I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually until
afternoon and occasionally a few days). I have a forced air furnace that is
ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC. Financially the heat
pump makes the most sense as it costs little more than AC and I don't have
to pay full price for a furnace then. I have heard comments both good and
bad about heat pumps. For those of you who have heat pumps, what is your
experience?

Mike D.

On Dec 8, 9:37 pm, "Mike Dobony" wrote:
I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually until
afternoon and occasionally a few days). I have a forced air furnace that is
ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC. Financially the heat
pump makes the most sense as it costs little more than AC and I don't have
to pay full price for a furnace then. I have heard comments both good and
bad about heat pumps. For those of you who have heat pumps, what is your
experience?

Mike D.
if you can buy electricity at a good rate a heat pump can be very
economical to operate....but it becomes less effective when the temp
is below freezing, the outside coil can ice up and it needs to go
through a defrost cycle, for this reason most hp systems in cold
climates have another form of heat as a backup.

A HP worked great for me in Phoenix AZ where it rarely went below
freezing. What climate are yo in? Go to someones house in your area
that has HP. also the air comming out of the vents is not as warm as
with a oil or gas furnace. Some people don't like that.

Mark

In article
,
Mark wrote:

if you can buy electricity at a good rate a heat pump can be very
economical to operate....but it becomes less effective when the temp
is below freezing, the outside coil can ice up and it needs to go
through a defrost cycle, for this reason most hp systems in cold
climates have another form of heat as a backup.

I'm in E TN and use a heat pump, but did NOT install the resistive
emergency heaters. If I need a bit of extra heat I turn on al,the
lights; if the temp really drops I start the wood stove. I heated using
wood (& solar) for 20 years so a couple of fires per winter is no bother


Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

"nick hull" wrote in message
.. .
In article
,
Mark wrote:

if you can buy electricity at a good rate a heat pump can be very
economical to operate....but it becomes less effective when the temp
is below freezing, the outside coil can ice up and it needs to go
through a defrost cycle, for this reason most hp systems in cold
climates have another form of heat as a backup.

I'm in E TN and use a heat pump, but did NOT install the resistive
emergency heaters. If I need a bit of extra heat I turn on al,the
lights; if the temp really drops I start the wood stove. I heated using
wood (& solar) for 20 years so a couple of fires per winter is no bother



The resistive emergency heater woudl be necessary here, but the temps rarely
stays below freezing durign the day ( a handful of days a year). They are
common in new homes in the area, even more expensive homes.

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 20:37:06 -0600, "Mike Dobony"
wrote:

I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually until
afternoon and occasionally a few days). I have a forced air furnace that is
ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC. Financially the heat
pump makes the most sense as it costs little more than AC and I don't have
to pay full price for a furnace then. I have heard comments both good and
bad about heat pumps. For those of you who have heat pumps, what is your
experience?

Mike D.


"86 to '89 I had a heat pump ( North Florida Panhandle ), not far from
the coastline. It seldom snowed, but was cold and did freeze now and
then. The warm Gulf breeze help too reduce serious freeze.

Never had a single problem with that system in three years.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:37:06 -0600, Mike Dobony wrote:

I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually
until afternoon and occasionally a few days). I have a forced air
furnace that is ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC.
Financially the heat pump makes the most sense as it costs little more
than AC and I don't have to pay full price for a furnace then. I have
heard comments both good and bad about heat pumps. For those of you who
have heat pumps, what is your experience?

Mike D.

I had a heat pump for heating domestic water. Efficient and saved $$.
Down side was that it also chilled basement air, sometimes too much.

Heat pumps are the way to go for heat and water. Anything to get off
fossil fuels. Check around in your area to see how effective they are
for you.

"franz frippl" wrote in message
. net...
On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:37:06 -0600, Mike Dobony wrote:

I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually
until afternoon and occasionally a few days). I have a forced air
furnace that is ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC.
Financially the heat pump makes the most sense as it costs little more
than AC and I don't have to pay full price for a furnace then. I have
heard comments both good and bad about heat pumps. For those of you who
have heat pumps, what is your experience?

