Heat Pumps

Here's my $0.02:

I can't give technical information but I can comment on comfort issues. I've lived in several condos in northern Virginia that have had heat pumps, including my current home (1BR condo, 711 square feet, interior unit on the second floor of a 3-floor building). Everything is electric where I live (cooking, heat, etc.). My electric bills in summer are less than $50 per month. In winter they exceed $150. The A/C keeps me perfectly comfortable in the summer but I am never warm enough in the winter.

In contrast, my parents live on Long Island and have a furnace that runs on oil heat. Their house is too hot for me.

So in addition to considering the cost factor, you should also consider how well the heat pump will work to keep you comfortable. Right now I deal with my situation by wearing lots of sweaters and fleece pullovers and heavy slippers, and I keep several throws in the living room to keep me warm while I'm watching TV. In the last condo I lived in (a top-floor exterior unit) I had space heaters in the bathroom and bedroom to augment the heat pump.

I'm not saying a heat pump won't make you happy, just that cost is not the only thing that might change if you make the switch.

 

I need to correct myself. I just looked at the datasheets of my electric heating coils. They are 2x5kw.
But nonetheless, here are the ratings:
http://www.climatemaster.com/share/Res_All_Products_CLM/Section_3_TT27.pdf Page 36
10kW electric resistance heating provides ca. 34000 btuh

Page 15 (036 = 3ton unit)
water in a vertical closed loop system normally comes in at around 40 degrees (EWT) the heat extraction is ca. 25000 btuh while it's using 2.4kW of electrical energy to move the heat.

So the heat pump uses 35% of the energy that a electric resistance heating system uses to output the same btuh.

Now it depends on how expensive your electricity is to find the break even point. For me I did the calculations against $0.70/therm of natural gas and it was about 10 years until the closed loop heat pump would break even with a natural gas furnace installation. I did not want to utilize electric resistance heating at all.

Also, I'm planning to stay in this house until my kids are in their own houses (another 15-20 years) and have therefore a long term interest in cheap, alternative heating solutions.
The 2nd thought on my choice to go with a closed loop heat pump is the future usage of cheap photo voltaic. I'm just waiting for the solar cells to drop to 1$/W and I pretty much can heat my house in the winter and cool in the summer mostly from the sun once I drop around $8000 into a 5kW photo voltaic on-grid installation

Thomas

 

I hate to disappoint you, but whether Canada exports electricity, natural gas, or oil, the Canadian consumer *always* pays more for the commodity than the typical American consumer.

There are a few exceptions. For now, Manitoba has about the cheapest power rates in Canada. Manitoba Hydro also offers various loan and grant initiatives

Geothermal Heat Pumps - Earth Power Program

I wish I had gone with geothermal for my hobby farm. At this point it wouldn't pay to switch over. I have a neighbor about 5km from my hobby farm that did go with geothermal. He has a 5 ton system so needed 5 wells drilled, around 100 ft deep.

Each well is a closed system, the HDPE piping has a loop coupler at the bottom, so after the well is drilled they stick in the two pipes until they bottom out. You still have to use a "safe" antifreeze, in case a pipe or joint fails you will be pumping antifreeze into the aquifer

I was watching when they were putting the system in, it was a hell of a mess but that was eventually cleaned up. He has a forced air system in a 25 year old house, replacing an oil furnace. Never had A/C up to that point

So now he has A/C in summer and heat in winter, with an average yearly electric bill of $800. In summer, he has a separate heat exchanger to heat the domestic hot water, this is known as a "desuperheater."

