41 Year Old York Heat Pump

No need. It’s doing all it can. Just curious if your thermostat shows a setting for “Emergency Heat”?
The first house my wife and I bought in 1982 had a heat pump with that setting. We had to use that during the winter of 1983. Similar event then as now. I’m sure you know this but you are spending three times the money on power keeping that old unit going. Not sure what you’ve done but the longest I could keep a heat pump running was 18 years. It was a Sears-York. I have Goodman pumps now and I say they are a big steaming piece of ****e.
 
It was 24℉ at 4am today, and at 6:30am it was 15℉, and at 8am it was about 11℉.
It seems to be holding at 10℉ at 12:30pm.

My 41 year old York heat pump struggles at temps under 32℉ and can't keep the house at 70℉,
It's now about 64℉ in the house, (even though I turned the thermostat up to 72℉) which really isn't too bad.
I'm dressed up more and drinking warm water and hot soups.
I'm running a small ceramic heater. I also have a radiant quartz heater that I haven't used yet.
It heats very well at temps over 32℉ and it cools nicely in hot weather.
At temps under 32℉ it seems to stay in defrost mode a lot, and when it does it tends to blow cool air into the house.
I could replace the whole system for $6,000 or deal with it the way it is.

I was thinking of getting a bigger heater to use on days like this but I'll probably be OK with what I have.
I had this old heat pump worked on last summer for $325 because it wasn't working right and it's been fine ever since with the exception of the below 32℉ issue.
Geez Luke I wish I could offer more advice but I don’t know too much about heat pumps. Where I live it’s all natural gas heat which is not cheap but heats well. 66* and struggling to maintain it sounds cold. Perhaps a good space heater? Oil filled radiators work well.
 
I'm going to ask this again because it hasn't been answered yet :

Let me ask you something.
I hope it's not a dumb question but should I try running my heat pump at a higher thermostat temp?
I have a feeling it won't heat the house any more than 64*F anyway.
I have it on 72*F now.

You can try turning it up.

I doubt it will do anything and wont hurt anything at this point since you arent reaching cut off as is.
 
Mine heats nicely at 40*F as well as down to 32*F.
Below that, not so much.
Maybe I should turn off the heat pump when it's below freezing and run only space heaters, or maybe not.
My house is about 970 sq ft.
Luke,

If your system has an emergency heat setting it will have something like this this image installed in the air handler.


If you don't see something that looks like this assembly installed in the air handler or have the emrgency heat setting on your thermostat, then you may not have heat strips installed. If that is indeed the case then you are probably better served using some space heaters.

All space heaters have the same efficiency. Some are quieter than others (example oil filled radiators as previously mentioned). Given the square feet of your house, you might be able to get by with one of these larger space heaters. A restraraunt that I go to has one, and it does a great job in a meeting room there that has seating for 25.

 
I've had homes with York heat pumps and air conditioners, and the York models of the past 15-20 years are nowhere near as tough as the 1980's models. That said, I'd spring for a new system at an appropriate time before yours craps out altogether. 41 years of service is phenomenal, but York ain't what it used to be. In fact I believe York was one of the first HVAC manufacturers to source components from China. Trane/American Standard is a go to brand now. Also here's a vote for emergency kerosene heaters. Who remembers the brand Kerosun?
 
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It's almost certainly set up with a two-stage mechanical thermostat. When the room temperature is more than about 3 degrees below the set temperature, the second mercury vial tips over, which turns on the electric heat "strips" in the indoor unit. This is called "Auxiliary Heat." There may be a blue light on the thermostat indicating that it is active.

If the set temperature is already more than 3 degrees above the room temperature, setting it higher will not change anything.

The Emergency setting usually turns off the outdoor unit, so the only heat that you will have is from the electric. This has been omitted from later units because it seldom does anything useful. Even in extremely cold conditions, the heat pump will always deliver more btu per watt to the house than electric does. Though it may not be enough to keep warm.

Just because there are electric strips doesn't mean that they are operational. It's one or more separate circuits from the breaker panel just for them. Also a separate control wire from the thermostat. As a separate system it can break down without you knowing that until it is needed.
 
I'm going to ask this again because it hasn't been answered yet :

Let me ask you something.
I hope it's not a dumb question but should I try running my heat pump at a higher thermostat temp?
I have a feeling it won't heat the house any more than 64*F anyway.
I have it on 72*F now.
It will not heat the house anymore !
if it can't meet 65 degrees turning it up does nothing it will just continue to run because it can't meet the set point.
 
