Posted on 11/07/2010 4:26:48 PM PST by plinyelder
This was a tough one to figure out what category this should go in!
Well .. Anyway .. I need some advice from an expert on electrical use.
Been out of work for over two years now and I am 'squeezing' every dime to survive!
Here is my question: I live in a two story, vinyl sided home.
I have an electric fireplace downstairs (12.5 amps +120 volts= 1500 watts) and the same upstairs.
I also have .. what I think is a 2.5 ton 'Heat Pump'.
I have No Clue, (being from Florida) What or how a heat pump works so .. Would it be 'cheaper' to run the two fireplaces to heat the home, (heat pump off) or should I just use the heat pump?
The fireplace upstairs is in the master bedroom and Really does the job but the one downstairs, really only warms two of the four rooms on the lower level.
I think that electric runs between 11 and 13 cents per Kilowatt hour.
Oh yea .. Both fireplaces can be set to turn off and on as needed (thermostat?) but the one on the lower floor has to run on high .. all the time to do the job.
Thanks Everyone
hje says original from Fla...now living in VA.
The liquid in our loops is 59 F year round. Our power bill actually drops when we switch to AC mode.
You aren’t really extracting heat from the ground, it is the heat achieved from the change of state of the coolant. The cold is sent to the outside earth in the winter and the heat is retained inside. It really is just a giant refrigerator. That hot coil on the back of the refrigerator is indoors in winter and is switched to the outdoors in summer by changing the direction of coolant flow, making the evaporator inside during the winter and outside during the summer. If the ground were to freeze around the “evaporator” tubes the system will cease functioning. Here in Wisconsin the outside evaporator is 10’ underground and hundreds of feet long. A well designed system is very frugal...many older systems are under-designed from what I hear...
Maybe you read me wrong?
The heat pump works fine.
I just wanted to know if it was cheaper running my two 1500 watt electric fireplaces instead of the heatpump.
The heat pump has to be cheaper. It will extract heat from the outside air and place it in your house. Also the electricity used by the heat pump unit will be converted to heat as it runs the compressor and that too will brought inside and result in heating. Only during the coldest nights would the electric resistance heating the air handler have to come on, and I’ll bet that is very rare in Florida. (I assume you’re in Florida.)
The least expensive option is a sweater and mittens. Just keep the house warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Presuming you live where it gets below freezing, right?
Is your whole house ICF? How are your heating bills.
Oh, Yep. Hot air rises. Cold air stays low. That’s why in winter, we shut upstairs doors pretty much so the hot air stays downstairs, and in summer we keep them wide open so that the hot summer air from downstairs can freely rise upstairs. We live downstairs, even sleep down there.
A good way of saving some energy is to put a water tank blanket on your hot water heater. It’ll insulate your tank, keeping your water warmer, longer.
A good way of saving some energy is to put a water tank blanket on your hot water heater. It’ll insulate your tank, keeping your water warmer, longer.
It seems to me you have a pretty good understanding. I suspect that the BTU output of the unit is simply inadequate to provide enough heat to keep the place warm when the temperatures are very cold. Like any furnace, if it has to run all the time, it may not output enough heat to completely warm the house.
One consideration is that the electric fireplaces provide you will flexibility to heat just the room you are in. This would clearly be applicable to the bedroom. For example, you could turn the heatpump down at night and use the electric heater in the bedroom. I have three options in my house, propane central gas, heat pump, and electric baseboard. I use all three at different times and in different places in the house.
I think that I'll give that a try mountan man!
I can remember, and if the economy doesn’t get any better I may have to do again, nailing up blankets over the windows to keep the cold out and the heat in. May not look pretty on the inside but keeps it warmer! Good luck.
Yea .. I forgot .. I have a propane driven fireplace but I decided to give it up because the propane has gotten too expensive.
Something else you can do is go to Lowes or Home Depot and get a can of Great Stuff for about $5-$6 and go around to all your outside walls, remove the electric wall plates and seal around the electrical boxes.
All electrical resistance heaters are 100% efficient, at least if you buy into that whole Conservation of Energy mumbo jumbo. Below a certain temperature your heat pump is an electrical resistance heater and will give you the exact same BTU's per kilowatt consumed as your electric fireplaces. Above that cutoff temperature, your heat pump is more efficient, and will give you more BTU's per kilowatt than the electric resistance heaters by basically extracting some heat from the air that is outside your living space.
When you're at the point of the year when you're heating your house, there's no point in turning off TV's or the stereo or the lights to save electricity. You're getting the same heat per kilowatt consumed out of those as you are from your electric heaters too.
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