Cold Climate Heat Pumps

S

Snagglefoot

Joined
Dec 31, 2017
Messages
15,341
Location
SE British Columbia, Canada
Anyone currently heating their house with a Cold Climate Heat pump? The current outside temp is 43 F. My 11 year old American Standard heat pump is running, sending air to through my High Velocity brand ducts. The outlet temp at the ducts is 77 F. The thermostat is set at 70 F. My unit will run as low as 27 F then automatically switches to my propane boiler feeding an air to air heat exchanger. My neighbour has a current model Cold Climate heat pump and it will run with an outside temp of 0 deg F. Let’s hear about yours.
 
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Here is a screen shot of a Cold Climate heat pump. These are a little mind boggling for those used to conventional heat pumps. Enjoy.

F789637E-4386-4933-BE15-E76D11EE6CE7.jpg
 
I have a Bosch IDS 2.0 system installed 2 years ago. It's supposed to supply heat down to -4F. I can't say if that is true because of my setup. I'm on Long Island in NY. The Bosch replaced my old York plain central air conditioning system. The AC was installed after house was built as a 1 zone setup with Tstat upstairs by bedrooms but my hot water baseboard heating is 3 zones, one with not great windows or insulation.

I do use the heating portion for upstairs down to about 40F outside. It also circulates warm/hot air then to rest of the house keeping that more even and comfortable. Around that temp I also put the HWBB on at about the same indoor temperature. That will come on and add warm from the radiators and the Bosch will help circulate that also.

Rebates on the system made it cheaper than replacing my old broken system with a new plain just central air system. Efficiency is much better, it's MUCH quieter and has multi speeds my old setup didn't. My overall electric bill is cheaper, my oil usage is less, my house is more comfortable year round. PSEG had it that you must have a furnace/boiler backup knowing limitations, not an issue sine I had it already. PSEG also reduced my electric rate as I now am listed as having electric heat. The rebates and incentives included a 60 month 0% financing. Really hard to pass up. I look at the heating as a bonus for me and a back up heat source if my boiler fails for some reason.
 
Snagglefoot said:
Here is a screen shot of a Cold Climate heat pump. These are a little mind boggling for those used to conventional heat pumps. Enjoy.

View attachment 181570
Click to expand...
This is really impressive.

I'm running a high-efficiency (96%) natural-gas furnace, and have thought for years about replacing our AC unit (installed in 2007) with a heat pump.

I had thought the heat pump would only help with heating during the knee seasons (October/November/early December, and March/April), but one of these Arctic units, good to -30°C, would almost suffice for a typical winter here.

I'm not sure I'd save money at this point, but as the Carbon Tax on natural gas increases, and if our electricity remains cheap, a heat pump might make sense.
 
The newer inverter-driven compressors in the "mini-split" style heat pumps operate differently than the useless heat pump technology that is STILL SOLD in the US today.

What they do differently is shut the evaporator (indoor) fan off during defrost cycle and therefore, don't distribute 50-55 degree air into the space (that is usually re-heated by an electric strip to 75-77 degrees).

They also heat the air up much more than the older heat pumps, discharging 95-102 degree air most days.

If you are barely getting 77 degree discharge air on a 43 degree day, you should either replace the antiquated system or adjust your controls to use propane at that time.
 
Snagglefoot said:
Anyone currently heating their house with a Cold Climate Heat pump? The current outside temp is 43 F. My 11 year old American Standard heat pump is running, sending air to through my High Velocity brand ducts. The outlet temp at the ducts is 77 F. The thermostat is set at 70 F. My unit will run as low as 27 F then automatically switches to my propane boiler feeding an air to air heat exchanger. My neighbour has a current model Cold Climate heat pump and it will run with an outside temp of 0 deg F. Let’s hear about yours.
Click to expand...
43F is considered cold in Canada?
 
Hillbilly Deluxe said:
The newer inverter-driven compressors in the "mini-split" style heat pumps operate differently than the useless heat pump technology that is STILL SOLD in the US today.

