311–320 of 332 posts
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Sure, but you can get a whole home.humidifier for like $300 to mitigate that issue.
My parents installed a whole home humidifier a couple of years ago. It cost way more than $300 (closer to $2k installed—maybe they just got the wrong one?), and it also costs a lot to operate each month in additional electricity usage. Having a system that doesn't require one sounds much nicer.
What is going on? Is there a global push to get everyone to switch to heat pumps. It seems that there is heat pump content everywhere. Clearly there is a push. I understand that its for climate benefits but it feels very coordinated. edit: didn't realize the attention I would get. Let me add someone answered my question -- a good product market fit and people talking is probably where the push came from. That said HV…
topic of discussion: is anyone else concerned that all the new things being clearly pushed hard, regardless of reasons(good or bad), has the common theme of centralizing. In a world where if your heatpump stops working, you die from cold, it would be an awfully sad thing if social credit scores dictated a very low kilowatthour limit. Much more sad than a world where you obtain firewood from some local vendor
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He does, but he omits a lot of important considerations that make heat pumps impractical for normal Americans. If he touches on them, it's briefly - if at all, e.g.: - More expensive units, and more expensive to run power wise. It's always difficult to get adoption of new technology that's "better" but more expensive to buy & repair - to the point where RoI may never happen. - Power grid implications during very low/…
With a heat pump, you -need- an alternative source of heat - since some days when it's particularly cold Modern heat pumps redirect some heat to prevent the coils from freezing. What you wrote is common FUD pushed by the oil & gas companies. That said, you'd be a fool to live in an area with life-threateningly low temperatures and not have a backup heat source.
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Just to soften a few of your confident declarations. > normal Americans Please revise this phrase. America consists of many different climates and it's very unclear what you mean or why you chose the word "normal." > More expensive to run power wise You're comparing new gas HVAC vs new heat pump. However, don't forget about all the folks that are purchasing a heat pump to replace an existing gas unit! For example, my…
I put in a new Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat heat pump last summer. It got down to 17 Farenheit in Seattle this winter. There are no heat strips or supplementary heating arrangements. The heat pump performed well the entire winter. My energy bills are 1/2 of what I was paying with an electric furnace last year.
In Seattle are highest usage months for electrical is in the winter, right when you will be maxing out that 50A breaker you had to install in order power that beast; check the notes from Mitsubishi, they are clear that it is not an efficient device in the range you suggest ( and seeing how in Seattle most homes are still at 100A service you must either be living in a newer home or one with an upgraded service ).
You realize that Seattle is now an importer of electricity and is no longer running surplus?
Or how about that the city has been using an unsustainable amount of water? ( i.e. where our power comes from ) Or that our electrical come at the expense of Salmon and the endangered Orca pod that lives in the Sound?
If you replaced your "furnace", which implies a central HVAC system, with a Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat, which I believe is only installed as a mini-split, what are you doing about your air quality?
The Seattle area suffers from "inversions" through out the year; a mini-split does nothing for air quality issues. The smoke that we dealt with in the fall? That wasn't even the worst air quality issue we have had in the last decade.
I am sure your electrical bills are 1/2 of what you were paying for an electric furnace, but unless you are abandoning the use of your heat pump for providing cooling your overall energy yearly costs are unlikely to go down.
I don't know situation, I don't know what options you had when you installed your unit, and I have not listed all of the good and bad that come with the unit that you installed.
There has been a lot of "mini-splits will save the environments" coming out of our City Council; there have been zero reports presented that back up those statements. The local heating and cooling people are happy to install units which have a higher markup/generate more work for them.
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With a heat pump, you -need- an alternative source of heat - since some days when it's particularly cold Modern heat pumps redirect some heat to prevent the coils from freezing. What you wrote is common FUD pushed by the oil & gas companies. That said, you'd be a fool to live in an area with life-threateningly low temperatures and not have a backup heat source.
"Redirect some heat" from where? In the installs I've seen they did it from inside the house i.e. literally cooled the house down. The alternative heat is needed to keep the inside temperature up and work against the pump cooling your house down when it's already cold. Do you have some other alternative source of heat on the modern heat pumps?
What part of redirect is confusing?
In the installs I've seen they did it from inside the house i.e. literally cooled the house down.
Cooled the house down, or simply warmed it less than would be possible otherwise, assuming that magic prevented freezing of the coils?
I'll take a reduction in efficiency over a complete lack of function.
Looks like the HN posting crashed the site.
The site is pretty new, I am the webmaster, maybe I should analyze the log and choose better hosting. I am sorry about the inconvenience!
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"Redirect some heat" from where? In the installs I've seen they did it from inside the house i.e. literally cooled the house down. The alternative heat is needed to keep the inside temperature up and work against the pump cooling your house down when it's already cold. Do you have some other alternative source of heat on the modern heat pumps?
"Redirect some heat" from where? What part of redirect is confusing? In the installs I've seen they did it from inside the house i.e. literally cooled the house down. Cooled the house down, or simply warmed it less than would be possible otherwise, assuming that magic prevented freezing of the coils? I'll take a reduction in efficiency over a complete lack of function.
Your whole argument is. Heat pumps need a secondary heat source because at the temperatures around 0C they accumulate ice on the heat exchanger outside. To melt the ice they reverse the energy flow so they cool the house and heat that heat exchanger. You asserted that it's just FUD and they can "redirect some heat" instead. This implies they don't cool inside and instead redirect heat from elsewhere (second outside heat exchanger perhaps?).
But it appears there is no second heat exchanger outside and the modern heat pumps work just like heat pumps from couple years ago.
As for keeping the functionality - it's a philosophical question. For me personally, if I turned on the heater because it's cold inside and it started blasting cold air, I'd call the repair people immediately. While it still works in the sense that it makes noise and consumes energy, it stopped performing its function of heating so I'd consider it lost the functionality I am interested in the most.
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I put in a new Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat heat pump last summer. It got down to 17 Farenheit in Seattle this winter. There are no heat strips or supplementary heating arrangements. The heat pump performed well the entire winter. My energy bills are 1/2 of what I was paying with an electric furnace last year.
I too live in Seattle and have friends who bought a heat pump; they ended up in a hotel room and until they could had a HVAC company come to their home and install a backup heat source. In Seattle are highest usage months for electrical is in the winter, right when you will be maxing out that 50A breaker you had to install in order power that beast; check the notes from Mitsubishi, they are clear that it is not an ef…
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> they can run in reverse and cool your home, and are much more efficient at that than traditional ACs. I'd love to see a source on that. There is very little technological difference between an air conditioner and a heat pump aside from refrigerant reversing valves that allow changing which end is the condenser and which the evaporator.
A heat pump is an air conditioner that can run in reverse. Put another way, an air conditioner is a marketing term for a specific kind of heat pump. Your correct that there is no inherit efficiency different. Perhaps what was meant is that they are much more efficient than traditional resistance heating?