I got an early air source HP back in 1993 for a new efficient house and I also put a 90+ furnace in it too, I didn’t run the heat pump below 40 degrees outside temp as it ran and ran it seemed when it was colder that. That was in the twin cities where it’s a little warmer than here in Sawyer County Wisconsin, Winter Wisconsin to be precise. I heat with all free wood now as it’s easy to scrounge (as they call it) for good firewood here without too much effort, in a wood stove. BTW, my power rate is $0.123 24/7 and I have grid mounted solar and a EV. Current house has R16 walls, 40 attic and is under 1000 sq ft of heated space.
@@hermancm i have an EV as well, and participate in a community solar project to get an idea before installing on my house. The hidden expense with wood stoves is the insurance costs. If i were to heat with wood, it would be an outdoor boiler. But even so, heating is $500-$700 a season. If i had to spend a couple days gathering, processing wood instead of working my regular job, the savings are little to none.
Thanks for sharing and explaining how electric charges people. You should do a video just on how to read the electric bill. I understand a little but; get lost in the peak and off peak times. I understand that a person can read the meter to tell how much power is in usage. That is the electric companies and I have no clue if it has a malfunction or over compensating my usage. Or what would be an acceptable range of error. I only can imagine the headache people with solar panels and battery back up go through with phantom draw and energy loss due to heat. Thanks!!!
Im one of the few people in the area with peak and off peak rates, most just have flat rates. As i have high draw devices that can be used just at off peak, it makes sense to use that rate option
Here’s another anecdote. We have a conventional heat pump that is our only source of heat for our second floor. The house was built in 1939 with no insulation, poor sealing. I replaced the original fiberglass attic insulation with R38. I’m in north Tennessee. With a set point of 71 it’ll hold that down to at least 4 outside, although it runs constantly. It’ll perform better once I complete some sealing to the attic. Our main floor has a decent sized 95% gas furnace that hates cold weather. It’ll maintain a 71 set point down to about 25 or so, and then it gets tired and takes breaks. When it’s 4 outside, it’s about 65-68 inside max. None of that has anything to do with money, except to note that everything is a system in various states bid tune and implementation, making a lot of “electric vs gas” price comparisons less than meaningful. As for myself, I can’t get rid of gas soon enough regardless of whatever my electricity costs.
I doubt i have R38 in the attic, its probably 1ft deep max. The worst month for heating ever was like $175. I know people on electric paying like $400/mo. Thats not sustainable. HVAC install isnt too terrible in my area. Back in 2017, i had a furnace put in from scratch inti a rental (i got the place on forclosure, i have no idea how they heated it previously). The furnace plus ductwork was $5k. I got my high eff in 2014, and install plus the pvc pipe was $3k. And for the most part they just work
My heat pump is very similar in performance at 0°F its COP is 1.78 at 47°F COP is 3.62. Mine is not a cold climate, as in it doesn't ramp up the compressor to keep the heat output steady at lower outdoor temps when to COP is low. Our Gas and electric rates are very similar. I found the balance point for me was around 12°F and that's where I would set the changeover for our gas furnace to run. I ran it like this for probably 10 years and I would recalculate it every couple years and it would be right about the same up until 2021 when gas prices went crazy. What I ended up realizing is that the connection fee for the gas service ate up most of the savings. So I replaced the hot water heater with electric and canceled the gas service. Replaced the furnace with a blower cabinet with heat strips. Now when it gets cold, between the thermostat staging and internal logic of the blower cabinet it will stage the 2 sets of heat strips while running heat pump. So now I don't have the heatpump lockout all the way until 0°F and with the additional heat strips running as needed it keeps the house at temperature. We don't have time of use rates here but I wish we did as that would allow me to save even more.
I think I luck out with a low gas connection fee - its only $10/mo. My gas water heater only uses about $7-10/mo (60ish showers, 4-6 clothes washings, hand washing dishes), and my gas dryer costs $3-$5/mo. I have a weird situation where the basement wall and the house aren't connected and over the course of the year shifts around and lets air in (I did have wall anchors put in years ago, but it kept moving, and because it keeps moving, it dislodges any insulation I put in the gap). This probably costs me $50-$150 a year in extra heating costs, but its hard to spent $10k to fix something that may take decades to break even. 2 years ago, nat gas was about $1.02 a Therm, a year ago $1.34, and right now is $0.65. I found an old bill from Dec 2004, and it was $1.12 back then - and that was 2004 dollars. With the crazy low gas prices right now, its hard to come ahead with the heat pump, but if they head back to the $1.25-$1.50 range, it will be much easier.
