Heat Pump

[RodBow]

Who ever came up with the idea? Wish we had n. gas in our area!

[FUTCHCAIRO]

DONT KNOW WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA, OUR'S HAS BEEN RUNNIN FOR THE LAST 12 HOURS.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
PA
SEMPER FI

[Sea Dawg]

Well all you n
lhave to do as lots people do have a gas elect unit

[Sea Dawg]

..

[manley]

You gain it back during the summer! We've got gas logs in the fireplace... at almost $4.00 per gallon for LP, it ain't much of a trade-off!

[RiverRunner]

I hate Gas heat! Manley is right, that gas bill sucks. When I build, the whole house will be sprayed with Icynene Insulation. Then have a Wood stove/fireplace in living room and use the return to heat the house from living room.

[EddieJoe]

As I found out after converting to a heat pump: 1) the "warm" air coming from the register is only about 10 degrees or less warmer than the room air 2) heat pumps lose efficiency when the outside air gets cold. Below 40 there is a big drop, and below 30, a huge drop. So, if you want the house to stay warm, you have to keep the thermostat only a couple of degrees cooler at night, or the unit will run a very long time to heat the house back up. Since the AC folks did not install an outside thermostat on my unit, it doesn't activate the heat strips when the outside air gets real cold, which would make things work better.

On most units (like mine), you can get the strips to come on manually with the outside pumping by moving the thermostat more than a couple of degrees up from ambient. That does make the air warmer coming out of the vents, but it also uses lots more electricity. However, I think this is preferable to running the unit on pump only for hours at a time. I recommend doing that.

Since we are lucky and have NG, I just converted my wood stove to NG by buying a new stove (looks real!) upstairs. It works great, too! This summer if I can swing it I will install one downstairs, and that will be the virtual end of my "heat" pump having to heat the house. I hate blown air heat, anyway.

EJ

[mullet]

Best thing going is a heat pump with gas back up heat. Best of both worlds.

[EddieJoe]

Best thing going is a heat pump with gas back up heat. Best of both worlds.

And Mullet is a professional, so he knows what he is talking about. I think that some of these guys don't have NG in their area, so propane in a storage tank works too? Mullet, what say you?

EJ

[mullet]

Yeh, tank gas works fine and you're only using it during really cold weather, defrost, and when you want to bring to temp. up really quick.