Mike D.

I had a heat pump for heating domestic water. Efficient and saved $$.
Down side was that it also chilled basement air, sometimes too much.

Heat pumps are the way to go for heat and water. Anything to get off
fossil fuels. Check around in your area to see how effective they are
for you.

Fairly common here, even in $200,000 new homes.

On Dec 8, 7:37*pm, "Mike Dobony" wrote:
I live in an area that rarely gets any lasting snow (lasting usually until
afternoon and occasionally a few days). *I have a forced air furnace that is
ready to be replaced and I want to also upgrade to AC. *Financially theheatpumpmakes the most sense as it costs little more than AC and I don't have
to pay full price for a furnace then. *I have heard comments both good and
bad aboutheatpumps. *For those of you who haveheatpumps, what is your
experience?

Mike D.

I think this is a great question and you should know more about what
you are getting into before signing up for the heat pump.

I live in northern Colorado, and it's likely my situation is similar
to yours. We get snow, but many years it doesn't last. Days are
generally warm (30's to 50's or higher are common during the winter)
but nights get cold (20's or lower). Our local electricity coop
offered a rebate for heat pumps, and I was wanting A/C for the hot
summer evenings, so I took the bait. I also wanted to get away from
fossil fuels. We still needed a furnace for backup, but went with 95%
efficient gas unit at 90,000btu

Does the heat pump work? If it's installed correctly it should work
with the outside temp in the correct range. You have to be prepared
for it not being anything like a furnace. It's much more like running
a warm A/C during the winter. We got a 3 ton unit for heating
approximately 2000 sqft (at the very best, the manufacturer claims
32,000 BTU heating). Heat pumps work more efficiently at higher
temperatures and your contactor should be able to provide you with a
breakeven temperature at which it becomes cheaper to run the HP than a
furnace. With the electricity and gas prices we have, and the
efficiency of our furnace and HP, the breakeven for us is around 35f.
It only makes sense to run the HP if the outside temperature is above
35f. For us this is usually during the day and at 35f the sun usually
is enough to heat the house.

So, what is the HP like? It runs a lot, its noisy, and the air coming
out of the register is cool. Like A/C, it's best to think of how much
heat the HP will add to the cold air running though your ducts. In
our case, the HP warms the air up by around 15f compared to over 50f
for the furnace. This means that if the house is at 70f, the heat
coming out of the registers is 85f. This is cool on a cold day. By
the time the air reaches a few feet from the register, it's 70f air
blowing across you. If you set the temperature back at night, like we
do, you could be looking at 60f + 15f = 75f air at the registers and
the air moving across you is cold. Also, it's very slow to change the
temperature in the house. In the morning, our house would warm up at
less than 1f per hour. This really makes a setback at night
impractical.

The noise from the heat pump can also be something entirely different
from what you are used to. You now have loud machinery operating
outside your window day and night. In our case there also a random
loud gurgling noise when the compressor switched over to defrost
(which can happen even when it's fairly warm outside due to the coils
running substantial colder then the ambient air, they almost always
become coated with frozen condensation). The frequency of the noise
penetrates right through concrete making even the basement noisy.

HP are also much more complex than furnaces. It took nearly a year to
get reasonable efficiency out of our HP and I'm still not convinced we
aren't throwing a lot of money down the drain. In our case, for many
months, the air in the registers was only being heat by 5 degrees.
After a very frustrating exchange over several months, my HVAC
contactor contacted the factory and were told to replace the thermal
expansion valve. This got me back to the 15f, but it was not easy to
understand that 1)there was a problem 2)it could be fixed 3)find the
source of the problem.

If you can live with the issues mentioned above, the HP can keep your
house warm. I've thought that running the house at a higher
tempurature, say 74f, would make the cool breezes issuing from the
registers less of an issue because the house would simply be hot.

Would I do this again? As much I wanted this to work. As much as I
like the technology and want to save green house gases. NO. I would
not do this again. We can only run the HP a few weeks during the
year, and it doesn't seem justified. I don't expect it ever to pay
back financially and it's not a comfortable way to heat. Our
electicity bills have been higher than ever and I'm not convinced that
our total energy costs are lower (I may be able to piece this together
in a couple more years).

