The son in law and myself installed it a few days before Christmas. The semi open concept with large doorway passages would help I knew. As size increases the efficiency goes down. So I chose a ton and a half unit. A ton one was definatly too small.

It also was a high efficiency type. All this really is primarily. It is designed to put out the rated output and a little more at about 0F degrees. Or -15C. At any higher temperature Progressivly more than the rated amount up to about double the rated output is achieved.

Well the good, bad and the ugly. We installed it on the end of the family room. The heat blows along the ceiling for about 25 or so feet. Then the ceiling of the eating area is a step up of about 3 feet. From there it continues to blow through the remainder of the kitchen. Then through a portal into the dinning room. We had to increase the temperature to that of a very light tropical breeze. To feel comforatable. This is about 6 to seven degrees higher than we ran the furnace at. Simply because these are the primary areas we almost constantly live in when home.

The circulation flow is quite noticeable. The bedrooms on the upper floor seem to be only a couple of degrees cooler or at worse about the same temperature the furnace produced in them. I think the heat flow is heating the gyprock and the open area between the floor joists is supplying that heat to those bedrooms and a washroom up there. The percentage I will have to test by shutting a bedroom or bathroom door soon enough. There is no noticeable air flow in those rooms or the central hallway. Although there has to be some in the central hallway. Neither are noticeable.

The basement temperature has really fallen as there is no loss from all the ductwork or the furnace itself down there. My expectaions are for it to settle at about 50 to 55F degrees.

I both know this house very well as we built it. Plus had certain expectations. I originally thought a unit in the end of the living room would give that room a boost and flow heat upstairs. The living room is so close to livable tempertures it is not funny. Yet I will put a very small unit in there. Two facts hit me like a brick wall. The original furnace has to be very inneficient in reality. Plus this house insulation is better than I expected. I over insulated it a little when we built it but did not expect this.

The son in law mentioned that he thought eighty dollars a month would heat it through the worse winter months up here in Canada. I slapped a clamp meter on a power feeder and he is not far off on his guess. As long as the system is kept cleaned to retain the initial efficiency periodically. Right now of course being new it is both clean and at it's best. We never developed the two stepped basements into any really special uses. The place is a five bedroom side split into a hill to the west. So we are now living in a 77f degree light breeze in the primary living areas. This brand of air to air heat pump has the lowest head unit fan noise. You do not notice it is there unless you turn the unit off.

I had originally considered a 2 ton unit. Other than they are much less efficient to run cost wise. And they might get to the point of turning off. This you do not want. The unit should run continuously from the seasonal start up until the end of the heating system.

Or the intermittent circulation flow would cause real distribution problems. They automatically increase and decrease their outside compressor speed to meet demand. You never want one that has to shut off to meet low demand. It has to have a lowest output needed to meet a very small demand.

Today it is drawing 600 watts or .6 kilowatt as it is reasonabley warm today for this time of the year. The coldest since installation has been 0F. It was not working hard and the house temperatures where the same as today. I did not measure the electrical draw that night. I will all too soon at similar temperatures.

To get all parts and labor covered totally for ten years cost between 4-500.00. Even though we can do the labor ourselves. The price of the parts are so punitive. I never normally buy extended warranties. You will lose usually by doing that.

I though the son in law would get through his refrigeration apprenticeship before the replacement cycle really got going. When he quotes labor and parts costs on service calls. Also because of the increased efficiency as well. Many just ask him to replace the unit. To further increase their profit margin. The firm he works for is trying to buy a forty foot container of them from the orient.

He showed up with the stand up Mercedes type van he uses. With my equipment it takes me about a day to do a total installation. With theirs it is a walk in the park. I did the electrical and he the mechanical. Perhaps two hours work if he had not had to leave for awhile. I asked him just how much work are you doing in a day like yesterday for your employer. He said a two head heat pump installation . A service call. Two gas appliance hookups. This usually means running the pipes from the suppliers drop point as gas is fairly new here.

They have a sub contractor drilling all kinds of holes in an old cut stone railway station. Being converted to a restaurant. So he also went to check on that they were getting it right.

The main difference I see, now that we have a heat pump, is that the air from the vents no longer feels warm. But when I check the thermostat it reads a steady 70 degrees F so I guess it is OK.

I am used to always using gas as a primary heat source due to the economy but here electricity is so inexpensive people use heat pumps instead. But I should mention there is no Natural gas here-only propane so that cancels out some of the advantage. Our home was built with propane so it is integrated into the home and not added on and the tank is underground so it is not unsightly. There are 2 gas fireplaces we use primarily to heat the home but I miss central HVAC due to the even heating of all the rooms and mostly the air filtering of the forced air. It gets dusty and there is no means to filter the air. I have thought of adding central gas heat. I should mention most homes here don't have air conditioning so no central HVAC.

