Hello, I have the opportunity to get a programmable thermostat for my house, the idea is to set it to lower the heat / AC during the day when nobody is home. However my system is a electric powered heat pump system, and I've been told that with these systems it is more economical too pick a temp you like and just leave it here. What's the smart move here? THanks
That's because a long temperature rise when the thermostat kicks in can cause the heat pump to energize the electric heating coils. Especially if it is geothermal which can draw down the heat source.
I live in FL, so setting it for heating isn't a concern. In the summer I set it 2-3 degrees higher of where I normally keep it while I'm home.
What does that have to do with AC?
Meant to add, when you start getting crazy with it, like 5 degrees higher or more in the summer, then it's takes a LOT longer to get your home to your comfort level. That's probably what however told that were talking about.
it's always cheaper to reheat than maintain. A heat pump system SHOULD have come with a nice programmable 'stat.
Not true. Reheat with a heat pump may involve resistive heating which costs twice as much as pumped heat. The recovery time is ridiculously long and all the while they're putting out (stirring up) cold air. One of the things I don't like about heat pumps.
Actally nothing, you're right, but it's probably what the people who told him not to use a setback thermostat were thinking of. You shouldn't use it in the winter with the heat afaik**. I don't see why you shoulndn't use it in the summer with the AC.
I was told, second hand, also, related really, that the heat pump, at least in Baltimore, can't put out much heat, so if you turn the heat way down during the day or at night, it won't be able to heat the house up again, because it can barely keep it warm even when always set at 68. This explanation said nothing about electric heating coils, maybe because my friend didn't have any?
She was my girlfriend and when I got a setback thermostat in 1983, I offered to install one for her. She told me what I have above. Later I talked to her husband, whom she was only separated from and not divorced, and which she didn't tell me, and he told me that she had to be at work a half hour earlier than he, so she would get up and turn the heat off and he was thin and he'd be really cold when it was time to get up, and cold until he left the house, because turning the heat pump back on wouldn't make it warm quickly enough. I really wish I could have found out whether she knew about the heat-up problem when she was doing this to him. She might well have. She was I think passive aggressive, and divorced once and separated never to get back togehter again from a second guy by age 30. And I didnt like her either after several months. In fact, years later another female friend of mine was in a gym a quarter of the way around the city, and overheard two women talking about a third in the locker room, and by their description of where she worked, what she did, what she looked like, a description that only fit one person, it was perfectly clear they were talking about this woman. They didn't like her either.
But I digress.
I'm not changing what I said in my long post, but I want to emphasize that Baltimore can be down to 20 degrees sometimes or even colder. If where you are is much warmer, you may hot have the same problem, because you can more heat out of 40 degree air than you can out of 20 or 30 degree.
In addition, maybe setback thermostats are better than they were 27 years ago. Mine just resets the goal temp when it reaches the set time. Some of the new ones are supposed to be at the goal temp at the set time, and they do this by learning how long it takes to heat hte house in the morning and at 5:30 PM or whatever (and also to cool it) and then calculating, or at least modifying the start time when the heat increases so that it will reach the goal temp AT the right time.
Now this doesn't mean the heating coils won't go on, but it would be only one more step to put something in the furnace and thermostat to indicate that this warm-up time was a scheduled transition time and that the electric heat shouldn't go on. This doesn't sound so complicated to me. Easier than the previous innovation I described.
But maybe there is no standard protocol that would allow one brand of therm to be used with another brand of heat pump. Or there is but they pretend you have to use their brand of therm. Who knows?
If they actually sell a setback thermostat designed for your heat pump. surely that means it's a good idea.
So after all these ways they haven't figured out a way for the human or his thermostat to tell the heatpump that he's not in a hurry for the place to heat up? What have they been doing?
Nothing, but he mentioned heat and A/C.
I have a setback thermostat on my heat pump (Honeywell T8611). It will bring up the heat in the mornings without triggering the aux heating strips.
In theory, a setback temp of, say, 66 deg can be entered and a desired morning temp of, say, 70 deg at 08:00 can be entered. The heat pump will start cycling early to meet the 70 deg, 08:00 requirement without using the strips.
Unfortunately, my heat pump is undersized, and since winter temps drop to freezing at night, the pump won't do the above method of recovery in the mornings without using the strips. So I use the following settings:
10:00 at night 68 deg 08:00 in morning 69 deg 11:00 in morning 70 deg 5:00 in evening 71 deg.The above settings work fine without triggering the strips in freezing weather.
I can't speak to the economy of a setback; however, I find it more comfortable to sleep with a lowered temperature.
Gary
That's true in Alabama. My bet is that heap pumps don't work any better in Baltimore. ;-)
The heat pump wouldn't work as far North as Baltimore without some sort of auxiliary heat, usually resistance heating.
That's another switch. Can you say "Blinking 12:00"?
I also was going to suggest the Honeywell VisionPro series. They have many programmable options for use with various systems and I bet if the OP looks at the manual which is available online, he'll find that it has choices of when and when not to use aux heat. They are also adaptive, meaning you just set them for the temp you want and it figures out how to get the house to that temp at the given time.
NOT, not true. My systems has NO resistive heating, so that doesn't occur.
What do you do for prolonged freezing temperatures? Freeze?
my heat pump is coupled up with a natural gas furnace. But it only has to use it if it goes below about 25 degrees.
s
Yours and three others'. What a moron.
hey why don't you just f*ck off? It's apparent from reading these threads that it is YOU that is the moron. What "three others"?? don't bother to answer. You are
PLONKED!!
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