I should add that geothermal heat pumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient and useful down to colder outside
temperatures (although still noisy).

wrote:
....
I should add that geothermal heat pumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...

Yes


... (although still noisy).

No. The removal of the air source to the recirc fluid pump makes all
the difference in the world. It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.

I clipped a bunch for brevity, but I'd disagree on the assessment of
suitability based on amount of snow and how long it stays around. It's
the temperatures and the temperature profiles that matter, not the
amount of precipitation and/or its form. One doesn't necessarily imply
the other. It's colder than blazes here a lot of the time, but it snows
almost never when it is cold and annual snowfall can be from none to
feet, just depending on the year. Need a qualified installation
calculation to judge.

--


--

On Dec 20, 10:28*pm, dpb wrote:
wrote:

...

I should add that geothermalheatpumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient *and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...

Yes

... (although still noisy).

No. *The removal of the air source to the recirc fluidpumpmakes all
the difference in the world. *It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.

Well, there's quiet, and then there is quiet. Truthfully, I don't
have a geothermal HP (do you?) and have never seen one. I have heard,
which makes this second hand, that they can sound like an elevator
motor (whatever that sounds like). Based on my experience, I would
recommend witnessing a live, operating HP in your neighborhood to
anyone considering an installation. You, and your installer, will be
happy you did.


I clipped a bunch for brevity, but I'd disagree on the assessment of
suitability based on amount ofsnowand how long it stays around. *It's
the temperatures and the temperature profiles that matter, not the
amount of precipitation and/or its form. *One doesn't necessarily imply
the other. *It's colder than blazes here a lot of the time, but it snows
almost never when it is cold and annual snowfall can be from none to
feet, just depending on the year. *Need a qualified installation
calculation to judge.

Sure, all I'm relating is my personal experience and using the
information offered by the original poster to draw comparisons, it's
all I've got.

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:24:00 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Also, it's very slow to change the
temperature in the house. In the morning, our house would warm up at
less than 1f per hour. This really makes a setback at night
impractical.

I may be mis reading what was in your great message, but, why not use
the furnace to warm the house in the morning, then shift to heat pump
once the house makes it to the desired temp, assuming the outside temp
permits.
Many, many years ago I bought this house which had hot-water baseboard
heat, no A/C. I added A/C. 4 years ago when replacing the A/C i
shifted to H.P. since the additional cost was minimal, and I'm a fan
of redundancy. I turn all heat off at night. If interior temp really
drops, I use the boiler to bring the heat up, then shift to the H.P.
I rationalize this (with no facts to back it up) that the short use of
the fossil fuel, is offset by the decreased use of electricity for the
longer period required to reach the same temp.
I do find that even with the installed variable speed air handler,
that the full bore H.P. operation required to warm things up in the
morning can be noisy. However, once there, and the same with the A/C
in the summer, I can't even tell it is running.

wrote:
On Dec 20, 10:28 pm, dpb wrote:
wrote:

...

I should add that geothermalheatpumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...
Yes

... (although still noisy).
No. The removal of the air source to the recirc fluidpumpmakes all
the difference in the world. It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.

Well, there's quiet, and then there is quiet. Truthfully, I don't
have a geothermal HP (do you?) and have never seen one.
.....

Yes, I had one for several years. It was virtually inaudible running
over the typical fan air movement noise. As compared to an air-exchange
unit or even a typical A/C exchanger it was what I would classify as
silent. (Moved is reason for the "had" -- am looking at replacement
furnace now and ground-loop is certainly in the consideration).

And, your complaint of the air/air exchange heat pump goes away -- the
air at the outlet feels nice and toasty -- not quite natural gas hot,
but no "wind chill" factor at all. (The loop in the TN house replaced
an air exchange unit so I have that to compare to by direct experience,
too.)

--

On Dec 21, 6:50*am, dpb wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 20, 10:28 pm, dpb wrote:
wrote:

...

