3 Month review of the heat pump

 

It's New Years Eve and I've now had three months of electric bills with the heat pump. Remember I'm heating around 950 square feet with a Fujitsu Halcyon- an 18,000 BTU mini-split for cold climates.

So I'm going to offer my last three months of electric bills.  My normal electric bill is around $50. (I don't use much juice I guess. No large TV or stereo, no cable modem or TV controller, I never use the stove - i'm a microwave, rice-cooker person.)  So I'm figuring any amount in excess of $50, we can chalk up to the heat pump.

The first month hardly counts as it was early fall: the bill for September,-October, (mostly milder weather this year) was $67. I ran the thing constantly as the advice was to set it and forget it so that's what I did.... So $17 for a little heat.

For October-November, a colder time at the end, my bill was $102.  So $52 for heat. Not bad.

November-December had some really cold spells. My bill was $202. So $152 for heat. I would have had an oil delivery by now. So $152 compared to $400-$945 for a load of #2 heating oil, depending on the price of oil.  

UPDATE: Feb 6, 2023 - I now have the Dec-Jan bill also a bit higher but still better than a tank of oil - $272 minus the baseline $50 so $222 for heat. 

(I have water filled heat pipes in three rooms not heated by the mini-split. If temps are freezing, say in the teens for several days straight - I am sporadically running a electric space heater on low in two rooms to keep those rooms about 50  degrees. The cost of running them is included in the electric bill.  For three days when temps were in the single digits, I ran the furnace over night - for just for three days to warm up that unused space so the pipes don't freeze. 

So far so good. I still have most of the oil delivered here in March at an exorbitant price. (I have hot water off the furnace. Dont use much of that either I guess!)  The electric company will up rates in January. We'll see how that pans out. :)

Heat Pumps - a gentle, steady warmth

An air-to-air, ductless minisplit heat pump is a kind of sneaky device. 

It works very quietly extracting little bits of heat from the cold air outside and adding them to the inside air.  And quietly, gradually, without out fanfare or glare or anything burning or glowing - your house is warm - and it stays warm too.  All at 3 times the efficiency of "resistance" heaters.

Conventional thought says you pull your chair up to a heater, warm your hands on it.  But new-fangled air-to-air heat pumps really aren't like that. At any given moment the indoor fan might be pushing out a sort of lukewarm air, occasionally warmer - but nothing like a wood stove or an infared heater. Yet your home is quietly warm. Very strange.

Pictured above at right, is the outside unit - a Fujitsu Halcyon Inverter installed a month ago. This heat pump installation is designed to heat the areas I actually live in - a core area of bedroom, kitchen, dining room, living room. And as it gets colder its proving its worth. I'm waiting for the first month's electric bill. (This time last year I was heating with electric space heaters instead of using the furnace.) 

And I will be quite happy not to buy more #2 heating oil for a while.  Instead of six tankfuls a season I'm hoping the full tank I have (delivered in MARCH when I didnt need it and when prices were skyhigh) will last a lot longer. I  will not turn on the regular heat until it's really frigid outside, to keep the pipes in the unused rooms here from freezing....  

Winter's heating dilemma

 

Now that I am old, I like to be warm. But how to be warm and not ruin the planet?? Like many New Englanders, I have an old house and an old oil furnace. As the leaves turn gold and winter approaches the season poses questions.

Every year I ask the tech if this 35 year old Burnham boiler will last the winter. Every year the answer is the same: Maybe....  The burner itself has been replaced but the boiler is decaying.  I've been trying to decide on a replacement but there are a lot of things to consider. Meantime, I started working in earnest on conserving the heat I have. 

The attic insulation is now at R-48. Then the seal-up and save guys came. They mocked me for the folly of having the insulation put in BEFORE I called them, which screws up sealing the top plate. But they plugged a lot of other holes around the house with foam and contributed a few LEDs to my collection.  I used less oil last year and only turned the AC twice,

         My strategies this year: 

1) Heat less space,
2) Use oil less, electric more
3) Make a window quilt for the big north window in the dinning room, 
4) Get an insulating shade for the damn skylight in the kitchen. 
5) Maximize heat gain on sunny days.

HEATING LESS SPACE

Aging in place in too big a space - I'd avoid it if I could. I've looked around. In this super heated pandemic housing market downsizing is risky. Might be easy to sell - but I have been going to open houses for four years now. I've concluded that this old house, is the safest, happiest & most convenient option for the foreseeable future. So how to heat & cool less space? 

First, close doors, add doors. Between the kitchen and an impossibly leaky unheated  "sun" room on the northwest side -  I had an insulated pre-hung exterior door installed. It wasn't cheap but totally worth all the waiting and wrangling to get it done. That's 150 square feet of essentially enclosed porch I no longer have exchanging heated air with the rest of the house.

 I also closed the three north / eastern rooms and turned down the radiators in those rooms. But huge drafts of cold air always rolled out from under the doors. So this year I got 3 inexpensive devises to fill the gap. Essentially they are little cloth bags with two rolls of foam inside. You scoot them under the door with a roll on each side and close the door. If the rolls are too small, replace them with foam pipe insulation in an appropriate diameter. Simple but it works admirably. No more under-door drafts! 

Before heating season, I also made sure to close all the AC vents to minimize heat escaping into duct-work in the unheated attic. When I turned on the heat, I set the basement zone thermostat to 50 degrees. It never got below 55 down there. As a bonus the cool air was much drier. 

So now I was iving in and heating the core at the center of the house.

USE OIL LESS, ELECTRIC MORE

In winter of 20-21 I got a ceramic tower heater and where ever I was sitting I pointed it right at me so I could keep the thermostat set lower. It only added about six dollars a month to my bill. So winter 21-22  I added another electric heater this one an oil-filled rolling radiator thing. During the day when I am able to check on them I kept the electric on and at night I default to the oil furnace thermostat set at 65. 

Mini-split heat pump

The last season's last delivery (in March) was a whopping surprise - a $945 delivery of oil - almost twice the usual price . (it's now September and I have not used it yet.)  The fact i had no notice of the price change, no choice in how much was delivered  - I WAS FURIOUS. So this year for Winter 22-23 I have a new plan. I cancelled a long standing contract with Heat USA and their contractor Hoffman Energy.  I got an independent non-oil selling guy to service the furnace. I lined up a cash on delivery oil company - with a 50 gallon minimum as opposed to a whole tank or bust.

And now I have contracted for the installation of a two head mini-split for the two rooms I spend most time in - pricey but sensible.  If it works out I think I might not turn on the furnace until the end of November. When the furnace dies, maybe another minisplit for the northeastern rooms?