Reply to (cold weather) Heat pump installers

Forum Index » Home Improvement, Design, and Decorating

Reply to "(cold weather) Heat pump installers"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My experience in Arlington with a major brand top-of-the-line high-efficiency heat pump which is about 8 years old is that it works very well UNTIL outside temps are roughly 25 F or below.  Around that outside temperature it starts to use very expensive “electric resistance” heat (which is its backup heating element).

So I do not blame the installer for being reluctant.  Many people who move to a heat pump solution become angry/upset with the company which installed it after their winter heating bill soars on very cold days.  HVAC Companies try to protect themselves by recommending solutions without that hidden cost, and I do not blame them one bit.  My neighbor had exactly that poor behavior the first winter after he replaced gas furnace with a heat pump.  He had been cautioned against it.[/quote]

There are heat pumps now that can work at very low temps. [b]They need to be properly sized, and it becomes a little complicated in the DMV climate because you need the heat pump for heating and cooling. Most houses that are not built to current code are going to have a higher heating load than cooling load. So if you only have a heat pump you need to get a big one, that will be oversized for cooling which makes it inefficient in the summer and can cause humidity issues.[/b][/quote]

It would be interesting to hear from OP on how it went. All of the PR for cold weather heat pumps focuses on heating efficiency in cold weather climates, not the hot humid climate that is DC in the summer.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics