Home Building Questions - Propane - All electric - Fireplace

[kenmac]

Feel free to share your ideas on the better systems. That's why I started this post.

I did. In post #34

 

[ponytug]

Two comments in heat pump water heaters. One, they can be quite loud, so you want to locate them away from living areas. Two, they are rather complex machines, mechanically, and by their internal piping, and more likely to fail with corrosive water. A site below grade, in an unconditioned space is ideal, akin to a geothermal heat pump.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

I did. In post #34

Got ya. I'll check into the inverter ones. Never heard of those before.

 

[ponytug]

Got ya. I'll check into the inverter ones. Never heard of those before.

Much more efficient, lower starting surge, and easier on batteries, should you get battery backup...

 

[dodge man]

I just got a letter today from the electric company today. I had been paying a lower electric rate for geothermal, they are doing away with that. It will cost us another $5 to $10 a month.

 

[BoylermanCT]

I heat with baseboard heat run by a heating oil powered boiler. Then I also have a wood burning fireplace insert that heats the family room, dining room and kitchen. I burn 3-4 cords of wood a year and 1 gallon of oil in the winter to heat a 3 bedroom 1900 sq ft log home. I use window AC's in the summer. This year I will be adding 4 mini-splits to replace the window AC units and to provide an extra option for heat in winter. I'm looking into solar down the road too.

My recommendation is to have at least 2 options so you are not caught in the cold of you lose power, if electricity / propane / nat gas gets too expensive etc.

 

[Carl_NH]

Boylerman, We did 7.2 KW solar in Dec 2014, then in 2016-2017 replaced the 3 window AC units with mini splits - all Mitsubishi single zone units - two 9K and one 12K. The single zone units have a high SEER and high COP and the 12K unit cools/heats the down stairs of our 3KSF cape, and one 9K cools/heats the up stairs. The other 9K heats/cools my office/garage 900SF.

I would call what we do is "condition" the air meaning they cool in the summer to 72 inside when it's 80-90 outside and provide supplemental heat to our oil boiler in the winter.

You likely are on Eversource for electric in CT, and seen the rates double in the last year - same as here. Our combination of solar, oil, and mini splits have kept our monthly costs below $200/month until this year. With electric doubling, and oil @ $4 gal this year it will only increase our monthly costs by $50-60.

Just replacing the window AC with minisplits will save you $ as a first step.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Carl_NH, you have the right idea! I lucked out - when Eversource raised electric rates from $0.11 to $0.24 on generation, I have been locked into a $0.10 3rd party rate until 2025. So my all in rate is still $0.27 and not $0.40. Even with the low rate, solar seems the way to go since in 10 years our cars will all be electric, heating / cooling electric.

How cold outside can your mini-splits effectively heat your home?

 

[Carl_NH]

The Mitsubishi Hyper Heat (with no tray defrost) have a COP of 4.26 @ 47*F, 3.37 @ 17F, and 3.1 at 5*F. Which means they return 3 units of heat for every watt/KW input. So if 1 KW = 3412 BTU, the mini spits create 10,577 BTU at 5*F (3.1x3412)

In reality, I found the mini splits claim to heat down to -13F, they are most effective down to 5-10*F then it's cheaper to heat with oil. But we only get a 8-10 days each winter under 5*-10*F here on the coast of NH (1/2 mi to ocean).

Here's a link to the 9K units we installed. Mitsubishi MUZ-FS09NA-U1 9,000 BTU H2i Outdoor Ductless Heat Pump Condenser Daikin and Fujitsu also make very good high eff. single zone ductless mini split units too.

Each of our units were $3K installed with an Eversource NH rebate of $400, and 30% govt credit/rebate ($900) the net cost was $1700 each.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

We took some time yesterday to go to a fireplace store and look at kitchen appliances.

The fireplace store is a place that sells, installs, and services fireplaces and stoves. They said they quit selling pellet stoves because they had so much trouble with them. I know it was probably an exaggeration but the owner said they had to work on 90% of the pellet stoves. But it was eye opening that they require so much work that a company that does nothing but fireplaces refuses to sell them or service any that they didn't originally sell. After that visit i think we are probably going to go with a built in propane vented fireplace. The ones we liked are in the 45,000 BTU range.

Got a quote on appliances. Gas and electric ranges are the same cost. Gas range is intriguing to me lots of people that have them say they wouldn't ever have anything else. Induction is right at twice the cost. It's officially out of the running.

Gas fireplace means gas water heater is back on the list.