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QUESTION:My husband and I are thinking of buying a home - built 1986 - pretty
nice quality (respected builder) - heatpump (original). I know heat pumps
have gotten better over the years - my question is: Have efficiency
ratings gotten dramatically better since 1986. If we buy the house would we
be better off trying to replace the heatpump as fast as we could or is
the difference in efficiency not enough to warrant that kind of
investment/debt right away (especially when we will have lots of
other expenses) -I know over the long haul its better to go with the more
efficient system. On related note - the house we are currently renting has a heat pump
we don't know how old it is. Last night we had a cold nite (single
digits with a minus -10 windchill) - we set the house temp at 60. (we have a
small electric heater that we put on in the bedroom). Well the heat
pump was only on approx 1 minute out of 10. We didn't put on the emergency
setting and as far as I can tell it never went into auxiliary mode.
Can I assume that as long as the heat pump is not "on" that much that we
are still operating efficiently? I know there is a trade off between the
electric cost of defrosting the heat pump vs just going with
resistive heat.
ANSWER: I have lived all over the U.S.A. and have had gas, oil, heat pump, radiant,
in other words, all kinds of heat sources. For Dayton, I'd say, replace
the heatpump with a combo gas furnace for heat and heatpump for a/c. Yes,
the newer units have great effeciency ratings (EER), but Dayton is a bit
too far North to get good heat when the temp gets down there. Consumer
Reports has done some articles on this subject with maps and diagrams
to figure your best device. They're on-line on CompuServe.
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