(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

Home heat pump

S

sandel

Member
Acknowledge this is far from tractor topic but---building new home and intend to install 95% efficient propane gas forced air furnace. HVAC contractor proposes (for $600) adding an auxillary heat pump which he says will provide heat at a lesser cost than the propane furnace as long as the outside air temp is above 39 degrees. Below that the propane furnace kicks in.

Any insight or experience with this arrangement? Thanks.
 
A friend in the heating and air business always said a propane backed heat pump was the most cost effective way to heat a home, but that was in SW Missouri I'm sure it may be different in other locations.
 
There are tons of heat pumps in this area (PEI Canada) and most people seem to be happy with them. On average they are claiming to cost @$100/month in power per unit (not sure the size) in cold freezing winter months. Many here use them as a sole heat source in spring and fall and use mainly wood during the cold months.
 

It sounds like that would be a air source heat pump which works best in warmer weather, for heating. You might ask him to quote a water source heat pump without the propane furnace. The water source heat pump works with 50 degree (+/-) water year around regardless of the outdoor temperature. This works in the winter and in the summer for air conditioning.

I do not have a heat pump but I have a friend who put in a ground source about 10 years ago and loves it.
 
Ask my boy and he'll tell you high efficiency NG in his new house is many times cheaper than his other house that he installed a new Trane Hp at a cost of $7800. Older house was total electric.

His new house is more than two and half times bigger. Total NG.

You'll never sell him a HP again.
 
If you have the bucks the ground source (water from underground wells) is most efficient way to go. Propane and heat pump should be good. Like he says it will heat house if air temp is in the 30's or above and should cool house in summer. Friend of mine had a heat pump backed up by electric and that wasn't at all good.
 
Pencil out what a BTU of heat cost you from propane and compare that to what it will cost from the heat pump. Your contractor should be able to tell you how many BTU the heat pump will produce per KwHr of electricity at 45F outside temperature. If the heat pump is only $600 extra, I suspect it will pay off quickly.

Is this a a heat pump/ air conditioner that costs $600 more than a straight air conditioner? If yes, check the SEER efficiency rating of both units.
 
For me a air source heat pump is made for the south.
I have a electric backed heat pump and love it.
But then again it seldom gets cold enough for the electric backup coils to come on.

If you live where it gets cold you will be heating with propane all winter and only using the heat pump in the summer.
Not worth the extra cost in my mind.

Either price a water source heat pump or just go conventional unit.

It might help if you told us what state you live in.
 
My buddy that does heating and cooling says that while it may be hard to stop a Trane, (their slogan at one time), he always asks if I've ever tried to start one?
 
My in laws have that exact set up, an Amana I believe. They have had it for 4 years with no problems. It works very well, and the efficiency of heat pumps is getting better and better. Seems as is my heating and cooling buddy said they make some that will heat at down to 15 or 20 degrees F.
 
I live in west Ky ,I have a propane back up heat pump works great for us.I switch to auxilary heat when it get down to 20 to 22 degrees,it does a good job.I have had it that way for 25 years.I have a500 gallon tank. I 'be switched to auxiliary 2 day this winter, used about. 35% so far this year. We have been well pleased with it. About 70% of a tank is the most I have ever used in a season.
 
I'm in Lebanon Missouri and I can say that between insulation, sealing old window and storm windows,replacing 2 doors and installing an air source hp with propane backup, I've gone from 800 gallons of propane the first year (96) to 200 gallons this year. Now I realize all winters are not equal but on average I'd say I only use a third of what I used to. Factor in the electricity and I'm only at about 40 percent of the cost I started with.
 
It will work well and he's giving you a real good deal on it. I would have it set to switch over at 45 degrees.
 
Simply not true about using propane all winter. Our air source heat pump works down to 15-20 degrees, and then the backup takes over automatically. We have propane and electric plenum heater as backup, and use either one, depending on kwh/gas cost. This winter, propane is cheaper here than elec. In summer, the heat pump provides air conditioning.
 
Do yourself a favor and "invest" in insulation, it will pay you back the rest of the time you live in the house in $$$ and comfort. At least around R 19 in the walls, R 35-40 in the ceiling. Put a 6 mil poly vapor barrier up over the insulation. . And if a contractor does it make sure they do a good job with no gaps. It's worth it.
 
That's a fair deal for the heat pump add on. And that 39 degree switch over is about right. Once that unit has to start doing a defrost on the outside coil there is wasted power doing it plus it is very hard on the coil itself. Think about it,going through a freeze thaw cycle a few times per day is alot of uneeded expansion and contraction. If you were someplace with a milder climate like in the south it would be the way to fly. Look around and find a chart to compare propane vs electrical rates. There may be some yaers that the heat pump sits in the warmer times just because propane is cheaper.
 
