A modern heat pump is keeping my house at 68F when it's 12F outside, using no heat strips/aux heat.
This modern heat pump is a single-stage Trane from 2017.
41 Year Old York Heat Pump
- Thread starter Mr_Luke
- Start date
A modern heat pump is keeping my house at 68F when it's 12F outside, using no heat strips/aux heat.
This modern heat pump is a single-stage Trane from 2017.
They work fine in below freezing temps.
You and a lot of people, apparently.
High efficiency gas furnaces don’t use any interior air for combustion. They draw outside air in, burn it and exhaust it outside. That’s the route I’d go when/if you need to replace your HVAC.
That's weird, my gas furnace doesn't need baseboard heaters, electric heaters hidden in the ductwork, or other band-aids when heat is actually needed for survival.
My heat pump is maintaining 68F at 12F outdoor without using any of that....
....and doing it for a lot less money than it would cost to run the propane or oil furnace which are my only other options.
Some of us live nowhere near natural gas lines.
Luke, Good Luck to you and yours the next few days. Please let us know the results of running the space heaters as you have suggested. Please for safety's sake follow the mfgrs directions and do not use them with extension cords or with outlets that may not have the proper circuit protection capability.
^This.
My heat pump is still pushing out 82 degree air (68 degrees at air filter intake) at 11F ambient outdoor, looking at how it has performed from 30F to 11F shows it would probably still be ok down to near 0F as the indoor temp rise has been dropping 1 to 1 with outdoor temp drop. If we hit 8 degrees as projected I am guessing my vent output will probably be down to about 78F which should still be ok for my 68F set point.
Mine just hit the setpoint of 68F and shut off. Thermal camera pointed at front door mat says it's 12F outside.
I adjusted the Honeywell thermostat to 3 cycles per hour for additional efficiency. Fewer cycles per hour is more efficient.
That’s hilarious. We keep it at 65° in our house. Any warmer, and we get hot!
Heat pumps are simple things, but NOT understood by most. Look at the graph. The "efficiency" or CoP (coefficient of performance) drops as temps drop. BUT that's not all that drops. So does BTU output. Clearly, the colder it is out, the MORE BTU needed. But heat pumps don't work that way.
A 5 Ton (60,000 BTU) unit might produce 1 Ton (12,000 BTU) of heat at -10°F.
A 5 Ton (60,000 BTU) unit might produce 1 Ton (12,000 BTU) of heat at -10°F.
Last edited:
Clearly, there are modern heat pumps that are better than older units. However, look at the graph above for reality. None of them are powerful when it's really cold out. The "Artic" one in the graph above is an air to water unit, and that does change the dynamic a bit.
Let's be clear, the folks who have heat pumps that "work well" when really cold, have well sized units. It's not magic to understand that a unit twice the size will produce twice the heat at 0°F.
Let's be clear, the folks who have heat pumps that "work well" when really cold, have well sized units. It's not magic to understand that a unit twice the size will produce twice the heat at 0°F.
I’m sure being cautious is prudent in this epic weather event however if it quits today you are about 22 years beyond what the life expectancy is. When you’ve
framed this in “ wear it out prematurely” (41 years!!) - I have to ask…do you think it’s even working at all now and how long are you expecting it to live?
Luke,
Seems pretty safe to assume your heat pump is old and or undersized or featured for really cold weather- maybe not.
You cannot stand any combustibles, even though most house size gas units feed and exhaust to outdoor air.
this rules out, nat, kerosene, propane, catalytic, diesel,
You dont want to pull more electric than you are running now cant recall - one or two wall 1500/ 5K BTUheaters?
The math is real, you just dont get a lot of heat from that to cover a severe cold snap.
Do you have a 50 amp dryer plug?
The all season RV guys use a true electric 30/ 50 amp electric heater you can build a box for that really makes heat this not help you now, but you could get an HVAC guy to plumb it into your ductwork or simply set in a corner of a room- you'd be sending between 20 and 40K to your registers.
www.rvcomfortsystems.com
Seems pretty safe to assume your heat pump is old and or undersized or featured for really cold weather- maybe not.
You cannot stand any combustibles, even though most house size gas units feed and exhaust to outdoor air.
this rules out, nat, kerosene, propane, catalytic, diesel,
You dont want to pull more electric than you are running now cant recall - one or two wall 1500/ 5K BTUheaters?
The math is real, you just dont get a lot of heat from that to cover a severe cold snap.
Do you have a 50 amp dryer plug?
The all season RV guys use a true electric 30/ 50 amp electric heater you can build a box for that really makes heat this not help you now, but you could get an HVAC guy to plumb it into your ductwork or simply set in a corner of a room- you'd be sending between 20 and 40K to your registers.
Stand-Alone System — RV Comfort Systems
www.rvcomfortsystems.com
I have 4 of these heaters in my NY office, as the Natural Gas roof mounted unit has not worked for the last 2 years.
They are silent and each provide about 5000 BTU of heat. Reliable, with long life. I put each one on a different circuit breaker. Although they can't heat my office to 70 degrees on a 20 degree day, they can reach temperatures where my printer will function
(unlike last year where I had no heat at all)
I left yesterday and am back in FL, where I belong
They are silent and each provide about 5000 BTU of heat. Reliable, with long life. I put each one on a different circuit breaker. Although they can't heat my office to 70 degrees on a 20 degree day, they can reach temperatures where my printer will function
(unlike last year where I had no heat at all)I left yesterday and am back in FL, where I belong
Cadet 49 in. 120-volt 1,500-watt Portable Electric Baseboard Heater in White 4P1500W - The Home Depot
Take the chill out of any room with the convenient Cadet Portable Electric Baseboard heater. Enjoy the simple warmth of reliable, quiet convection heat wherever it's needed. Plug the portable baseboard
www.homedepot.com
It's a 4-ton unit in a 3300 sq ft house. Not oversized for AC, they did a manual J calc.
The difference may be that my house is tight. Before the drywall went up and the insulation went in I sealed up every gap and crack I saw with polyurethane caulk or Great Stuff, and after it went up I sealed the top plate in the attic with Great Stuff.
There could be 30MPH winds outside, and if I'm in this house, I can't tell.
That was NOT true of my old house.
My heat pump ran pretty much continuously from about 11pm last night till about 11am this morning. It maintained the 68F temp even without using any aux heat (though the thermostat tried to turn it on, it can't).
When it gets below 0F, I routinely shut off the heat pumps and go back to hot water boiler heat. But when it goes above zero again, the hot water boiler heat goes off and the heat pumps go back on. The heat pumps here are modern, frigid climate Mitsubishis. I call them my "Mitsubishi Zeros".
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2020
- Messages
- 184
Your heat kit is inoperative it shouldnt be blowing cold air on you in defrost. Also explains why it can't keep temp