@@mattcintosh2 Our connection fee here is $16 and they approved a rate increase here in 2023 of ~4% per year until 2027. Now that I no longer have gas service I don't have access to the current rates. They have their base rates listed but there is a fuel adjustment monthly based on the purchased cost of the natural gas. My last bill for May of 2023 has it as $0.72 per therm. Climate play a huge role in it too. We average 4600 heating degree days here with a typical low for the year of 17°F. So most of the time our outdoor temps fall right in that area where the heat pump performs well.
@@TofuInc We also have the fuel adjustment, but a lot of the time its negative. The list for mine is here www.swlp.com/CustomerService/PGARider and goes back to 2015, but that doesn't show the full story. After being higher for a few years, they get a rate increase, and then negatives happen more often, but not necessarily lower than they were before the increase. It looks like this month, instead of being -$0.42 like last month, it will be -$0.14, so instead of the $0.67 rates I was showing above, its going to be closer to $0.95 this month. That means this month the HP will be cheaper down to about 37F onpeak, and always offpeak as the PCAC (the adjustment for power) brings the electric down to $0.07, and the temps really dont get much below 20F in Oct, and usually only for a couple hours at night
@@mrcalvin200 have fun... Currently its 5F. The heat pump is holding steady at the temp My off peak electric rate is 7 cents. Current Therm cost is $1.04. The daily cost for electric is $4.55, but gas would be $5.72. However, if I didn't have a special rate for electric, it would be costing $7.79. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MaOVSGo26KZMU6qD_wb3IlPKxqKvfPOMv5DqloXBH4I/edit?gid=1628185809#gid=1628185809
Here in Virginia, year ago the SCC approved VNG to break out charges separately for gas supply cost, delivery costs and riders to recover revenue loss in line replacement and loss due to energy efficiency in homes. While natural gas price has come down to .47 per therm, VNG charges .91 per therm for delivery cost and .15 per therm for riders, The cost is now $1.53 per therm and with electricity at .15 per Kwh, that make gas heat way more expensive than heat pump. My bill for 122 CCF this month was $197. I found an electronic copy of a bill from 2009 and 156CCF was $87. So natural gas has tripled in price in Virginia, mainly because of delivery charge and riders. I will be switching to heat pump when I replace my unit.
Except that is virtually the exact same cost. About the best you can hope for in a heat pump is 3x COP, you are getting 104,000 btus instead of 100,000 for the same $1.53. (Sure, it may go higher than that, but how long is it actually running when its 50F outside?)
@@webkennection8158 I think mine is 9.5 HSPF. The eer2 isn't relavant as thats the air conditioning rating in the summer. While mine has a COP of 4.95 at 65F, I never need to even turn it on unless its been below 50 outside for several days. If your version of winter is "rarely gets below 30F" then its going to save money. If your winter is "doesn't get above 15F for a week" then its going to be tough. My COP at 15F is 2.5. Even if your COP is 3 at 15F, you are pretty much just breaking even. See if you can get COP ratings at different temperatures for a better picture of savings
HSPF is only 9-10.5 for this unit, which is low for efficiency, you can get them as high as 14 in some of the smaller units, which will definitely beat gas!
@@lazerusmfh i have been unable to really find any info on units with a HSPF in ranges of 13-14. And if you live in an area that doesnt get below 30F much, i can see those being cheaper than gas. I live in an area where the daytime high may not be above freezing for a whole month. Back in the days when i just had a 80% furnace, $150 was the worst heating bill for the month, but even in the last couple years, with my 97% furnace, we had a week and a half that didnt get above 10F, and got down to almost -30F and was windy and had a $175 heating bill. My heating bill is a bit higher than in the past due to working from home, and keeping it heated all day, rather than letting it drop during the day.
Can I get some sample Kwh cost and Natural Gas costs from around the country, and the lowest temps you would see the coldest week of the year, and average temps in early Feburary? (example: Northern Wisconsin, $.12, $0.70, -15F, 25F) Places like California with $0.40 kwh costs seem to not be cheaper for a heat pump unless your nat gas therm costs are around $2.50, even when the temps only get down to 40F. The other side of that might be if you are rarely running it due to it hardly getting below 50F, then your bill will be small anyways
2021 is not 2024... heat pumps good to negative 20 F , regardless of wind. If you're plugging in your inefficient furnace set up , you're not getting all of the savings you can. Try variable refrigerant flow VRF set up with smaller cassette type units.
