Heat pump miracle!

[kenmac]

Just watch out for that R-value and window surface area, it can be a killer

More windows & no insulation . No problem You just 1 ton per 300-400 sq. AND, you can always install clear plastic on the outside windows & it doesn't matter if they face n, s, e, or w.... Do you know the R value of dead rodents Basement, attic, crawl space


I have to quit this, We are off subject....Real Bad !

 

[heehaw]

there is one window co out there that swears up an down, you count their windows the same as the wall, google the "american dream" windows: they do have the best overall rating of any windows i have been able to find, but they also have the highest price.
heehaw

 

[MarkV]

see if you can locate or try to google a manual J. Here's a start from google...........Load Calculations

Thanks, I'll look into that more.

Sounds like you guys are having enough fun with the question to say I am not that far off on how it is often done. I am in the trades and understand that experience is often enough when you have done the same basic house a few hundred times. Would it be out of the norm to ask for load calculations to be done and ask for a copy of the report? I am starting my last remodel and will be replacing all of the HVAC systems. The next time I move will be to the home. I'd like to get it right this time.

MarkV

 

[heehaw]

if you notice how much a freezer or refrig runs now days, the newer ones anyway, it seems like they almost run 24-7: but when you put a meter on the line, they don't pull enough electricity to matter if they do run 24-7..it would still only cost 10-15 bucks a month: from what one person in the hvac business tells me, thats about the way you need to size a unit....to big and they don't run enough to keep the temps constant or even or something like that?? an the ac won't lower the humidity enough..
heehaw

 

[kenmac]

Would it be out of the norm to ask for load calculations to be done and ask for a copy of the report?

Would it be out of the norm to ask for 1. Yes most people/ customers don't ask. Don't get me wrong. I do them but most don't ask . Even when I give them a copy & try to explain . Some understand & others don't & could care less........Not many HVAC contractors around here do load calculations.......If you want 1, I would ask. If that person won't give you 1 . Go to the next

 

[heehaw]

i just found out the guy that installed the hvac system in her house, did go an check it out last year when i called him: he said everything was working right, but to lower her bills she needed to set the thermostat back to about 60 or 65 when she was going to be out for a long while...which is just exactly the opposite i have always heard about heat pumps: also found out she has a 13 seer unit, which is the lowest i think they are allowed to make? what do they do to a heat pump to get a higher seer?
heehaw

 

[dmccarty]

We tried the reversed ceiling fan but don't like it. Even on the slowest setting we feel the slight draft. My wife is cold 11 months of the year so this is an issue. She warms up usually in August.

Our ceilings are 10 feet tall throughout the house. The warm/cool air mixes for us pretty quick. We will feel a draft when the wood stove really heat ups on a load of wood. The hot air rises to the ceiling, rolls across and hits the wall and comes on down to the couch. Its almost as bad as the fan.

The warm air moves fast around our house too. If we dump even the tinniest bit of smoke the smell will be on the far side of the house quicker than I can walk from the stove. And you won't smell the smoke in front of the stove. Kinda freaky.

Reversing the ceiling fan is something you should try. But you might not like it either. Lots of variables. But try it.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Regarding window and energy usage. I used a program called RESFEN, http://windows.lbl.gov/software/resfen/resfen.html to pick our windows. The software is made with our tax dollars. Well US tax dollars.

The program takes the particulars of your house, floor sq ft, area of windows on different house facings, window efficiency, energy costs, location, etc to tell you the heating/cooling cost for the house with windows you are considering. The program was very close to reality for our new house.

If one was going to consider replace windows in an old house it would give decent data on how cost effective the replacement would be.

Later,
Dan

 

[buckeyefarmer]

send this guy my way..

I thought the same thing this summer, knowing that prices were going to skyrocket, I wanted to put in a heat pump to have a backup heat source for my oil burner that sometimes leaves me cold. The prices I got was in the $15,000 range for a 3 ton unit. Unbelievable. I still am using my oil for the upstairs, and I have a new Harman pellet stove that heats my downstairs. I really want to put in a geothermal system (ground source HP) but here contractors are pricing them in the $30,000 range, again major rip off.

