News report - Heat pumps struggling in record cold here in the Valley (Phoenix: fit in, homes)

[jimj]

Originally Posted by Desertspiritsteve

I noticed that the air temp from the registers was cooler for several nights. The heat pump ran more, too. Last night the register temp was warmer. There was more heat for the unit to gather outdoors than the previous nights. My inside temp was a consistent 74 degrees. People get into trouble with the heat pump when they play with the thermostat..like turning it down at night and up in the morning. You need to just set it so you're comfortable and leave it alone. The efficiency is much better with the heat pump moving heat into or out of the house than a gas furnace burning fossil fuels. The 140 degree air temp of a furnace drives me up a wall. You'll never get carbon monoxide poisoning from a heat pump.

You do realize heat pumps burn fossil fuels as well right? Well, unless you've hooked yours to a off the grid solution.
As for efficiency, the most efficient heating you can get are the electric baseboard heaters at 98% or so efficiency followed by Cadet style electric heaters with an internal fan. When we built our house I did tons of research into all of this to figure out ROI on heat systems ranging from radiant heat to ground source heat and everything in between.

[MotleyCrew]

Originally Posted by Pink Jazz

According to this news report:
Four days of freezing takes a toll on Valley heaters

In the record cold we have been having here in the Valley lately, people are widely reporting problems with their heat pumps. Normally, heat pumps are ideal when it isn't too cold due to their high efficiency, however, when it gets as cold as it has been lately, that is when they begin to struggle.

In some areas, heat pumps often include an auxiliary heat source, which can either be electric heating strips in the air handler (basically an creating an electric forced air furnace), or it can be a gas furnace. Because it is rare for it to get this cold in this climate, many heat pump installations here in the Valley have no auxiliary heat source at all. Because of this, many heat pump installations here in the Valley are cycling between heating and defrosting, thus cycling between blowing warm and cold air. On systems equipped with auxiliary heat, the auxiliary heat would kick in to offset the cold air produced by the defrosting cycle.

We have a house in Tolleson with a heat pump that we are renting out, and luckily there have been no reported issues from the renters. Our house in Gilbert (the one we actually live in) has natural gas heat, so no issues for us.

I wonder, how are everyone's heat pumps working here?

Ours was struggling and it is only 5 mos old. Have not heard from the renters....yet

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by jimj

You do realize heat pumps burn fossil fuels as well right? Well, unless you've hooked yours to a off the grid solution.
As for efficiency, the most efficient heating you can get are the electric baseboard heaters at 98% or so efficiency followed by Cadet style electric heaters with an internal fan. When we built our house I did tons of research into all of this to figure out ROI on heat systems ranging from radiant heat to ground source heat and everything in between.

Not so. Heat pumps are over efficient - which is to say they get more heat from the electricity they use than an electric heater would on the same usage - by about 2.5 times! For example: if a kilowatt hour of electricity yielded 50000 btus of heat in an electric heater, the same kilowatt would yield 125,000 btus from a heat pump. The reason is the latent heat of the refrigerant going through phase changes. Another way to look at it is if we were heating our homes with electrical resistance heat, our bills would be 2-3 times higher than they are.

[LBTRS]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Mine is working fine as well. I get the icy blast though. Like Observer said, you get much less of that if you have a constant temp than letting it fall off at night and then warm up again in the morning like I do.

Don't you live in Estrella? Surely you have a gas furnace and not a heat pump up there?

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by LBTRS

Don't you live in Estrella? Surely you have a gas furnace and not a heat pump up there?

No when my house was built there was no gas available. They ran it down Estrella Prky later but wanted thousands to bring it into the subdivision. We would have had an assessment that would never had paid off. Heck, this was the boonies when I moved here. We did not even have cable. I had a big dish antenna. It's all modern now .

[LBTRS]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

No when my house was built there was no gas available. They ran it down Estrella Prky later but wanted thousands to bring it into the subdivision. We would have had an assessment that would never had paid off. Heck, this was the boonies when I moved here. We did not even have cable. I had a big dish antenna. It's all modern now .

Oh, wow...was not aware that there were houses up there that old. Thought everything was new up there.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by LBTRS

Oh, wow...was not aware that there were houses up there that old. Thought everything was new up there.

Mine is from early 90s.

[Pink Jazz]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Mine is from early 90s.

The house we are renting out in Tolleson (actually in the Phoenix city limits, but with a Tolleson address) was built in 2005, but there is no gas service in the neighborhood (The Palisades at Country Place), therefore a heat pump is used by default. My guess this was the choice of the builder (K. Hovnanian) rather than lack of infrastructure, since the other parts of Country Place DO have gas service. There are indeed some people who prefer all-electric homes, and perhaps the builder wanted to cater to that market.

[Desertspiritsteve]

I am a man who has gas. I have a heat pump but I do have a gas water heater, dryer, range (and an electric one too). I should come out of retirement and work for the Heat Pump Council. Natural gas has gotten pretty expensive and the service charge is high. I did get JimJ's pun about doing, "Tons of research," on the right heating and cooling system. APS used to have the gas service for the valley as well as electric. They laid pvc pipe for gas in parts of the valley and then sold off the gas service to Southwest Gas. Then the gas explosions began. Southwest gas sends out surveyors every few years to do a sweep of people's back yards. I had a house at 12th. St. and Missouri that had a yellow spot in the front lawn that no amount of water could turn green. It was a leaking gas line running across my property. I hope everyone here is warm and cozy. I think it will be safe to uncover our frost sensitive plants today.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by Pink Jazz

The house we are renting out in Tolleson (actually in the Phoenix city limits, but with a Tolleson address) was built in 2005, but there is no gas service in the neighborhood (The Palisades at Country Place), therefore a heat pump is used by default. My guess this was the choice of the builder (K. Hovnanian) rather than lack of infrastructure, since the other parts of Country Place DO have gas service. There are indeed some people who prefer all-electric homes, and perhaps the builder wanted to cater to that market.

Gas was in severe shortage not all that long ago. Prices were near $15 per mmBtu on futures markets. It was impossible to get gas in new subdivision in Phoenix in the 80s to mid 90s at least. I have lived in several parts of the valley and have been touring models for years. Today gas is around 1/5 of what it cost. By 2005, the shortages had disappeared though, so I would agree that it was likely the developers choice to save some bucks on infrastructure thus holding down the prices of homes in your SubD.

I don't miss gas at all for heating, the heat pump works fine and is relatively inexpensive to operate. I would like gas for cooking, a nat gas barbecue and fireplace though.