Maybe on off peak electric rates, its posible with a COP of a little over 2.0 at -5F, but are you really saying there are heat pumps with a COP of 4 at -5F? I'm really not seeing how the math adds up there without special rates and an extra meter.
if you have a down flow you need to pay some one right now to put that coil on the discharge of the furnace NOW before your buying a new furnace. NO manufacture is ok with what you have going on, and i can list reasons why you will rust the heat exchanger, blower wheel and kill electronics of any ECM motor but i wont boar the crowd that know why this is.
The furnace is 11 years old. Swapping the positions would probably cost 1/3 the price of a new furnace. My thought is to just wait until i need a new furnace and just have it done then
Not more efficient than natural gas. It’s being promoted for carbon offsets. The focus is to try to prevent losing farming and ocean resources from global warming, ocean acidification, and harsh rainfall patterns. Sorry for the down news.
Heres last night. Its 6F outside. I woke up at 5:30am, bumped it up a couple degrees, and went back to bed. Wife woke up to go to work and bumped it up a couple more. Couldnt even get to the set point. Everybtime it makes progress, the defrost cycle runs and it drops a few. Finally the aux nat gas heat took over. imgur.com/a/nHMVTNh
@@mattcintosh2 sounds to me like insulation may be a large part of your problem. We use a 4 ton Fujitsu to heat a 3100 sq ft home in MA and have absolutely no difficulty maintaining set temp down to zero. No, it is not efficient at that temp, but it still keeps us warm. Backup is an 8 zone FHW by oil system, and we use it only on the very coldest of days.
@@davehill9479it is, but at the moment, its a low priority. The outside walls have R7, but could easily have R13. There is some other air infiltration issue, but due to the house moving with the freeze/thaw cycles, fixing that issue is only temporary. There are a lot of 135 year old houses in my area with horse hair and old newspapers for insulation. Those will have a hard time upgrading without extensive remodeling
Good video.. thanks
I got an early air source HP back in 1993 for a new efficient house and I also put a 90+ furnace in it too, I didn’t run the heat pump below 40 degrees outside temp as it ran and ran it seemed when it was colder that. That was in the twin cities where it’s a little warmer than here in Sawyer County Wisconsin, Winter Wisconsin to be precise. I heat with all free wood now as it’s easy to scrounge (as they call it) for good firewood here without too much effort, in a wood stove. BTW, my power rate is $0.123 24/7 and I have grid mounted solar and a EV. Current house has R16 walls, 40 attic and is under 1000 sq ft of heated space.
@@hermancm i have an EV as well, and participate in a community solar project to get an idea before installing on my house. The hidden expense with wood stoves is the insurance costs. If i were to heat with wood, it would be an outdoor boiler. But even so, heating is $500-$700 a season. If i had to spend a couple days gathering, processing wood instead of working my regular job, the savings are little to none.
Thanks for sharing and explaining how electric charges people. You should do a video just on how to read the electric bill. I understand a little but; get lost in the peak and off peak times. I understand that a person can read the meter to tell how much power is in usage. That is the electric companies and I have no clue if it has a malfunction or over compensating my usage. Or what would be an acceptable range of error. I only can imagine the headache people with solar panels and battery back up go through with phantom draw and energy loss due to heat. Thanks!!!
Im one of the few people in the area with peak and off peak rates, most just have flat rates. As i have high draw devices that can be used just at off peak, it makes sense to use that rate option
Here’s another anecdote. We have a conventional heat pump that is our only source of heat for our second floor. The house was built in 1939 with no insulation, poor sealing. I replaced the original fiberglass attic insulation with R38. I’m in north Tennessee.
With a set point of 71 it’ll hold that down to at least 4 outside, although it runs constantly. It’ll perform better once I complete some sealing to the attic.
Our main floor has a decent sized 95% gas furnace that hates cold weather. It’ll maintain a 71 set point down to about 25 or so, and then it gets tired and takes breaks.
When it’s 4 outside, it’s about 65-68 inside max.
None of that has anything to do with money, except to note that everything is a system in various states bid tune and implementation, making a lot of “electric vs gas” price comparisons less than meaningful.
As for myself, I can’t get rid of gas soon enough regardless of whatever my electricity costs.