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Tony H
W111 280SE 3.5 Coupe
Manual transmission

Past cars:
Porsche 914 2.0
'64 Jaguar XKE Roadster
'57 Oval Window VW
'71 Toyota Hilux Pickup Truck-Dad bought new
'73 Toyota Celica GT

This is pretty much the same effect. I raised the temperature about 6 degrees to compensate as mentioned. I am going to try increasing the humidity and that may allow reducing the set temperature.

The light breeze in our case is constant and present in the primary living areas. This unit has five fan speeds and I have it on the second highest. As I experiment with this we might be able to lower it. Primary issue right now is to get the humidity up some. That should help.

This getting older is different. I pulled a drum humidifier out of storage. The 50 or so inch wick belt needs replacing. It is 4 inches wide approximately. A piece of open foam. I just casually thought a 5 to 10.00 part. Forty dollars plus shipping. Not a big deal but it does make you wonder. Where prices are going.

Adding my experience on a central system in central Texas.

My house has a central heat-pump and the cost reduction from it is pretty amazing. The old system was a 5-ton Ruud R22 A/C with electric resistance heat. The original rating was 21KW of electric heat and the first winter I lived in this house I could literally hear my electric meter screaming in agony every time it ran. Average electric bill ran me ~$450-500/mo with the thermostat set at 65˚ and a cold house.

The following spring I had loose fill insulation blown in the attic to a depth of 18". That winter I was comfortable with disabling 1/3 of the heat strips and had an average electric bill ~$250 with the thermostat set at 68˚. House was more comfortable, but if I turned the thermostat up, the electric bill went up with it.

Third year I lived here the compressor died on the old unit, it made it 21 years, so a hell of a lifetime in Texas. The new unit that went in was a matched 3 ton ComfortMaker 15 SEER heatpump unit. Despite being a smaller capacity, both pieces of equipment are *HUGE* compared to the old 5 ton that was pulled out.

Since the new unit went in, the electric bill has plummeted. Summers, I average somewhere around $90-100/mo, winters I average anywhere from $75-120/mo depending on how cold it is. We typically see overnight temps around 20F and I keep the house set to 68F. The house was built in 1959 and still has all the original doors and windows, and likely very poor insulation in the walls, but with the heatpump and the attic insulation, it stays very comfortable year-round. Gas is not run to this part of the neighborhood since it was built during the "Atomic era" and everything was new, clean, and electric.

Couple tips to minimize the electric bill with a heat pump:
1: Hose out the condenser coils twice a year. Spring and fall. You'd be surprised how much dirt collects and how much it impacts how the unit runs. Dirt buildup in the winter results in premature frost accumulation on the coil and will trip the unit into defrost way too often (defrost turns on the electric heat strips until the cycle is complete).

2: Leave the temperature setting on the thermostat constant. Don't fall into the trap of turning the temperature up/down at night or when you leave the house. With the heat pump, you'll blow all of your savings by heating or cooling the house back to the changed setpoint. Remember, you're not heating the air only, you're also heating the walls, floors, furniture, and any other mass in the house.

3: Run a thick (2-4") MERV-8 or higher filter. If the unit is sized properly, it should run a fair amount of time. The thick high-filtration filter will cut down considerably on the dust in the house and will slow down the airflow through the system enough to blow fairly warm air in the winter. Once the coil warms up, mine blows ~110-120˚ out of the farthest vent when 32F outside.

4: Use a digital thermostat and set the auxiliary heat delay to 4˚ instead of the default 2˚. It will make the system wait significantly longer to turn on the electric heat for a boost and will negate the electric heat coming on if you bump up the temperature in the house a degree or two.

The modern R410 systems are so much better at being heatpumps than the old R22 systems were. The limitation of them no longer working well below 40F are long gone.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

I looked to find a new humidifier of a decent size new. If still made they are hard to source. Adds stating holds 6 liters were all too common. Where the older ones hold about five gallons.

So I took our old one and basically rebuilt it. The light breeze now feels warmer. Even at a lower temperature.

I have hit my desired humidity point of 45 percent. It took about 5 gallons Canadian or 6 American. Possibly the rate of water introduced may fall as the house finishes coming up to the moisture content.

It surprised me just how low the humidity went initially. We did not have the typical nose bleeds etc. My mouth felt dry in the morning and the wife was coughing though. Both seem to have been eliminated.

I wanted to add that I do not think the change is just by a quick adaption to the change. Increasing the humidity was probably 90 percent of it. It is almost like I am siting on a sand beach now. With a pleasant warm sea breeze flowing around me.

Until opening my eyes and the reality occurs. It is going to snow here tonight and tomorrow.