12-13-2020, 05:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2020, 05:02 AM by ShadowsDad.)
OK, so we've been using the heat pumps for awhile now and the coldest we've seen is 15°F. There has been a learning curve for us, mostly me. The short story is that they work fine. We have yet to burn a drop of oil for heat and heated the place with the wood stove only once due to a power outage.
Since our units have the thermostat in the unit near the ceiling the temp' must be set higher than we would normally set the indoor temp. I first tried 74° but upped it to 76°. That satisfies the unit up in the heat near the ceiling and keeps us on the floor happy. A ceiling fan to move the heat down also helps.
There is some single digit cold coming and I intend to use them for that to see how they work. I'll report back. Supposedly they're efficient down to -15° (or is it -20?). It's very likely we'll see some of that too.
Cost... I expected it to cost us $1-$2/day to run them for heat and if I'm figuring right we're on the low end of that at about $1.20/day. If things continue at this rate I expect our winter heat to cost approx' 1/3 what we spent last year heating with oil and wood*. As the cold sets in that will no doubt increase, but so far these things are just amazing. Our weather is still changing from fall to winter and our air mass is still quite humid. The outside unit sucks the heat out of the air and does so with finned coils. Those coils are cold and ice forms on them. That's expected and the units just chug along and when they need to defrost that happens and the ice melts off and runs out of them. Since the air is forced through the coils with a fan snow also clogs the fins and the same thing happens. The unit senses the decreased efficiency and goes into auto defrost mode.
OK, quality of the heat... I like wood heat when we can burn it efficiently (lower than 20°F outside for an extended time) because it's a constant heat with no thermostat that kicks in when the temp' inside drops to a low point and kicks off when it reaches a high point. I'm constantly either cold or too warm with oil heat, it would be the same with propane if it has a thermostat. The heat pumps are a constant heat like the woodstove. I really like them and for me to have no complaints is high praise. Like any non central heating system rooms away from the heat source are colder and the floors are also cold, just like wood heat.
We prefer a cold bedroom for sleeping and that has suffered a bit. We like to pull the heavy blankets up and that is no more. Basically we just use summer covers since the units do NOT like to be turned off. They are not high BTU units and it takes forever for them to catch up on heat lost during the night if they're turned down. I still turn them down slightly and I shut down the ceiling fan to allow the thermostat to be satisfied with heat near the ceiling while keeping the lower air cooler. When I wake up I restart the ceiling fan and bring the temp' back up 2° and that works fine.
As I wrote a cold snap is coming. I'll report back. I think the wife wants to burn wood, but I'm still on the shakedown cruise for the heat pumps, and she just doesn't understand how efficient the heat pumps are. I'll report back. Heat pumps are 300-400% efficient. Our oil burner is in the mid 80% efficient and so is the woodstove. No heat source that burns something can achieve over 100% efficiency and if one achieves 95% that's excellent.
Downside... Obviously during a power outage such as we just had and have quite few of in our heavily wooded state, the heat pumps don't work. But during the recent outage I did run them on our generator. That worked but I found it obscene to burn gas to get the juice to run the heat pumps. I tried it once just to see if I could as part of the shakedown cruise for the heat pumps. If I own something I want to know everything about it and what I can get out of it.
* We finally saw an electric bill that reflected a meter reading and the wife about hit the ceiling. She's accustomed to seeing the bill only reflecting lights, pumping water and such. This time it also contained the juice used for pumping heat. I still don't know if she fully understands that the cost for heating has been transferred to the electric bill. I think what might have thrown her was that I filled the oil tank before the heating season. I don't like to trust new things so I wanted a back up. As I already wrote we have yet to burn a drop of it. Our heat has all come from the heat pumps except for a power outage when I lit the woodstove.
Since our units have the thermostat in the unit near the ceiling the temp' must be set higher than we would normally set the indoor temp. I first tried 74° but upped it to 76°. That satisfies the unit up in the heat near the ceiling and keeps us on the floor happy. A ceiling fan to move the heat down also helps.
There is some single digit cold coming and I intend to use them for that to see how they work. I'll report back. Supposedly they're efficient down to -15° (or is it -20?). It's very likely we'll see some of that too.
Cost... I expected it to cost us $1-$2/day to run them for heat and if I'm figuring right we're on the low end of that at about $1.20/day. If things continue at this rate I expect our winter heat to cost approx' 1/3 what we spent last year heating with oil and wood*. As the cold sets in that will no doubt increase, but so far these things are just amazing. Our weather is still changing from fall to winter and our air mass is still quite humid. The outside unit sucks the heat out of the air and does so with finned coils. Those coils are cold and ice forms on them. That's expected and the units just chug along and when they need to defrost that happens and the ice melts off and runs out of them. Since the air is forced through the coils with a fan snow also clogs the fins and the same thing happens. The unit senses the decreased efficiency and goes into auto defrost mode.
OK, quality of the heat... I like wood heat when we can burn it efficiently (lower than 20°F outside for an extended time) because it's a constant heat with no thermostat that kicks in when the temp' inside drops to a low point and kicks off when it reaches a high point. I'm constantly either cold or too warm with oil heat, it would be the same with propane if it has a thermostat. The heat pumps are a constant heat like the woodstove. I really like them and for me to have no complaints is high praise. Like any non central heating system rooms away from the heat source are colder and the floors are also cold, just like wood heat.
We prefer a cold bedroom for sleeping and that has suffered a bit. We like to pull the heavy blankets up and that is no more. Basically we just use summer covers since the units do NOT like to be turned off. They are not high BTU units and it takes forever for them to catch up on heat lost during the night if they're turned down. I still turn them down slightly and I shut down the ceiling fan to allow the thermostat to be satisfied with heat near the ceiling while keeping the lower air cooler. When I wake up I restart the ceiling fan and bring the temp' back up 2° and that works fine.
As I wrote a cold snap is coming. I'll report back. I think the wife wants to burn wood, but I'm still on the shakedown cruise for the heat pumps, and she just doesn't understand how efficient the heat pumps are. I'll report back. Heat pumps are 300-400% efficient. Our oil burner is in the mid 80% efficient and so is the woodstove. No heat source that burns something can achieve over 100% efficiency and if one achieves 95% that's excellent.
Downside... Obviously during a power outage such as we just had and have quite few of in our heavily wooded state, the heat pumps don't work. But during the recent outage I did run them on our generator. That worked but I found it obscene to burn gas to get the juice to run the heat pumps. I tried it once just to see if I could as part of the shakedown cruise for the heat pumps. If I own something I want to know everything about it and what I can get out of it.
* We finally saw an electric bill that reflected a meter reading and the wife about hit the ceiling. She's accustomed to seeing the bill only reflecting lights, pumping water and such. This time it also contained the juice used for pumping heat. I still don't know if she fully understands that the cost for heating has been transferred to the electric bill. I think what might have thrown her was that I filled the oil tank before the heating season. I don't like to trust new things so I wanted a back up. As I already wrote we have yet to burn a drop of it. Our heat has all come from the heat pumps except for a power outage when I lit the woodstove.