You don't say what part of the country you're in, and that's fairly important. But my stepson has that setup here in SE Michigan and has been happy with it. Look at it this way: You're getting central air for 600 bucks, which is a decent enough deal even if it doesn't save you anything on heating costs.
 
Here is my 2 cents. I live just south of Washington D.C.. I finished a new house in 2014 for heat it has a geothermal unit which is a heat pump with one 250 foot well for every ton of capacity. As far as working it is fine down to about zero with the electric back-up coming on very seldom. However when shopping for I discovered that the Feds offer a discount for older homes that are converted to geothermal units. The contractors conveniently forget the conversion requirement and push these systems with the discount amount added to the price. In a new house a system should cost the amount of a forced air system plus about $1000 for each well. Remember it is for conversions only so be careful what you pay for. Another thing I am discovering this winter with the storms coming through. The high winds knock out the power which normally no big deal except these units have computers in them that are susceptible to power surges and that brings you heat down and MAY cost a whole control system. I just finished getting this fixed. The last storm took out the power for a while and the heat was down even after the power came back. Turned out to be a connector. A CONNECTOR--under designed and over driven couldn't handle a power surge. So now
I have to get a whole surge protector.
And my power bill is twice the bill in town.
Be careful what you buy!
 
Yes, location plays a huge role in the effectiveness of a heat pump, so check your local data. Ask contractor for customers with that unit from three years ago for reference.

Another drawback to the ground source heat pump is the amount of replacement power needed during outages, causes you to go to a bigger backup generator to power the well pumps and the compressor simultaneously.
 
Just another thought about the 94% furnace ask the guy how much money a new inducer motor is for that unit. A 92% unit is only a few pionnts less but the unit price vs prices if replacement​ parts could erase any energy savings​ very quickly. An inducer motor for a high end carrier unit can run 5-600 for the motor alone no mark up no labor. A 92 will most likely have a single speed motor vs a variable speed in the 94. Lots of cost difference there for only a couple of percentage. Fwiw.
 
I've had mine for 21 yrs. it acts as A/C also, works really good down to 40 degrees, I wouldn't be without one. if the 600 unit is also A/C that's great price. mine was 1000 21 yrs. ago.
 
(quoted from post at 03:54:35 03/22/17)
Another drawback to the ground source heat pump is the amount of replacement power needed during outages, causes you to go to a bigger backup generator to power the well pumps and the compressor simultaneously.
Click to expand...
My 2 loop pumps only draw about 1 amp each for a 1200' horizontal loop. After the unit w/the compressor starts up (has soft start) the whole system only pulls about 30-35 amps total. It's a 4-ton Water Furnace system and cost about $22,000 installed before tax write-offs and state grant. The loop temperature varies from ~ 65° in October down to about 40° in April.

A vertical loop is more efficient but costs much more to dig/install and that offsets the energy gains.

Neighbor has a conventional heat-pump w/propane backup and it's a good system too.
 
I'd rather put the $600 into insulation, better doors, windows, etc. I am in North East Texas and had a heat pump for about 17 years, I wasn't impressed.
 
It is easy to spend other peoples money,BUT if you were putting AC in anyway,you are foolish not to put a HP unit in instead.We and a lot of others have far more service calls on 94-95+ Gas furnaces then HPs and sure help keeping warm until a service man shows up.WE have 5 HPs in 3 houses(5 to 22 yrs.old) and have never had a service call on one yet.(A couple capacitors is all)They are all backed up with oil or Gas units.
 
If considering one it would be a window unit for me. Problem I have with that is the added cost considering the replacement cycle of window AC units usually due to corrosion of the condenser and evaporator coils. I don't know if whole house "central" units do any better as they have coils just like window units and cost one heck of a lot more money plus installation costs that window units don't.
 
I built a new house in 2008 with a super high efficency system Heat pump with propane boost below 35F (which can be adjusted). When it works the system is great, but when it fails, it is a nightmare to fix. To get that last 3% efficiency they have to add lots of computers and gadgets in the system. Something is often broken and only a few technicians are trained to work on it. Parts are really expensive.

If doing it over, I would do what rrc300u suggested below. Go to a slightly less efficient system, lower cost less maintenance.

Heat pump with propane (gas) supplement, great combo. Super high efficiency..not so great.

My system is York...never again. I hear that Carrier is only slightly better.
 
Just a thought. Maybe the reliability of these units has improved over the last 9 years. Love the system, just wish it was more reliable.
 
