures the State's bold climate agenda is equitable - benefiting all New Yorkers now and for decades to come.
Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, announcing the programme in August 2022. Source 1.
This axis runs in hundreds. The chart further down runs in tens of thousands. The pilot figure is from source 2.
Show the numbers
| Pilot 2023, Woodside | 72 |
| Full building 2026, Woodside | 150 |
| Planned 2026, Bay View | 300 |
In January 2026, Woodside Houses became the first property in the city housing authority to have a whole building converted, 150 units replacing an ageing steam system. Bay View Houses is scheduled for 300 more during 2026.
How early this programme still is
This axis runs in tens of thousands. The few hundred units actually installed so far would not be visible on it.
Show the numbers
| Apartments in the authority | 177,000 |
| Window heat pumps needed | 156,000 |
| Units under contract | 30,000 |
The New York City housing authority runs 2,198 buildings holding about 177,000 apartments and 339,000 people. It estimates it needs roughly 156,000 of these window units over the next 5 to 10 years. It has 30,000 under contract and has installed a few hundred.
One honest caveat. This is a landlord buying, not a tenant. The machine removes the construction project, which is what made a purchase of this size possible at all, but in most rented buildings the decision still belongs to whoever owns the wall.