I doubt i have R38 in the attic, its probably 1ft deep max. The worst month for heating ever was like $175. I know people on electric paying like $400/mo. Thats not sustainable. HVAC install isnt too terrible in my area. Back in 2017, i had a furnace put in from scratch inti a rental (i got the place on forclosure, i have no idea how they heated it previously). The furnace plus ductwork was $5k. I got my high eff in 2014, and install plus the pvc pipe was $3k. And for the most part they just work
My heat pump is very similar in performance at 0°F its COP is 1.78 at 47°F COP is 3.62. Mine is not a cold climate, as in it doesn't ramp up the compressor to keep the heat output steady at lower outdoor temps when to COP is low. Our Gas and electric rates are very similar. I found the balance point for me was around 12°F and that's where I would set the changeover for our gas furnace to run. I ran it like this for probably 10 years and I would recalculate it every couple years and it would be right about the same up until 2021 when gas prices went crazy.
What I ended up realizing is that the connection fee for the gas service ate up most of the savings. So I replaced the hot water heater with electric and canceled the gas service. Replaced the furnace with a blower cabinet with heat strips. Now when it gets cold, between the thermostat staging and internal logic of the blower cabinet it will stage the 2 sets of heat strips while running heat pump. So now I don't have the heatpump lockout all the way until 0°F and with the additional heat strips running as needed it keeps the house at temperature.
We don't have time of use rates here but I wish we did as that would allow me to save even more.
I think I luck out with a low gas connection fee - its only $10/mo. My gas water heater only uses about $7-10/mo (60ish showers, 4-6 clothes washings, hand washing dishes), and my gas dryer costs $3-$5/mo. I have a weird situation where the basement wall and the house aren't connected and over the course of the year shifts around and lets air in (I did have wall anchors put in years ago, but it kept moving, and because it keeps moving, it dislodges any insulation I put in the gap). This probably costs me $50-$150 a year in extra heating costs, but its hard to spent $10k to fix something that may take decades to break even.
2 years ago, nat gas was about $1.02 a Therm, a year ago $1.34, and right now is $0.65. I found an old bill from Dec 2004, and it was $1.12 back then - and that was 2004 dollars. With the crazy low gas prices right now, its hard to come ahead with the heat pump, but if they head back to the $1.25-$1.50 range, it will be much easier.
@@mattcintosh2 Our connection fee here is $16 and they approved a rate increase here in 2023 of ~4% per year until 2027. Now that I no longer have gas service I don't have access to the current rates. They have their base rates listed but there is a fuel adjustment monthly based on the purchased cost of the natural gas. My last bill for May of 2023 has it as $0.72 per therm.
Climate play a huge role in it too. We average 4600 heating degree days here with a typical low for the year of 17°F. So most of the time our outdoor temps fall right in that area where the heat pump performs well.
@@TofuInc We also have the fuel adjustment, but a lot of the time its negative. The list for mine is here www.swlp.com/CustomerService/PGARider and goes back to 2015, but that doesn't show the full story. After being higher for a few years, they get a rate increase, and then negatives happen more often, but not necessarily lower than they were before the increase. It looks like this month, instead of being -$0.42 like last month, it will be -$0.14, so instead of the $0.67 rates I was showing above, its going to be closer to $0.95 this month. That means this month the HP will be cheaper down to about 37F onpeak, and always offpeak as the PCAC (the adjustment for power) brings the electric down to $0.07, and the temps really dont get much below 20F in Oct, and usually only for a couple hours at night
Let's see that spreadsheet.
@@mrcalvin200 have fun... Currently its 5F. The heat pump is holding steady at the temp My off peak electric rate is 7 cents. Current Therm cost is $1.04. The daily cost for electric is $4.55, but gas would be $5.72. However, if I didn't have a special rate for electric, it would be costing $7.79. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MaOVSGo26KZMU6qD_wb3IlPKxqKvfPOMv5DqloXBH4I/edit?gid=1628185809#gid=1628185809
Here in Virginia, year ago the SCC approved VNG to break out charges separately for gas supply cost, delivery costs and riders to recover revenue loss in line replacement and loss due to energy efficiency in homes. While natural gas price has come down to .47 per therm, VNG charges .91 per therm for delivery cost and .15 per therm for riders, The cost is now $1.53 per therm and with electricity at .15 per Kwh, that make gas heat way more expensive than heat pump. My bill for 122 CCF this month was $197. I found an electronic copy of a bill from 2009 and 156CCF was $87. So natural gas has tripled in price in Virginia, mainly because of delivery charge and riders. I will be switching to heat pump when I replace my unit.
