01-03-2007, 04:37 PM
My house was built with heat pumps. At the time, the local electric utility was bribing, err, rebating builders to install heat pumps. But fortunately, the backups are not electric resistance. They are full sized gas furnaces. Nice efficient ones.
Remember it costs the same to run your heat pump per minute as a heater as it does to run it as an air conditioner. The most cost effective uses for heat pumps are when there is no primary fuel heat... when the alternative is electric resistance heating.
One of my heat pumps failed... the compressor grounded electrically. It was almost as cheap to replace the outside unit with a standard A/C unit as it was to replace the compressor, so I went with a new much more efficient A/C unit.
I've since bypassed the heat feature on the other heat pump as well. Less wear and tear on the unit, and it is much cheaper to heat here with gas than with an air conditioner running backwards.
Remember it costs the same to run your heat pump per minute as a heater as it does to run it as an air conditioner. The most cost effective uses for heat pumps are when there is no primary fuel heat... when the alternative is electric resistance heating.
One of my heat pumps failed... the compressor grounded electrically. It was almost as cheap to replace the outside unit with a standard A/C unit as it was to replace the compressor, so I went with a new much more efficient A/C unit.
I've since bypassed the heat feature on the other heat pump as well. Less wear and tear on the unit, and it is much cheaper to heat here with gas than with an air conditioner running backwards.