Beware of the Con Artist: How to Spot and Stop Home Maintenance Scammers

[nicksanspam]

You can't find clever controls to make heatpump setbacks save energy?

Nick

[nicksanspam]

We might call them "bad heat pump thermostats" :-)

Nick

[dadiOH]

You are like a friend I have that lives in that area...she keeps her house so damn cold she could hang meat in it. _________________

User error.

BTW, it *will* heat your house.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

[UNIVERSAL MIND]

that's crazy- I have not spent $8000 on heat total cost in the 12 years I've lived in my house- I heat with coal and maybe spent about $3500-4000 at best. I agree, you've been had.

[DamnYankee]

The blizzard was in March of 93 but I remember upstate NY getting hammered by an ice storm around that time as well, maybe 91, not really sure. We drove up through it several years later and we could still see the damage, broken trees and such. Kind of looked like a tornado had gone through.

Doug Kanter wrote:

[Doug Kanter]

I think the OP was talking about the cost of the system, and it sounds like you're talking about the cost of heating the house. Or, it's too early and I'm all mixed up.

[karel]

I think UNIVERSAL MIND is referring to the fact that we will never get our money out of our "investment." Oh well, Karel

[Duane Bozarth]

Don't know that that is a foregone conclusion. What were/are the alternatives and relative fuel costs for the area you're in? The installation cost sounds a little high, but for a high efficiency system the long term cost should be significantly less than the cheaper-initial-cost alternatives. How much is highly dependent on local conditions.

[karel]

Okay, here?s what happened today. I went over to the house and turned the temp up from 58 to 65. AUX heat came on (back up heat) and 30 min later, the temp indicator didn?t even come up one degree but warmish air was coming out of the registers.. I turned the temp to 61 so there would only be a few degree difference to see if I could get the heat pump to come on and it did. Now coolish air was coming out of the registers and still no temp difference. I called the company and this was what I was told: The thermostat should not be manually overridden. We should program the thermostat and should never have the set point more than 5 degrees different. The sophisticated thermostat will learn how to heat our house efficiently and how long it takes to heat our house and will adjust accordingly. I was told that if I continually override the system and turn the temp up manually, it would take up to

4 hours for the heat pump to raise the temp up 4 or 5 degrees. The ?efficiency? of the heat pump relies on bringing up the temps VERY slowly. If we want to raise the temp up faster, it will go into AUX heat and our heat bill will go up pretty quickly. Also, the temperature that is reading on the thermostat is not the actual temp but an average temperature. I?m really disappointed because I?m used to raising the temp on the heater and the house actually heating up in minutes. I guess that is a big difference between oil or gas and electric heat. I wish I would have learned all of this before. I still feel had. Karel

[Duane Bozarth]

There _is_ a major difference between a heat pump and a combustion source furnace, that is certainly true. I would still ask the installer to do a check of the exit temperatures and temperature rise while the unit is running to ensure it is actually performing up to snuff. I would also requst they interlock the AUX heating strips w/ a thermocouple to outside temperature so that they will stay off until outside temperatures are cold enough to make them a real necessity.

You will, indeed, need to learn to adjust from the expectation that you can turn on the furnace manually and expect 110-120F air to blast from the heating ducts---w/ a heat pump this just ain't a gonna' happen. Any reading about how heat pumps work should have made you aware of this.

However, if you learn to set the thermostat at the desired setpoint and leave it, you will find that the house will achieve a comfortable level and stay. I've not had one of the "smart" thermostats, but it should, indeed, be able to figure out what to do most efficiently if (but only if) you set it and leave it alone. The installer is correct that if you keep munging on it as if it were a gas furnace that it will never have a chance to do so.

There should be a sizing calculation worksheet that has temperature rises and exits, etc., that should be able to give you an idea of what you should expect. Stick a good quality mercury bulb thermometer at a duct exit and see what you do get. Keep the thermostat in "HEAT" position to avoid the unnecessary and costly strip heaters from going on.

[karel]

Duane, thanks for all the info. You've been very informative. I will ask about the thermocouple when they come out next week. I think everything will work out fine. They sell a lot of these units so they would have to work up to expectations. Otherwise they would soon go by the way of the horse and buggy. Anyway, that is what I keep telling myself. I just have to get used to the differences. Thanks again to everyone. Karel