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How do you know the heat strips aren't running?
Your units are breaking the odds to be putting out that temp air at 30F and below without the heat strips but if they are your units sure shouldn't be running 24/7. Think about it....85-90* air pumping into your house 24/7 and the indoor temp is only 67*?? That's not logical.
Let's put it this way. Our house is closer to 3000 and 25% of the main floor is 2 stories...sucking heat up and making the downstairs unit run more than it should for the actual square footage (it runs less in the summer as the cool air from the upstairs unit sinks). With similar temps to yours (we're in Charlotte) our unit is running less than half the time that yours is and we're only putting out 78* air now (without the heat strips, 30* outside).
I think your heat strips are running and you should check for open windows cuz it ought to be warmer in your house.
Sorry if I'm going to sound ignorant, and a lot of the technical stuff goes right over my head (BTUs? Whoosh!) but I have a couple of questions I hope someone won't mind answering.
First off is how do you know what the temp of the air coming from the vents is? Does that air coming in get cooler as the temp outside drops? I'm asking because right now outside temps are about 15F. Thermostat is set at 65F, and according to the thermostat I'm not using aux heat at this point. However the air coming from the vents feels just slightly warmer than the room temp. I can't figure out if it really is warm air and one or more of the heat strips IS on, or if the air only feels warm because the room is cool?
Right now the heat pump is cycling on every 30 minutes or so and defrosting about once an hour from what I can tell. Temps are supposed to drop to about 10F tonight, up to 25F tomorrow, rinse and repeat over the next few days. The heat pump cycling on so often, is it using quite a bit of energy even without the auxiliary heat?
Would I be doing myself a huge $$ favor to set the thermostat to 50-55F for the next few days and tough it out by piling on the clothes and huddling under the blankets until this freak cold spell is over?
Those some high electric bills. Dec.08 was abit cold here & i use electric for everything ( except hot water). My electric bill was the highest in nearly a yr. $18.00. Im not using my electric quartz heater unless it gets really cold again. Im gonna try to hold off as long as i can. Winters are short here in so.ca.
How do you know the heat strips aren't running?
Your units are breaking the odds to be putting out that temp air at 30F and below without the heat strips but if they are your units sure shouldn't be running 24/7. Think about it....85-90* air pumping into your house 24/7 and the indoor temp is only 67*?? That's not logical.
My thermostats have an indicator when the heat strips come on.
If I set the temp to whatever I want it they will maintain it, however I lower it to 67 to reduce how much they run. But they still run quite often. Plus we have 2 units so one is running while the other isn't, so generally one is one all the time.
We need more insulation I went up in our attic and found numerous areas that had <4" of cellulose. That is our biggest problem. Plus we have a ton of windows.
This morning I turned my heat off @ 8 AM and less than 1 hour later it has fallen 4* inside upstairs. It's all going out my attic.
Quote:
With similar temps to yours (we're in Charlotte) our unit is running less than half the time that yours is and we're only putting out 78* air now (without the heat strips, 30* outside).
Many factors go into that duct temp though. When mine first start up the temps are lower than if they've been running for 20-30 mins. Also depending on your duct work you might have less insulated ducts or longer ducting.
Sorry if I'm going to sound ignorant, and a lot of the technical stuff goes right over my head (BTUs? Whoosh!) but I have a couple of questions I hope someone won't mind answering.
First off is how do you know what the temp of the air coming from the vents is? Does that air coming in get cooler as the temp outside drops? I'm asking because right now outside temps are about 15F. Thermostat is set at 65F, and according to the thermostat I'm not using aux heat at this point. However the air coming from the vents feels just slightly warmer than the room temp. I can't figure out if it really is warm air and one or more of the heat strips IS on, or if the air only feels warm because the room is cool?
Right now the heat pump is cycling on every 30 minutes or so and defrosting about once an hour from what I can tell. Temps are supposed to drop to about 10F tonight, up to 25F tomorrow, rinse and repeat over the next few days. The heat pump cycling on so often, is it using quite a bit of energy even without the auxiliary heat?
Would I be doing myself a huge $$ favor to set the thermostat to 50-55F for the next few days and tough it out by piling on the clothes and huddling under the blankets until this freak cold spell is over?
You will initially save with lowering it to that low of temp. To put it in perspective we were gone for 10 days with some very low temps and I set the t-stat to 50F while we were gone. We only used about 100 kwh in electricity during that time, which is what I use daily now to keep it around 67F.
However, the colder it gets the more the heat pumps will run. In my case I find my heat pumps run just as much when set to 75F as when set to 67F due to the heat loss from my poorly insulated attic.
That being said it would have to be VERY cold outside in order to run constantly @ 50F inside temps.
so, second day of testing.
checked the meter just now. it's 48006
yesterday when i let the temp go down to 55 for from 1030pm to 5am, then from 5am to 7 am it was 65, then 66 all day, i used 81kwh for 24 hours.
Today, let the thermostat keep the house at 64 from last night 1030 am to today 5am (instead of 55), then take it to 66 from 5 to 7am, then 67 all day...and i used about 92kwh.
SO, the winner is letting the temp go down to 55 at night and then use AUX to bring it back up in the early morning.
now, tomorrow, i'm doing a more extreme test:
55 degrees from tonight 1030 to 5 am
66 degrees all day.
and i will use space heaters in any room we're in.
let's see what happens.
cheers
Pretty much as what I have been saying would happen. Thanks for the real-world backup to the argument. What were your outside temperatures during this test?
Space heaters are fairly easy to calculate - a thousand watt one running constantly for one hour uses 1 KWH.
Pretty much as what I have been saying would happen. Thanks for the real-world backup to the argument. What were your outside temperatures during this test?
Space heaters are fairly easy to calculate - a thousand watt one running constantly for one hour uses 1 KWH.
You're welcome. temps were pretty consistent....at about 28-30 degrees outside both nights and 35-38 during the day for both days.
Something to consider. I've turned my heat off today during the day and temps dropped quickly to 60F and have stayed there. I plan to up it to 67F before the wife comes home. It seems it struggled to maintain that extra 7F in my house. I'm burning no electricity now and that will cut my bill down significantly.
It's not that bad as long as I wear slippers. Yes I feel like less of a man but who cares.
Third night of testing resulted in this...
read it again tonight and it was at 48068 meaning that i used 62kwh.........55 at night, 63 by 5 am, 66 from 8am to the rest of the day.
kinda cool in the house but we wore socks and an extra sweater.....kinda silly i guess....but it lowered usage by 1/3!!!!
i think this might be an ideal trend for "us" for the Dec-Feb months.
Thanks for reading my thread. I hope it can be of help to you as well.
Ps. look for my thread in the coming days regarding me adding insulation to my attic. i plan on doing that this weekend cheers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleenex
so, second day of testing.
checked the meter just now. it's 48006
yesterday when i let the temp go down to 55 for from 1030pm to 5am, then from 5am to 7 am it was 65, then 66 all day, i used 81kwh for 24 hours.
Today, let the thermostat keep the house at 64 from last night 1030 am to today 5am (instead of 55), then take it to 66 from 5 to 7am, then 67 all day...and i used about 92kwh.
SO, the winner is letting the temp go down to 55 at night and then use AUX to bring it back up in the early morning.
now, tomorrow, i'm doing a more extreme test:
55 degrees from tonight 1030 to 5 am
66 degrees all day.
and i will use space heaters in any room we're in.
let's see what happens.
It was also a lot warmer yesterday, at least here in Raleigh. That's probably why you used less.
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