On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 21:49:32 GMT, Bubba ReMoVe
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:41:56 -0700, Dick LeadWinger wrote:

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006 14:43:43 -0600, "twfsa" wrote:

The notice said, Attention heat pump owners (with a natural gas or propane
furnace). The gas company is a seperate utility.

Tom

That doesn't make any sense at all. Our heat pump has natural gas for
backup (Dual-fuel, 100K BTUH gas heat.) When it comes on in the
morning, it takes only a few minutes to get the house up to 72 from
65. If we let the heat pump do it by itself when it is 18-degrees F
outside, it would take all morning. I will take a few minutes over a
few hours any time from a cost standpoint for either gas or
electricity. I might understand the suggestion if heat strips were
used for backup, and the cost of electricity per KWH is high in that
location. But surely not for natural gas.

Dick

If your furnace only takes a few minutes to raise the temperature from
65 to 72 when it is 18 degrees outside then your furnace is grossly
oversized! How do you feel burning all that extra fuel you never
needed and getting those hot and cold blasts of air?
Bubba

I really doubt that. We don't have hot and cold blasts of air. Our
system performs beautifully. The sizing of the heatpump was done by
an engineer with a masters degree in refrigeration. He is also a West
Point graduate. The dealer he works for has the best reputation in
town. The furnace part of the heat pump and the a/c part are exactly
the same size as we had before in a Day-Night gas pack. 100K heat,
48K cooling. The heat pump just runs far more efficiently than the
old gaspack, and even with the huge increase in energy costs, our
total energy cost is running about $100 less per month than it did
last winter with similar degree days. We live at 5,000 feet where it
snows in the winter and gets over 100F in the summer.