It's really important to bury *and* insulate the coolant transfer piping between the wells and the house. A lot of crappy installations were done with piping only 3-4 ft below grade, which was really dumb as the frost level here is that deep in winter. Very poor performance

With a heat pump, you have to consider that the discharge air from the air handler is nowhere near as hot as it would be off a natural gas furnace or oil furnace. Usually the discharge air is under 110 F. So to most folks, when the system is running it feels "cool" in the house

Here are some general tips and hints for anybody considering a heat pump retrofit:

1. Address any insulation and/or draft issue with the house first! You're wasting your time and money if the windows are drafty +20 year old units, huge gaps around the doors, and only R38 in the roof

2. The ductwork *must* be sealed AND insulated! DOE studies have proven that just by doing that, the need for supplemental electric resistance heat is greatly reduced or eliminated

3. You MUST have a supplemental electric resistance heater in the unit. For a typical modern well sealed and well insulated home, that means around 12-15 kw. If the heat pump should ever have a malfunction and lockout while you are away, the pipes would freeze unless you had the backup

4. For a forced air system, the evaporator coil is actually used for both heat and cool. Its performance is drastically reduced if the coil is plugged with dirt, cathair, and other stuff. Consider an electronic air cleaner upstream of the coil

Actually, if Manitoba Hydro doubled their incentives, I would probably switch to a heat pump myself. Properly sized and installed, they actually do work very well

 

I've read about this, and to a certain extent, I think it's psychological. But psychological or not, if it doesn't feel right to you, that's no good.

(Although I have to agree that space heaters will have worse heat distribution than a forced air furnace.)

The heat from a forced air combustion furnace feels hotter, especially if you are in the line of hot air flow. Whereas electric heat tends to be gentler. (??) I can't recall the explanation for this.


At this point in my life I'm willing to make some sacrifices, and it somewhat uneven heat, sweaters and extra blankets are the price of saving $1-2k in heating costs this winter, then so be it.

 

Two things:

1) Condo and apartment complexes are notorious for installing undersized CH&A systems and minimum standard construction quality for building energy efficiency . . . minimums for insulation, windows, doors, etc. Many owner/builders of complexes, especially the larger ones, really don't care if it cost the renter more to heat and cool if it saves them hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs.

2) Your parents house was undoubtedly built to higher standards, complete with a properly sized heat and air unit. AND . . . older people usually like their homes much warmer than younger folk. If it were too hot for them, they could turn down the thermostat.

So . . . If you are trying to compare your experience with heat pumps with your parents oil heater - it's apples and oranges.

 

I've been reading about Bio-Diesel (BD). Apparently it can be used in an oil furnace, although some people slowly adjust from 2% BD to 100% BD to avoid sludge/varnish issues.

I understand you used to be able to make it for 50 cents a gallon a few years ago. Perhaps thats a bit higher now, as some chemicals might be more expensive and some restaurants are now being paid for their grease, up to $0.80 per gallon of old grease in Nevada, $1.40 in California, and as low at 5-10 cents or free elsewhere.

All these prices make no allowance for your own labor or depreciation on the perhaps $1000 in equipment you might need. I read one description of only taking about 2.5 hours for a batch, where a batch might be 10-100 gallons. But also read something that indicated it could take longer, but perhaps thats waiting time.

In 2005 in US at least, you are allowed to self brew up to 400 gallons with no worries about taxes. Heck, I'm starting to think of some sort of local Bio-Diesel co-op...

BD is renewable and less polluting than petro-diesel.

Commercial Bio-Diesel tends to be more expensive than Petro-Diesel now, due to large use of vegatable oil, which also competes with food demand.


I'm sure there are caveats but Bio-Diesel seems suddenly very interesting. I might consider a used Jetta TDI, in addition to use in the oil furnace.


....

 

Where is the oil tank located? If it's outside, do *not* attempt any sort of BD mix. At the winter temps you experience, it will gel up and you won't have heat

If the fuel tank is in the basement, no problem. Remember that fuel oil - diesel - blended for home heat has a lot of anti-ice and anti-gel additives

 

In an insulated garage, adjacent to an inside wall. Never goes below zero, even when -35 out, although other end of garage can freeze up. Will lightly heat this winter.

Anyway, I'm not so excited about Bio-Diesel any more. For home heating only, I think I might save $500 over the winter, versus electric heat.

Interesting option, but not worth the work at current prices, IMO.