Heat Pumps

[Collin]

What do you think of them Dice?
Are all brands equal James?
Can I size by heating load? I am semi-serious about the last one.
First off, I have never seen a home with straight AC. We don't get hot enough here except for maybe a couple of weeks a year.
Humidity is also not a problem due to our proximity to the ocean.
I understand that heat pumps should be sized by cooling but in consideration of my location please tell me why.

[diceman]

naw, I guess they have their place. Up where you are though, not sure. Size by A/C and the backup heat according to outside winter temps. Usually electric, maybe oil up there. All brands are better than goodman. After that ,sounds like Trane,Carrier, Amana are your best bet. What are you getting into?

[Collin]

Nothing really, I just want to know why you size by cooling when you don't need cooling.:chill

[JAMES 3528-old]

Carrier is a pile of poo poo!

I would use gas with it.

[jmac00]

I have installed 6 heat pumps around here in the last 10 years. And the one universal complaint is "operating cost".


we pay 12¢/KW for electricity, so it's pretty expensive to run a heat pump, with an electric furnace back up. Nobody wanted a propane tank in there back yard, so everyone went with electric furnace.
I tried to get all these people to install LPG at first, but they insisted on a heat pump-----BIG MISTAKE-----

In fact, all of these people have changed to LPG now, because now you can bury the tank ( thats right, I got them twice
:D )
One of them actually showed me his bills, before and after, and with the heat pump on, he was spending about $600.00/month (2800sq ft home) with LPG he cut his bill to (about) $250.00/month.

I always sized my heat pumps to the heat load, they say use the cool load, screw that, maybe down south but up north, size to the heat load, otherwise you will get nuisance calls about "I'm always cold". especially if the people use to own an oil fired furnace. because the supply air for an oil fired is about 150ºf and the heat pmp puts out about 110ºf---which is really cold for someone thats use to 150º, I personally, will not install HP anymore, they're not worth it. UNLESS you live in Fairport ( a little town east of rochester) they buy there power right from the NYS power authority at 2¢/KW (ya; everyone wants to live in Fairport)
Almost all the homes in fairport are ALL electric, the adverage utility bill in fairport is about $150.00/month.

good luck w/ installing HP

[Breeze]

If you don't use a/c that much but then what happens if they use a/c and it short cycles, will it take out moisture, will it create mold ??? Many questions.

Guess you could add some UV lights to the unit to kill the mold and maybe everything else it sees.

[BaldLoonie]

In our climate, a 2000 sq ft house would need 25 tons to size to heating!

In a mild climate you probably could size to heating and not be far off for cooling. My house has a 2 ton unit. It will handle heating alone down into the 30s and cool OK up to the lower 90s. But if you are in a situation where you don't have a hot steamy summer, you probably don't want a unit that can handle 93-95, you would be better off much smaller that would run quite a bit more when the temp is sticky and 75.

While we usually dip below zero each winter, all electric homes with a good pump usually a cheaper year round than a home with 80% gas and an A/C. Our rates can be as low as 3 cents for electricity. For one, having no gas saves $108 per year just in meter fees alone.

[Charlie]

I think it depends on where you live. In the North, I think you should size approximately 10% over the cooling load for heat with electric heat back-up. In the summer you don't want to short cycle and loose your dehumidification. I think I read that somewhere, if you guys question that, I'll have to go digging into the library.

[Collin]

So the heat pump is fairly economical to run as long as the heat strips aren't kicking in. This is why I mention sizing it bigger for heat.
If nat. gas is available I usually recommend that.
I'm thinking you will be in disagreement Bama.:cool:
I'm willing to listen.

[Charlie]

One of my customers, who has a heat pump, installed an electric fire place. It uses wood pellets, made from saw dust. It looked like rabbit food to me. The bags are $3.00 and the system puts out 35K btu. He really loves it and saves $100/ month in electric bills. He got it at LOWES. It runs on 115v.

[jmac00]

I have done, were sized to heat load, and I never had a problem with the a/c. our climate runs (on adverage) between 98º (at the most, and only for a couple of days) to -10º (again, only for a couple of days). Generally speaking the summers run about 82º-87º and about 10º- 45º with an adverage of about 36º year round. Of course this year has been so screwy weather wise??? who knows

But, like I said, everyone of the HP I have installed, have been changed to LPG fired 2 stg V/S, and everyone of my customers have told me they should have listened to me in the first place.

All of them complained of "high cost of operation" for the reason to change to LPG, not for any other reason, other than that the systems ran fine, the customers where happy with the operation of there HP. If we could get 2¢/KW Ithink everone of my customers would have stuck with the HP.

c-ya

[Charlie]

As Dice would say..............



HEAT PUMPS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Collin]

That's what I was expecting from Dice but instead he was real nice to me. Must have been getting soft prior to his vacation.