I am 8 years into a TRANE brand set up as you are looking at. Mine makes the switch at 32 deg. Electricity is fairly cheap here in Tennessee and propane around $ 1.19 to $1.34. I have nothing but praise for mine and heating cost are very low. Here we have a few nights a year under 30 but lots of 30 to 60 so the heat pump works. I have had zero trouble and no service calls. Mine is higher dollar unit that is supposed to be more efficient and as it starts comes on in stages, I am sure it is computer controlled but as I said no problems. My brother has about the same thing but when it comes on the doors jar as the fan starts but my fan and unit comes on really gradually. So far 130 gall of propane is all we have ever used any winter.
 
I would agree, where NG is available for heating it is usually much lower cost than propane, oil, electric or a HP. The tricky part is having NG available at the building site.
 
After reading all this I'm sure glad I still have my old stoker that was converted to oil I don't know when( I've been here 35 yrs bought it from adopted folks estate was oil all the years they were here) all I do is fill the tank, change oil filter every couple years, clean nozzles every4 or five years. 675 gallons lasts 18 months been very happy especially when pricing new.
 
+1 on insulation. We built a superinsulated house. Friend who owns a large HVAC company (only commercial) wanted to do the install in our place. He really liked a heat pump/propane backup setup. After looking at it all, went with a propane-only / high-efficiency unit with AC add-on. Have been real happy with it. We keep it warm and we're using only 55-60% of the propane that a home this size usually uses. After 10 yrs, our propane company couldn't tweak its auto-order/auto-fill system to reflect what we actually use, so 2 yrs ago we went to a larger tank and get one fill/yr, in the summer when it's cheaper. As for AC, we use it so little - because the house stays so cool on its own - that it doesn't make any noticeable difference in the summer-vs-winter electric bills.

Why didn't we get a heat pump? Longevity & cost. From the specs that we had available back then, heat pump life was (understandably) just over half that of an AC unit. And, if we had to have a propane backup anyway (since elec is pretty expensive), why not just go with propane all the way?

Has worked well for us so far. No mech problems, only one problem of any kind - during a big snowstorm, the plastic coax intake/exhaust got a snowdrift over it and iced up and the furnace wouldn't start since it wasn't getting inducer air. 20 minutes of a shop vac hose running into the intake tube thawed it.

All of this was possible due to the high-R insulation and careful gap/crack filling we did.
 
(quoted from post at 03:58:15 03/22/17) Acknowledge this is far from tractor topic but---building new home and intend to install 95% efficient propane gas forced air furnace. HVAC contractor proposes (for $600) adding an auxillary heat pump which he says will provide heat at a lesser cost than the propane furnace as long as the outside air temp is above 39 degrees. Below that the propane furnace kicks in.

Any insight or experience with this arrangement? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Here in Wisconsin I built a new house in 1997. The power company was pushing air-to-air heat pumps. I installed a Trane LP furnace with an air-to-air pump. The pump would kick in at 40F or higher. First, that Trane was the pits....it was so noisy starting up, and I couldn't get the dealer to fix it so I read Trane the riot act and a company rep come and replaced the noisy startup motor. (My wife said it is called Trane because they sound like a train.)

When spring comes and we get warmer temps the heat pump comes on....and it is a total waste of money.

No wonder the electric company was pushing heat pumps! That thing consumes lots of power with minimal heat. I would have been better off with a couple space heaters sitting around the house...even candles would have been better.

We finally have ended up with the heat pump set about 60F to keep the electric bill down a little. With cheap LP nowadays there is no reason for an air-to-air pump so I might just shut it off.

Thankfully, the Trane furnace died 2 years ago and we now have a Lennox LP furnace that is quiet and heats the house quickly. No, I have no stake in Lennox.

MY bro-in-law built a much larger house in Iowa and burried a grid system in his yard so his heat pump uses 50F water year around. He is laughing all the way to the bank as his utility bills are much lower than mine. And his system is so quiet.

Air to air heat pumps should be illegal in the north half of the country. I can't say "stupid power company" because I was the stupid one 20 years ago!
LA in WI
 
