Well.... I guess I was delusional about both outdoor and indoor fans were running. They indeed, but I was not paying close attention to the fan outdoor when I first started noticing the air sent out was cold. When you asked me if the fans were running, I was having the impression of both fans working during the two good days. The thermostat triggers the fan when trying to work, yet the outdoor unit did not do anything (no compressor-kick-in sound). No sound at all... I checked to see what could be the solution online. I narrow down to tow possibilities, other than not getting power from the power company: bad transformer or contactor. They don't cost much, and I could probably replace a new one myself as the defrost control board I did. However, the problem is that the heat pump company is not longer existing. I was lucky enough to find a defrost board last year and this time, which two HVAC companies told me they could not find. I guess moving the top panel which the fan attached to affecting the wires or cords of the fan or for some reason the compressor was damaged... well....gotta call the pro, as you suggested. BUT....it's hard to find a real pro though.....I seemed trying almost every HVAC companies locally.... Anyhow..Klem1..thank so much for your help. You've done everything you could to help me. This post was edited by chueh on Sun, Jan 12, 14 at 11:46

A test like that is not accurate unless the parameters are tightly controlled and all contributing factors noted. The meter reading includes all household electric use, not just the heat pump. Cooking? Bathing? Dishwashing? Laundry? Sunshine vs. overcast? Wet vs. dry weather (affects heat pump defrost frequency)? Did the 3°F recovery involve use of auxiliary heat strips? 2°F and 3°F setback is very minimal. More savings is potentially garnered with larger setbacks. I'm in TX. We had a rare snowfall during a wet norther on Dec 4. After that Dec 4 weather incident, I didn't run the central heating (heat pump) for several weeks. Instead, I used a space heater only in the bedroom at night. I noted that even with occasional nighttime temps into the upper 30°Fs, the unheated rooms in my house rarely dropped below 60°F. So ... if I had been running the heat pump at 70°F normal with a 2°F setback (68°F), it still would run to maintain 68°F during the setback periods ... but an 8°F to 10°F setback (setpoint of 62°F or 60°F), it would run very little during the setback periods, if at all. That'd make a difference on KWH usage in regards to setback vs. none.

Tiger, We have had over 20 inches of snow, probably approaching 30 inches so far. We have had a bunch of both very wet sticky snow and dry blowing snow, much more than normal this year. Temperatures have been abnormally cold especially Decembers temps. I have a Ruud 3 ton system with demand defrost and IAQ with 10kw of staged 20/80 heat strips. RHLL-HM3617JA and UPQL-036JEZ Demand defrost is so much nicer than timed defrost and it used to be very evident when defrost mode was on as I did have the defrost on the 20% stage and it would blow quite a bit cooler air. When it was snowing or just really humid you could tell the defrost runs were more often than the days that weren't so humid or very cold. I cannot really tell now that defrost kicks in the 80% stage. I wish I would have spent the extra money for the variable speed blower but the X-13 is a huge leap forward over the old motor, I think the air handler draws like 2 amps with just the heat pump and blower running and the tempstar would draw over 10 before I fixed the ductwork. My usage since the snowy cold winter slam hit in December has been higher than last year but it has been a whole lot colder and more precip and also a newborn in the house so the temp has been set higher. I think 500KW higher than last year and the temp set at 74 instead of the 70-72 it was last year. Old system 3.5 ton 20kw Tempstar 13 Seer 8hspf ICP air handler with piston orifice Heat Strip 20kw staged 50/50 Honeywell visionpro stat with outdoor temp sensing but no humidity control Generalaire humidifier new system 3ton 10kw Ruud 15.5 seer 10.5 hspf I think with txv and demand defrost Ruud air handler with 10kw heat strips staged 20/80 Honeywell Visionpro IAQ t-stat with outdoor temp sensing Generaire humidifier controlled now by stat. I dropped the ball on the variable speed blower but it is a world of difference different in comfort and noise level than the Tempstar/ICP.

A different tech/company. I asked about shooting some dye through and he said -not this time. Found out why he said that because as he was leaving and I asked how much I owed him he said "nothing" it's warranty wrk. He thought his company had done the installation. Being the honest person that I am (LOL)-I told him your company had not-so I paid $209.00. I think if he knew I was a new customer he may have done the dye check-he seeme to feel bad about it. How long do you think the charge will last-Ifigure it took 2 years to leak that much (unless it was a recently developed leak) so hopefully I'll get another 2 years. I should have kept the 15 year old TRANE-It was still working-but-you never know! Tedrik