I've had homes with York heat pumps and air conditioners, and the York models of the past 15-20 years are nowhere near as tough as the 1980's models. That said, I'd spring for a new system at an appropriate time before yours craps out altogether. 41 years of service is phenomenal, but York ain't what it used to be. In fact I believe York was one of the first HVAC manufacturers to source components from China, Trane/American Standard is a go to brand now. Also here's a vote for emergency kerosene heaters. Who remembers the brand Kerosun?
I remember Kerosun. Had one in my house in the early ‘70. Not aware or didn’t care at that time about fumes or incomplete combustion. We survived somehow.
 
I remember Kerosun. Had one in my house in the early ‘70. Not aware or didn’t care at that time about fumes or incomplete combustion. We survived somehow.

Grandparents had a kerosun in the basement - worked great.
 
I might as well shut the unit off when it's below 32*F and run the quartz heater and Pelonis disc furnace.
It seems like the heat pump is really not making any heat and is just pulling up crawl space air that's around 65*F.
That's not really heat, even though it's better than the 5*F temperature outside it's supposed to be tonight.
I should be able to run these for 2 more days, until Monday when it's supposed to go up to 40*F.
I don't want to wear out my heat pump by making it run almost non stop.

What I want to get is one of those Dr Infrared heaters.
The reviews of them are good and I think it would be a good unit to use when the temp goes below freezing here.
 
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When I lived upstairs over my mom in NH, there was a gas fired kitchen stove that also had a furnace function.
The living room also had a gas furnace. They heated nicely but I reacted to gas so I had the LR one taken out.
Then I decided not to use the kitchen one either, so I was only using a quartz column heater and an electric oil filled radiator for heat.
Some mornings I remember it being 50*F in the kitchen. But we made do without burning gas furnaces.
My dad was a foreman for a gas company for 33 years, and gas served us well for many years until I realized I felt better if I'm not around gas.
They take oxygen from the air and I don't do well with things that take oxygen from the room air.
 
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It will not heat the house anymore !
if it can't meet 65 degrees turning it up does nothing it will just continue to run because it can't meet the set point.
I turned the unit off and am going to try running a quartz heater and Pelonis disc furnace.
I think my heat pump was only pulling up 65* air from the crawl space and I don't want to wear it out prematurely..
 
Newer heat pumps work much better below freezing than the older units. I am actually doing some temperature testing with this cold snap to see what the heat rise is.

First test it was 30F outside - intake grill temp was ~68 degrees and output at a vent ~4' away was 95-96F.
Today at 13F outside - intake grill temp was ~68 degrees and output was 87-88F.

Going to hit a low of 8-9F tonight so will see how it does then but imagine it will still be putting out low 80's. Aux heat has not come on as of yet thankfully. With the performance at 13F I imagine single digits it will still perform just fine.

3 year old Lennox Merit unit (cheapest single speed version) with electric strip aux heat.
 
I might as well shut the unit off when it's below 32*F and run the quartz heater and Pelonis disc furnace.
It seems like the heat pump is really not making any heat and is just pulling up crawl space air that's around 65*F
Instead of off, I would set it to 55 or 60. Your other heaters will hopefully maintain a temp higher than that, but if not you will have some warmth kick in automatically.
 
"
Short answer: You should only set your heat pump’s thermostat to “emergency heat” when your heat pump stops heating altogether.

And in that case, you should also call a professional for help.

Otherwise, just keep your thermostat set on “heat.” There is no temperature to switch it over to emergency heat, even if your heat pump is running constantly due to cold weather."
Where did you see this?

"Emergency heat" is something of a misnomer. It's more like "backup heat" for when the heat pump can't keep up - some systems switch automatically, and others do not (yours sounds this way).

I'd assume you have thousands of watts of heat strips in the air handler, which would easily (but not cheaply) heat your home to the set point on cold days. I'd guess systems without any type of backup heat are less common, particularly as far north as Tennessee. Those heat strips are the same efficiency as space heaters (100%) but not cheap to run.

I know of installs here in the midwest with a heat pump and gas furnace. The system can (if designed/newer) switch automatically to the gas furnace at a certain outside temp, or the user can lock in the gas furnace/lock out the heat pump entirely by selecting "Emergency heat" on the thermostat.

That thermostat setting will run the backup system (heat strips, if electric, or gas/oil furnace) exclusively, rather than letting the system decide (if newer/smarter) or letting the heat pump run and lose steam (as yours is doing).
 
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