What they do differently is shut the evaporator (indoor) fan off during defrost cycle and therefore, don't distribute 50-55 degree air into the space (that is usually re-heated by an electric strip to 75-77 degrees).

They also heat the air up much more than the older heat pumps, discharging 95-102 degree air most days.

If you are barely getting 77 degree discharge air on a 43 degree day, you should either replace the antiquated system or adjust your controls to use propane at that time.
Click to expand...
I certainly can change the set point to bring the propane on at a higher outside temp but my power is so cheap ($.10 kwhr) and propane so expensive ( $2.50 US equivalent per gallon ), that I like it as is. Now, if I had natural gas available it would be a different story.
 
Number_35 said:
This is really impressive.

I'm running a high-efficiency (96%) natural-gas furnace, and have thought for years about replacing our AC unit (installed in 2007) with a heat pump.

I had thought the heat pump would only help with heating during the knee seasons (October/November/early December, and March/April), but one of these Arctic units, good to -30°C, would almost suffice for a typical winter here.

I'm not sure I'd save money at this point, but as the Carbon Tax on natural gas increases, and if our electricity remains cheap, a heat pump might make sense.
Click to expand...
If you want to replace the AC, you can get a heat pump and still use the natural gas as a backup. There is a $5,000 federal grant available from Canada Greener Homes. What folks do in Cranbrook is get the heat pump installed and the technician will set the crossover point at a temp that makes the most sense given the natural gas and electricity prices. You can even change the crossover temp if cyclical natural gas prices get high. Right now they are cheap. I, unfortunately, do not have access to natural gas in my mountainous rural setting.
 
Snagglefoot said:
There are more things in play such as the volume of air coming from then ducts and the BTU/hr rating of the heat pump. Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...

It's a 4-ton unit in a 3300 square foot house. The air handler is set for 4 ton airflow (ECM motor with dipswitch settings).

Which, by the way, is more than capable of keeping that same house at 68F when it's 15F outside, not using ANY aux heat (I have it wired through a switch which remains off). It's even cycling on and off at that temp, which tells me it would easily keep the house warmer than that, if I wanted it do.

How does it do this?

I have a very well insulated, air-sealed house.

One year it got to 5F here (very unusual) and it still kept the house at 60F, though it was running continuously. I still didn't turn on the aux heat.
 
I believe @OVERKILL had one put in this year.

traditionally near me propane is a BIG OUCH.. for heating.
you might make out quite well with a new heat pump that works in lower temps.

gallon of propane = .916 therms
my local cost last year during heating season was 3.30/gallon of propane and the equiv in natural gas was 33 cents.
that of course doesnt include the 40$ connection fee and a small distro fee and taxes.

IIRC when I did the math the heat pump was about double my cost vs natural gas so still extremely better than propane.
It works out if I could ditch the natural gas and the 500$ a year in connection fees the heat pump would be cheaper as my only gas appliance is furnace.
and I use it for 5-6 months out of the year but my natural gas consumption is quite low.
Even if I had to use backup electric heat a few weeks out of the year... ie that one week its -10f here.
My gas bill is over 2/3 connection fees and 1/3 gas consumption yearly.


There was alot of estimating due to the variance in efficiency due to temp etc. When I figured out how it would work for me.

Back on topic
The numbers are very positive vs propane.
 
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We installed three Mitsubishi H2i units to heat the main floor of our Vermont mountain home. They heat fine at sub zero temperatures, but when it goes below 0 we shut them down and go to our oil heat backup. As oil is now over $4 a gallon, we are saving when relying on the heat pumps. We generate no electricity on site, but we are on a time of day rate where the on peak is 1pm to 9 pm Monday through Friday, and all other hours are off peak.
 
I have a hybrid setup like the OP (there's a thread on it) it's a 2.5 ton Carrier, cuts over to my natural gas at around -5C. I've tried it at -10C and it seems to do OK, but I only got it early this year, so didn't have a lot of cold temps to test it with.

The heat pump effectively gives me three stages of heat:
26,000BTU (heat pump)
57,000BTU (gas, low)
115,000BTU (gas, high)
 
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