 

[kenmac]

i just found out the guy that installed the hvac system in her house, did go an check it out last year when i called him: he said everything was working right, but to lower her bills she needed to set the thermostat back to about 60 or 65 when she was going to be out for a long while...which is just exactly the opposite i have always heard about heat pumps: also found out she has a 13 seer unit, which is the lowest i think they are allowed to make? what do they do to a heat pump to get a higher seer?
heehaw

Read this Heat Pumps - How Well Do They Work? & see if it will help you on your HP questions

 

[kenmac]

The prices I got was in the $15,000 range for a 3 ton unit. Unbelievable. I still am using my oil for the upstairs, and I have a new Harman pellet stove that heats my downstairs. I really want to put in a geothermal system (ground source HP) but here contractors are pricing them in the $30,000 range, again major rip off.

Is the HP ouote for duct work Or just swap out unit. $5,000 per ton @ 3 tons = $15,000.00. That's good money ! Wish I could get that On the geo systems unless you own your drilling rig. Drilling several wells several ft deep ain't cheap

 

[2manyrocks]

Heehaw--maybe her system is operating "correctly," but if it is undersized, it is going to run all the time trying to keep up, and that is not efficient. The system should be sized for the anticipated heat requirements of the house at design temperatures for her area. [Translation: it is big enough to keep the house warm during the expected temperatures in her area]

Very few HVAC guys are going to run a manual J heat load analysis. They are going to say--how many square feet to you have and then sell a unit based on a rough guess of btu requirements. The quality of construction and insulation really affects how many btus are required to heat a home. Sloppy building leaves many points for cool air to enter and heated air to leave a home. The rare perfectionist HVAC installer may even do a blower door test on a home to see how leaky it really is.

Heat pumps also are less efficient at lower temperatures and that might be a factor if her home is in an area where the outdoor temps stay around freezing or below. Someone else has already mentioned that a home heated by a heat pump may feel cool even if the thermostat reads 72 degrees because the heated air will be slightly less than body temperature.

An AC system that feels good in the summer because you actually feel the cool air blowing on you is not the kind of system you want with a heat pump. Ideally, a heat pump system should be designed to move lots of air at lower velocity so it kind of "oozes" out. That way, you don't notice that the air is slightly less than body temperature. But if her existing ducts are a relatively small size, the air velocity has to be higher to move a given volume of air.

Typically, the thermostat controls are wired to run the heat pump without any boosting from the electric coils. The coils in my system were there for emergency heat if the heat pump couldn't produce enough heat in colder than design temperatures.

We're relying more on our heat pump because our propane supplier bought LP when prices were crazy and is still trying to pass them along to his customers. So he has been told to come get his tank. We were buying LP at .99 gallon in 2003 or 2004, and now his best is $2.49 gallon. I'd like to be able to raise my prices the same percentage.

 

[Sigarms]

$50.00 per ton @ 3 tons = $15,000.00

With math like that, I hope you do your calculations on the computer

 

[kenmac]

With math like that, I hope you do your calculations on the computer

I told you I wasn't good at math .Will 5,000 per ton work? I'am glad I use a calculator & not my head when giving a quote I feel bad when you catch my mistakes

 

[kenmac]

Joe, a couple of years ago b-4 I got out of new construction. My builders would only pay $1150-$1250 per ton.....I'am glad I only do service $ replacment now.......I hate this new laptop that I'am now using. The key coating is gold with white letters. there is a glare on the keyboard from the screen & when typing if you don't tilt it just right you can't see the letters

 

[Sigarms]

Ken, I can assure you, I've made some bigger boo boos than adding

You want to see a prostitutes market in HVAC new construction? Come to N.C. That said, you couldn't pay me to move into these 75-200k cookie cutter homes. The big national home builders build them as cheap as possible and will take price over quality no questions asked.

The prices I got was in the $15,000 range for a 3 ton unit. Unbelievable.

I'd say you're probably right, that is unbelievable for a simple retrofit with a quote from mutlitple contractors.