(quoted from post at 07:30:50 03/22/17) I am 8 years into a TRANE brand set up as you are looking at. Mine makes the switch at 32 deg. Electricity is fairly cheap here in Tennessee and propane around $ 1.19 to $1.34. I have nothing but praise for mine and heating cost are very low. Here we have a few nights a year under 30 but lots of 30 to 60 so the heat pump works. I have had zero trouble and no service calls. Mine is higher dollar unit that is supposed to be more efficient and as it starts comes on in stages, I am sure it is computer controlled but as I said no problems. My brother has about the same thing but when it comes on the doors jar as the fan starts but my fan and unit comes on really gradually. So far 130 gall of propane is all we have ever used any winter.
Click to expand...
ore than likely you have a variable speed indoor fan motor and they do start slow and ramp up over a brief start time. You may also have a unit that is a two stage as in the compressor or compressors change in capacity as the need changes. Trane used a twin compressor system where as capacity needs changed as in indoor and out door temps the compressors changed. If I recall one shut down and the other took over. Carrier on the other hand used the same compressor that reversed direction to go from the lower to higher capacity. The beauty in this type set up is it allows a higher capacity unit to be installed in a cooling setting giving added cooling for the occasional large gathering in your home. It also gives a larger unit for heat as the out door temps fall so does the btu output of a heat pump. The last data I read if I recall stated a 36,000 btu heat pump was only able to produce at about 24,000 btu range at 27 degree out door temps. The lower the outdoor temp the less btu's generated. They pick up heat from the out door temp and transfer it indoors. Systems are generally designed and sized more on the AC side with the heat relying on an alternate heat source to make up the difference. This is in reference to air to air systems. The water source units on the other hand at least the ones I have seen have no alternate heat source as they remain able to produce at rated capacity regardless of out door temps. That is based on an open well system that has a dead stable water temp. If closed loop wells or a trenched based surface closed loop system is used that loop temp changes as the season progresses. The longer and colder the season the cooler the loop temps. The reverse is true of the heating cycle. It in reality banks the heat or cold in the surrounding material. You start the heating cycle with warmer loop temps and as the colder temps come the cooler the loop becomes. Same in reverse for cooling. These swings are not huge but do take place. The cost of larger or more loops keep them at the absolute minimum average need. I believe its a false economy type reasoning. Heat pumps have come a long way from 40 years ago and are used in northern temps not workable then. Having said all that I still prefer gas heat and the unit we gave has a variable speed fan that is very quiet, rarely hear it come on.
 

Heat pumps in the deep south and far north don't pay as they rarely operate. Heat pumps are for locations where the outside temperature lingers in the 35-60F range for several months of the year .
 

If you have ng.. then your have a better solution...

but if you dont... I live in an all electric area, an have had several heatpumps.. and they save me $65 to $125 a month. The newer superduper model is totally computer controlled.. so it actually throw the contacts on the compressor exactly when the ac wave is at zero, to minimize contact failure.. It has true variable speed fans, so that the compressor starts first, and after that surge is over, then the fan kicks in slowly and ramps up. It makes it a soft start, as the starting is a huge consumption of power. The fans run at very slow speeds when needed to lower the humidity and keeps the house at 55% instead of the normal 65% or higher, so the heat and cooling actually feel better at the same temperature. In light days, the compressor and fans both run at reduced loads to give you futher savings. Once a year, I get an error after a thunder storm and have to cycle the power, to reboot the outside unit as the computer is confused and the intelligent thermostat cant talk to it. I also live in the south so the backup has only come on once or twice in 5 years.

SEER is not EER.. If you live in extremes the EER is always more indictive of what your unit will do. As here we dont have many "light" days of cooling or heating, it ether cold as heck or hotter than hellp.

Also,, heat pumps do not deliver blazing hot temps out of the ducts like a gas furnace. The thermo cycle will deliver a heating or cooling temp of about 18 to 22 degrees over the current temp of the house, so a lot of folks incorrectly assume its not working or efficient, but this is NOT true.
 
Reading some of the replies make my head hurt.I just want it to work like a thermos bottle. Keep it hot when needed, and keep it cold when needed, and don't turn me into a thermodynamics engineer in order to use it!
 
(quoted from post at 19:13:01 03/23/17) Reading some of the replies make my head hurt.I just want it to work like a thermos bottle. Keep it hot when needed, and keep it cold when needed, and don't turn me into a thermodynamics engineer in order to use it!
Click to expand...
good tight house, no drafty windows or doors. Plenty of good quality insulation and thermal mass to hold the temps stable. The adobe built homes are an example of the use of thermal mass. The structure it self absorbs the temperature and because of its massive depth it is slow to change either way.
 
(quoted from post at 19:58:15 03/21/17) Acknowledge this is far from tractor topic but---building new home and intend to install 95% efficient propane gas forced air furnace. HVAC contractor proposes (for $600) adding an auxillary heat pump which he says will provide heat at a lesser cost than the propane furnace as long as the outside air temp is above 39 degrees. Below that the propane furnace kicks in.

Any insight or experience with this arrangement? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Stick with the 95% efficient LP furnace and be done. If the new home is well insulated and TIGHT, nothing you can add will increase the comfort or effiency.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
Home Heat Sources
2 3
Replies
42
Views
2K
Geo-TH,In
Geo-TH,In
J
Any HVAC experts or Contractors ?
2
Replies
33
Views
3K
Cliff(VA)
C
Geo-TH,In
Heat pumps
2
Replies
30
Views
2K
Daryl in PA
D
G
Geothermal heat pump problem
Replies
7
Views
2K
MSD
M
R
Home insulation, windows, heat loss, and AC Whats up?
2
Replies
30
Views
5K
buickanddeere
B
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top