Except that is virtually the exact same cost. About the best you can hope for in a heat pump is 3x COP, you are getting 104,000 btus instead of 100,000 for the same $1.53. (Sure, it may go higher than that, but how long is it actually running when its 50F outside?)
@@mattcintosh2 What rating heat pump are you using for comparison? I am looking at heat pump with 20 EER2 and 10.2 HSPF?
@@webkennection8158 I think mine is 9.5 HSPF. The eer2 isn't relavant as thats the air conditioning rating in the summer. While mine has a COP of 4.95 at 65F, I never need to even turn it on unless its been below 50 outside for several days. If your version of winter is "rarely gets below 30F" then its going to save money. If your winter is "doesn't get above 15F for a week" then its going to be tough.
My COP at 15F is 2.5. Even if your COP is 3 at 15F, you are pretty much just breaking even. See if you can get COP ratings at different temperatures for a better picture of savings
HSPF is only 9-10.5 for this unit, which is low for efficiency, you can get them as high as 14 in some of the smaller units, which will definitely beat gas!
@@lazerusmfh i have been unable to really find any info on units with a HSPF in ranges of 13-14. And if you live in an area that doesnt get below 30F much, i can see those being cheaper than gas. I live in an area where the daytime high may not be above freezing for a whole month. Back in the days when i just had a 80% furnace, $150 was the worst heating bill for the month, but even in the last couple years, with my 97% furnace, we had a week and a half that didnt get above 10F, and got down to almost -30F and was windy and had a $175 heating bill. My heating bill is a bit higher than in the past due to working from home, and keeping it heated all day, rather than letting it drop during the day.
Can I get some sample Kwh cost and Natural Gas costs from around the country, and the lowest temps you would see the coldest week of the year, and average temps in early Feburary? (example: Northern Wisconsin, $.12, $0.70, -15F, 25F) Places like California with $0.40 kwh costs seem to not be cheaper for a heat pump unless your nat gas therm costs are around $2.50, even when the temps only get down to 40F. The other side of that might be if you are rarely running it due to it hardly getting below 50F, then your bill will be small anyways
2021 is not 2024... heat pumps good to negative 20 F , regardless of wind. If you're plugging in your inefficient furnace set up , you're not getting all of the savings you can. Try variable refrigerant flow VRF set up with smaller cassette type units.
Maybe on off peak electric rates, its posible with a COP of a little over 2.0 at -5F, but are you really saying there are heat pumps with a COP of 4 at -5F? I'm really not seeing how the math adds up there without special rates and an extra meter.
if you have a down flow you need to pay some one right now to put that coil on the discharge of the furnace NOW before your buying a new furnace. NO manufacture is ok with what you have going on, and i can list reasons why you will rust the heat exchanger, blower wheel and kill electronics of any ECM motor but i wont boar the crowd that know why this is.
The furnace is 11 years old. Swapping the positions would probably cost 1/3 the price of a new furnace. My thought is to just wait until i need a new furnace and just have it done then
Not more efficient than natural gas. It’s being promoted for carbon offsets. The focus is to try to prevent losing farming and ocean resources from global warming, ocean acidification, and harsh rainfall patterns. Sorry for the down news.
Heres last night. Its 6F outside. I woke up at 5:30am, bumped it up a couple degrees, and went back to bed. Wife woke up to go to work and bumped it up a couple more. Couldnt even get to the set point. Everybtime it makes progress, the defrost cycle runs and it drops a few. Finally the aux nat gas heat took over. imgur.com/a/nHMVTNh
@@mattcintosh2 sounds to me like insulation may be a large part of your problem. We use a 4 ton Fujitsu to heat a 3100 sq ft home in MA and have absolutely no difficulty maintaining set temp down to zero. No, it is not efficient at that temp, but it still keeps us warm. Backup is an 8 zone FHW by oil system, and we use it only on the very coldest of days.
@@davehill9479it is, but at the moment, its a low priority. The outside walls have R7, but could easily have R13. There is some other air infiltration issue, but due to the house moving with the freeze/thaw cycles, fixing that issue is only temporary. There are a lot of 135 year old houses in my area with horse hair and old newspapers for insulation. Those will have a hard time upgrading without extensive remodeling