Some questions

1. Retrofit or new instal?
2. If new install, do you need a duct system installed?
3. If new duct system, is the duct metal or fiberglass?
4. If new duct system, any major construction to the house to fit ductwork in?
5. If metal duct, is it round or rectangular, and is it lined or wraped?
6. R-value of the duct system?
7. Zoned system?
8. Seer/EER/HSPF rating of system?
9. Variable speed or non variable speed?

Bottom line, you need to know what you're paying for.

That said, couple years ago I did a changeout in my attic. Due to the lineset length, I had to change the location of my outdoor unit and re run a new lineset. No way I could do the job by myself with the position of the indoor unit and coil (we're talking PITA). With the help with four other guys, took a total of 56 labor hours in two full days. Again, that was retrofit only job that only required a new supply and return box be built, along with some dampers that we placed in the existing ductwork to balance the air flow. That was a new 13 SEER heat pump with an 80% variable speed two stage gas furnace with a Honeywell T-8000 t-stat with outdoor sensor. When that job went it, it could of been quoted for over 10k no problem. By chance if I wanted to replace all the exisiting ductwork in that attic, over 15k no problem. Keep in mind, that was a couple of years ago. Metal, copper and equipment have all gone up in price since then. Point being, depending on what you're getting for a 15k quote, it may not be unreasonable.

All that said, don't think I've giving any secrets out that in my neck of the woods, for a simple 3 ton retrofit job, you'd be looking at between 4k-7k depending on the type of equipment, quality of workmanship (and there is a difference that when doing an install the homeowner would never know about, like taking the time to pull a vacuum on the system under 500 microns or the type of solder the company uses when brazing copper joints which will ensure that the system will run properly for years to come) and overhead of the company you're dealing with (yes, a one man show can do a job cheaper than a company who employs more people than you can count on your hand not including office staff).

Heck, worse case scenerio, call a contractor who sells Goodman. They're usually the cheapest price in town

Sometimes you do get what you pay for, sometimes you don't.

 

[KentT]

We tried the reversed ceiling fan but don't like it. Even on the slowest setting we feel the slight draft. My wife is cold 11 months of the year so this is an issue. She warms up usually in August.

Our ceilings are 10 feet tall throughout the house. The warm/cool air mixes for us pretty quick. We will feel a draft when the wood stove really heat ups on a load of wood. The hot air rises to the ceiling, rolls across and hits the wall and comes on down to the couch. Its almost as bad as the fan.

The warm air moves fast around our house too. If we dump even the tinniest bit of smoke the smell will be on the far side of the house quicker than I can walk from the stove. And you won't smell the smoke in front of the stove. Kinda freaky.

Reversing the ceiling fan is something you should try. But you might not like it either. Lots of variables. But try it.

Later,
Dan

I think you're feeling the drafts because of the 10ft ceilings, not the cathedral ceilings that I was talking about...

 

[heehaw]

thats an interesting link: the more i read about heat pumps, the less i like them..cooling has never seemed to be a problem, and can be done pretty reasonably: but heating is a problem with a heat pump. geothermal "may" solve this problem, but i will be doing a lot more reading about them before i ever install one: of the 3 places i know of personally that have/had geothermal, one did not go back with geothermal after @20 years and the unit went out: the other two, had to have the units replaced at 7 or 8 years: which took away any savings they would ever have from using geothermal.
heehaw

 

[2manyrocks]

There is another multifuel heating system you might look into. You can install a heat pump for cooling and heating, but also add a hydronic heating coil that uses an appropriately sized gas fired water heater as the heat source. A themostatic control is tied into the outdoor portion of the heat pump that allows it to operate down to say, 48 F, and then below that, the hydronic heating coil takes over. You're basically using the heat pump in the temperatures where it is most efficient and then switching to gas heat below that. I had one. It was very comfortable because the heating tempatures where above body temperature and there weren't wides spreads in the temperatures. The disadvantage is finding a contractor who understands how to install the system and in having a larger sized water heater to provide heated water to the hydronic coil. If the system is sized correctly, it is comfortable and efficient.