new house, new maintenace questions

[Anonymous]

this is hilarious how quickly the thread degenerated. Please post pics of the fighting posters including OP, I think you two are hot

[Anonymous]

We have a heat pump. We have found an HVAC company we like who comes out twice a year, once in the early fall and once in the early summer, in order to do a twice a year maintenance inspection. What they do is they clean out anything that needs to be cleaned, test it, and add more freon to the outdoor a/c units if needed. This way you keep on top of maintenance and if problems arise they can be dealt with ASAP. Our heat pumps are really old, so we want to make sure we're on top of maintenance. I have never done anything cleaning wise to the heat pumps besides changing the filter every 3 months. You may want to schedule the HVAC tech for a fall maintenance check and ask about the thing you've noticed inside the heat pump.

I will say that heat pumps put out far inferior heat than furnaces. We were warned about this before we bought a house with a heat pump instead of a furnace. The a/c with a heat pump is perfectly fine, but the heat is terrible. We are cold all winter long unless we crank it up and then our heating bills are ridiculously high.

As for the outdoor faucets, one of ours has a shut off valve inside the house and the other does not. Doesn't seem to make a difference in terms of function. But we bought "faucet bibs" or something like that (forget the name), it's like an insulated sock that goes over the outdoor faucets to keep them from freezing in the winter. I think we got ours at Plow and Hearth. You're also supposed to empty out the faucets of water when you're done watering plants for the season, in order that water doesn't expand and cause problems in the faucet when it's freezing outside. If you need more help with locating your faucet valves I would bring in a handyman or plumber for a consult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will say that heat pumps put out far inferior heat than furnaces. We were warned about this before we bought a house with a heat pump instead of a furnace. The a/c with a heat pump is perfectly fine, but the heat is terrible. We are cold all winter long unless we crank it up and then our heating bills are ridiculously high.

Ditto. While I have always had a furnace, before we married, my wife's townhouse had a heat pump. Even in a 2 story townhouse, we had a problem that the house (especially the first floor) never got warm unless we pumped it up to a level where the electrical bill was astronomical. We used space heaters to augment the heat pump in some rooms (way cheaper), but my wife doesn't like to sleep with one on, even on a heat protected surface, so it was just cold at night.

I would suggest looking for whatever alternative heat sources you are comfortable with to augment your heat in the winter. Space heaters and electric blankets work, if you are okay with sleeping with them. We have a room humidifier that puts out warm, moist air...it also helps add a little heat to the room, especially if we leave it running all day (it has two large tanks that we have to refill about every 3 days). Also, if you have a desktop computer and leave it on constantly, think about putting your computer in the bedroom. It puts out a small amount of heat over a prolonged period of time and will add that to your bedroom. We find our office (which has both of our computers, plus two printers) to be the warmest bedroom in the house.