I should add that geothermalheatpumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient *and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...
Yes

... (although still noisy).
No. *The removal of the air source to the recirc fluidpumpmakes all
the difference in the world. *It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.

Well, there's quiet, and then there is quiet. *Truthfully, I don't
have a geothermal HP (do you?) and have never seen one. *

....

Yes, I had one for several years. *It was virtually inaudible running
over the typical fan air movement noise. *As compared to an air-exchange
unit or even a typical A/C exchanger it was what I would classify as
silent. *(Moved is reason for the "had" -- am looking at replacement
furnace now and ground-loop is certainly in the consideration).

And, your complaint of the air/air exchangeheatpumpgoes away -- the
air at the outlet feels nice and toasty -- not quite natural gas hot,
but no "wind chill" factor at all. *(The loop in the TN house replaced
an air exchange unit so I have that to compare to by direct experience,
too.)

--- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You and Roy have both made insightful comments. I have heard that if
the working parts of a geothermal unit can be remoted from the house,
the house will indeed stay quiet. Personally, the loudest thing I
want to hear in my home is the fridge, and only because I know it's
keeping my beer cold. Which brings me back to Roy's input. My
contactor finally installed an upgraded Honeywell thermostat that is
supposed to fire up the furnace if the temperature error in the house
is too large. Like Roy, this should give me a comfortable recovery in
the morning as well as reducing the consistent noise. I haven't
gotten this new option fully dialed in yet, and now it's the dead of
winter.

I left out some details in my original post, which could be important
to this discussion, but I felt the post was already exceeding a
rational length. My outdoor compressor is a long way from the indoor
coil. It's over 50 feet away. To maintain efficiency my contactor
tried using a large diameter, I think it's 1-1/8 suction line. I find
that it takes nearly twenty minutes of HP running to fully heat up the
piping. It never really heats up with cycling. It's hard for me to
see how this can be efficient and I have to believe that it leaves the
register air cooler than a short run pipe might (say under 15 feet).
Like I said, these systems are much less straight forward than a
simple 95% furnace, and way-way more complex than the old 70% furnace.

I also forgot to add that I might feel better about the heat pump,
it's cool register temperature, noise, and slow recovery; if I was
burdened with the large cost of straight electric resistive heat.

wrote:
On Dec 21, 6:50 am, dpb wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 20, 10:28 pm, dpb wrote:
wrote:
...
I should add that geothermalheatpumps are a whole different animal.
They are very expensive, but if installed properly I believe they
would be very efficient and useful down to colder outside
temperatures ...
Yes
... (although still noisy).
No. The removal of the air source to the recirc fluidpumpmakes all
the difference in the world. It's the air exchanger that's the noisy
component and it goes away.
Well, there's quiet, and then there is quiet. Truthfully, I don't
have a geothermal HP (do you?) and have never seen one.
....

Yes, I had one for several years. It was virtually inaudible running
over the typical fan air movement noise. As compared to an air-exchange
....
You and Roy have both made insightful comments. I have heard that if
the working parts of a geothermal unit can be remoted from the house,
the house will indeed stay quiet. Personally, the loudest thing I
want to hear in my home is the fridge, and only because I know it's
keeping my beer cold.

There was nothing "remote" in our installation -- the recirc
pump/exchanger is no more noisy than a typical fridge compressor. It
simply wasn't a noticeable noise over if it had been forced air natural gas.

--

Is that 1 1/8 line insulated? Obviously t will not get hot at the indoor
coil instantly, but should be pretty warm after a couple of minutes--
much less that 20- unless you are talking about really low OD temps.

On Dec 24 2007, 6:38*pm, (lp13-30) wrote:
Is that 1 1/8 line insulated? Obviously t will not get hot at the indoor
coil instantly, but should be pretty warm after a couple of minutes--
much less that 20- unless you are talking about really low OD temps.

It is insulated with Armaflex insulation, and does begin warming up
reasonably quickly. It's just very slow to reach a stable temperature
at the inside coil. The final temperature is generally over 20
degrees cooler than right at the HP compressor.