It does both heating and AC. Combined with solar panels, you could keep the house comfortable without burning fossil fuel. You might want some fossil capability for extreme cold, current heat pumps are not good at that (last time I looked).
My Euro family drooled over my heat pump setup with propane backup. They said there was a huge backlog of heat pumps in Europe and they were not available at that time but I'm sure that's changed.
I installed heat pumps to use existing air ducts. If you don't use hot air heating and don't have air ducts, go for the "mini-split" ductless heat pumps.
For a quick economical fix, put a window unit AC on the upper floor room that gets the most sun. That will intercept most heat going into the house.
Other heat tricks I've used. I lived without AC for many decades.
-Spray the roof with a hose. Boiling off water uses a lot of heat before it enters the house.
-hold an ice cube against the inside of the wrist. All the blood in the body passes that point. You will cool from the inside out. Some folks put ice on the neck - I don't do that, could be too much shock on the brain. I used to weld in high heat and I used that ice trick.
-plunge hands or feet into cool water
-freeze a bottle of water and put it inside the pillowcase for sleeping. This will cool the scalp and thus the body. Having it inside the pillowcase keeps it from sweating and getting wet, and makes it passively comfortable.
-put aluminized mylar (space blanket material) on windows. This will let a lot of light in, but reflect the heat. It works! Just wet the reflecting side and smooth the wet side onto the glass. It will stay for ages if no bubbles.
-put bubble wrap on windows, like the aluminized mylar above. Similar advantages; both heat and cold insulation, and passes most light.
AC is a huge electricity hog, ironically a major contributor to climate change. I use it now because at my age I don't tolerate heat any more. But I minimize my use of it, and installed solar panels for electricity to run it.
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