Thermostat to control an oil/furnace-boiler AND heat pump system
LEWSTONE
13 years ago
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tigerdunes
13 years agoLEWSTONE
13 years agoRelated Discussions
Heat pump and thermostat setbacks
Comments (17)If this is new install, your dealer did you a disservice. All heat pump thermostats have an auxiliary and emergency setting as well as on/off , heat, cooling, along with fan setting. Dealer apparently looked out for himself, not you. Sorry to report that. IMO...See Morechanging oil boiler for heat pump?
Comments (9)The aluminum wiring is indeed another issue, but probably not related much to this because any type of additional heat you'd put in would be on its own circuit with its own wiring. Almost all houses I've seen have aluminum wiring for their service entrance wiring, and it's not a problem. Aluminum wiring is really only a problem on standard household circuits that have receptacles or switches that were not designed for aluminum, because the expansion and contraction of the aluminum wire (which is greater than that of copper) can cause connections to loosen and get hot. But if you've got receptacles rated for aluminum, or both aluminum and copper, you should not have this problem. But back to the heat pump issue, since you have no need for cooling, and you are only using 100 gallons of oil per year, I'm going to say the heat pump probably does not make sense. I think in Canada you use Imperial gallons, but I am used to thinking in U.S. gallons, so let's say you're using 120 of those to adjust for the difference in measure. At current U.S. prices that would be about US$500 in oil. Is that about right? Assuming your boiler is 70 percent efficient, you're using about the same amount of heat you could buy with about 3,500 kilowatt-hours of electric resistance heat (baseboard, fan-forced wall unit, etc.). I think in most parts of Canada your electric rates are pretty reasonable, but even at U.S. 10 cents per kwh, which might be more than what you pay, that's $350 in electricity to duplicate with electric resistance heat what you're paying $500 for with oil, resulting in a $150 savings. Baseboard heaters cost less than $50 apiece, and you have individual room control, which works well in your situation since you have alternative heat sources available and would just use the electric heat to supplement that. Possibly you could increase your savings further with electric heat by heating only the rooms you need (such as your bedroom(s) at night), whereas the boiler was heating the whole house. You might be able to do it without upgrading your service if you do not install an excessively large amount of wattage, which might be possible given your moderate climate, but you'd want to have an electrician evaluate that....See MoreHeat pump with Electrical or Oil Backup in Central Massachusetts
Comments (7)Hi Mike, thank you for your reply. The furnace is original from builder. It is the reason we have to upgrade. The heat exchanger has a crack such that when it first starts we get oil smell. The AC is working fine. The fan motor/blower was changed 3-4 years ago. Most of the installers said that just fixing the heat exchanger is not worth it and is better to go with an upgrade. Maybe they are upselling? We have independent electric hot water boiler at present. One installer gave us Manual J calculation of 72769BTU, but I am not clear if that is heating or cooling or both. I assumed that is heating. Am I supposed to check for cooling too? If I go with that as reference for heating, 20KW heat strip generate 62800BTU 24KW heat strip generate 75300BTU So I thought we would go with 24KW because we don't like to be cold. Additionally, the 24KW heat strip is staged for 8,16,24. So it would only use what was needed. Don't know what cooling we will need because we got quotes from 3 ton to 5 ton, and current is 5 ton. How can we find out that ton we need for cooling? I had done some research and one calculator showed: 1. For Oil at $4.00 per gallon $36.09 per Million BTU. 2. For Electric furnace/backup heat at $0.1139 per KWH $34.06 per Million BTU. 3. For Heat Pump with HSPF 13 (Bryant Extreme) at $0.1139 per KWH $8.76 per Million BTU. So from that the electric backup heat is slightly cheaper cost wise too, but it would also not have all the problems of oil delivery, maintenance, spill issues, having to shovel the path to the oil pipe for the delivery guy (because that is on the far side of the house), etc. Plus oil prices seems to go higher faster, while our utility (small one) sets the price once a year and is one of the lower rates one. Thank you again for your help....See MoreHeat Pump vs Furnace/AC
Comments (37)where does one find "degree days Centigrade scale" for their climate? I am in Sarnia, Ontario and this is an area where a heat pump supposedly feasible. (i would mate it with a high efficiency furnace), but all the techs i speak to have advised against it saying i am wasting my money, it won't work...etc. I have gotten a couple of quotes for 16 seer 2 stage heat pumps with HE furnace and they have been 11-12K. i can get the same setup with 16 seer ac for about 8K... doesn't that seem like a huge jump for a heat pump over an a/c condensor? i'm about to give in and just go with an a/c unit, but the math says it is about 30% cheaper to heat my house with at heat pump over a 95% efficency furnace...and that is using a COP of 2.5 at 30 deg f. i am thinking about importing my own equipment from the states where prices seem much more reasonable (96% amana furnace 16 seer 2 stage heatpump, coil, txv for $3800) and just having a local guy who is willing to install it. that blows some of the rebates that are available, but it still might be worth it. all i know is it would take more than a decade (and likely much more...) to recoup an extra $4k....See Morecuffs054
13 years agotigerdunes
13 years agoLEWSTONE
13 years agoLEWSTONE
13 years agotigerdunes
13 years agoneohioheatpump
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13 years agorncpeters_hotmail_com
13 years agofsq4cw
10 years ago
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