ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area New Digital Meter & Electric Bill up $400

recheck the hvac system. if you are dropping from 200kwh to 10 kwh, it points a strong suspicion at the hvac. get a second opinion.

Kimmie, about the emergency heat switch:

A heat pump moves heat from one place to another. In fact, if you turned a window A/C around in the window, it would heat the room, even in the winter. A heat pump does the same thing with a reversing valve.

However, once the outside temperature drops below a certain point, there is not enough heat energy in the air to support the freon evaporation outside, and the heat pump can no longer keep up with the demand for heat.

At this point, typically when there is a 2 to 3 degree difference bewteen the desired and actual temperatures, the unit brings on a supplementary heat system, electric strip heaters in an all-electric house and in many other houses.

You can also engage this auxiallary heat manually with the emergency (or aux) switch. The compressor may or may not shut off at this point, because it still contributes a little heat, but the efficiency plummets drastically.

I'm lucky in that my house has gas, and the backup heat system is a gas furnace. While most people hate to see that little light, which means large electric bills, we're comfy in using the gas furnace on purpose, and not running the compressor at all.

Larry Fine,

Ahhhh yes Gas Heat. I remember it fondly. The house I had in Chicago had gas heat and it was magnificent. My new house in North Carolina is all electric (big mistake).

Thank you for the emergency heat explanation, I actually understood that.

The HVAC guy is here as I type and he found that my tray was full of water, so he emptied it and vacummed out this pipe that water should drip out of....no water was dripping. He also found that the "heat strips" were on. He disconnected them and will come back tomorrow with some relay things. He thinks there is something else wrong because the unit doesn't stay on long enough to satisfy the temperature I've set it to. he will figure that out tomorrow when he returns.

I'll let you know what my kwh usage is after he has fixed everything. Hopefully it will be back down to the norm.

I did mention all of your suggestions to him. He smiled and was very pleasant, he knew I was regurgitating something I'd heard someone else say.

Whew, sucks to be me.

[This message has been edited by Kimmiejoe (edited 09-04-2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kimmiejoe (edited 09-04-2006).]

I might be speaking for more people than just me, but I for one am glad you asked questions before charging in and causing havoc on your system. Surf around these forums long enough and you'll know what I mean. Good luck with your bills!

The auxiliary heat strips in your heat pump are the reason the POCO's promote the things. If the outside temp. drops to anywhere near freezing, the strips kick in and the profits of the utilities go up. Heat pumps are very inefficient below 30 degrees, except as revenue generators. They have the system capacity to handle summer air conditioning loads so they encourage you to use heat pumps, knowing that few people realize how much electric heat costs. BTW, from a system efficiency perspective, looking at the btu's of coal burned at the generating station and the btu's from your bathroom space heater, you get about 2% efficiency...distribution system losses. Burn wood, it involves the labor of 1 or 2 men; burn nat. gas, propane or elect. heat and you have to pay the labor of 1,000 men...go figure

Almost Fried, you might want to recheck your calculations--I think they're off by a decimal place or two.

Good idea. It's 1/10th the price of oil here BTU/BTU at present [as cordwood].

Been looking at 'wood pellet/granule' boilers/furnaces/stoves recently, as 'er indoors objects to hauling logs into the house, [ and not amused by my quip to "make 2 trips" either! ].
Pellets look good from an economy and enviromental viewpoint [ recycled carbon ]. Went trawling the net and even found some folks in the States burning corn [ maize? ] in similar machines, due to it's low price as a fuel. Might be tempted to get a shredder-chipper for my old Renault tractor's pto and make my own!

Alan

Solar Powered: Which ones!

Don't the pellet fed units require electricity to feed the pellets?
Hard to burn a fire in a power outage

Yep and nope! The ones I saw at an agricultural show last week had NiCd battery backup for the air fan:- the screw feed does stop though, so in a prolonged outage, it will go out. Auto-ignition models exist.
The screwfeed pushes the fuel up a burn tube, from a bulk bin, to meet air slits or 'tuyeres' near the tube top, fed by a fan. The fire is actually 'upside down', the ash comes out at the top and falls off the edge of the 'volcano' and drops into a pan. On tickover, the feed runs for a few seconds several times an hour to keep the fire in, chip controlled of course. On full demand a searing white flame appears, [ these models had glass doors and were actually space heaters, not furnaces or boilers ]. The vendor must have been confident about the efficiency - he had two machines running in an open-front mobile, with the exhausts straight into the sales area with no flues. But this is France- just up the rue a roadside sausage-griller was pushing out enough blue acrid smoke to give Arnold a seizure!

Alan


ps. The pellets BTW were about $140 a ton, = c. 180 US Gallons of diesel oil on a calorific comparison. They are delivered by 'tanker', blown in to the store by air blast.