"esh" wrote in message
...
My husband and I want to replace our old furnace and defunct central air
system. We have called four contractors for estimates. Each one of them has
tried very hard to sell us a heat pump. Several of our neighbors who got
heat pumps are quite unhappy with them as their electric bills have
skyrocketed. Our only choice in this location is either propane or electric.
Our current furnace runs on propane and we want the new one to do so also,
just more efficiently.

Why this push to sell people heat pumps? We live in Southwest Oregon. We
normally would run the air conditioning only 2 to 3 weeks per year. The
furnace is mostly used to warm the house in the morning until we get the
wood stove going. I can't see the big benefit of switching over to a heat
pump system. Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks for any help you can give.
Elizabeth

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Heat pumps work very well in areas where the temperature seldom gets below
about 25 or 30 deg for very long at a time.

They are also designed to be set at one temperture and not moved while in
the heat mode. They heat up slow and if the change in temperature is more
than about 2 or 3 degrees at a time, the electrical heaters come on and use
power very heavy.

If you are going to use a wood stove most of the time and just want a quick
warm up the heat pump is not for you. You will be on the electric heat
strips most of the time.

You may want to look into what is called a gas pack. It is an
airconditioner with gas heat. I don't know much about them, but sounds more
like what you want over a regular heat pump.



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