One of the first signs of leaving dormancy is the development of leaf "claws" at the tips. The plant will come out of dormancy when it is darn good and ready. I don't try to force a plant out of dormancy other than provide it warmth and light using a heat mat and grow lights. A lady on another board kept some of hers in a heated GH under 7/24 lighting in order to keep them blooming for a January wedding. So, if you want to encourage a plumie to leave dormancy, you need to duplicate spring/summer temp and lighting. Don't fertilize until the plant begins leafing out. Also, be very sparing with water until that happens. I would advise moving the plants outdoors when daytime temps are over 60, bringing them indoors for the evening. You should be able to leave them all night when nighttime temps are about 60 as well. Mike

David is correct (Kasie is always correct - right David?). The heat pump is in defrost (a/c is on) plus the heat strips. Next time you mesure this temp, take a quick run outside. The heat punmp should be buzzing and the condenser fan off. The heat strips will give you about 13 degrees for every 5 kw (based on a blower fan volume of 1200 cfm). So, if the heat pump is putting out 85 degree air when its frigid out and you have 10kw of strips, you should measure about 111 degrees after the air handler. If the heat pump is not running, but the 10kw strips are (emergency heat), you should have about 96 degrees (70 supply air temp plus 26 from strips).

I vote for a real fireplace or zero clearance stove We put in a fireplace at Lakehouse with SS pipe . A zeroclearance woodstove with SS pipe that we enclosed like a fireplace in this house. I like our EnergyKing best Have access to free wood for the splitting and taking Plus scrounge the neigborhood for when tree work is done. Lots of tree services will dump off cut up wood in my yard for the asking Course we split lots ourelves w log splitter and chain saw But the main reason here in Suburba is backup heat. Plus I need the exercise. We built 4 small "cribs" to hold that wood in backyard. Each has a nice fiberglass roof Plus I made nice tarps to cover the fronts. Put a nice made lattice hinged divider so it doesnt show from street We are one of the few on this dead end street (late 1950) 1000 plus ft )not built with a real fireplace unfortunately That is my humble opinion . Most would not want the "mess " but I like being prepared

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.