Propane or electric heat pump

[Handyman]

You guys are a trip... LOL

One watches too much Bob Vila and the other sounds like.... unless you live in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain, then I can see all this hardware.

I live in the country, but yet to be out of power for more than an hour and that's extreme...

Guys, this is the 21st centry [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Handyman, You said, "Guys, this is the 21st century" but I don't need convincing, my utility service providers need convincing. If I can't hit someone with a rock it is long distance to call them. If I can hit them with a rock, it may still be long distance to call them. Just three miles from here folks have BELL telephone service and for $20/month can call anywhere in the lower 48 as often as they want for as long as they want. For $20 a month I get to call one small town (Shawnee) as often as I want for as long as I want. The $20 is above and beyond all other charges, fees, taxes, etc.

DSL? Our service provider has it in other markets and ISP also but there is no known rollout date for our area.

I have a UPS on my computer and it is a GOOD thing too because there is hardly a week goes by there isn't a glitch (brief outage) in our electricity. Hegemony? The well feeding my mom's house is on a different electric utility than her house. There is no choice, just rigid boundaries. I tried to get an exception and failed.

Rural water district? Our rural water district provides water, of sorts, at pressures varying from below 20 to about 40-45 PSI so I will be buying a booster pump. We got a notice that there was a problem at the treatment plant. It seems some good ole boy needed to go to school on how to run the equipment. Meanwhile the followintg list of symptoms may be due to STUFF in the water...

Except for substandard electrical service, telephone, and water we are in the 21st century, sort of.

An alternative to losing a fridge and freezer full of food is to consider a back up generator. An alternative to freezing in the dark is to consider both back up heat and electricity. Even if extended outages are only about once every 3-10 years, a back up generator is a GOOD THING even if it had no other purpose, which mine has.

I know we are in the 21st century, I read that somewhere.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

I live about 7 miles from the county seat, and about 45 miles West of St. Louis. No power for about 8 hours total after Monday nights storm. Backup propane powered 15KW generator worked fine.

Whole neighborhood for about 6 miles around is dark, except for my neighbors house that's on fire after the lightning hit. but I have A/C, lights, TV etc.

Money well spent.

[Chuck52]

What? You couldn't read by the light of your neighbor's house burning?

Chuck

[GaryM]

Well, yeah, after it broke through the roof. But I didn't want to wait that long.

The power was out when I got home from work. We're about 7 miles out of town and I knew it was out because all the way down the road I didn't see a single dusk to dawn or other light.

I need to add a few more circuits to the transfer switch. I neglected the garage door opener. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[BlueRidge]

5 power outages this week. Moments only, but we're just getting started for the season. Normal here is 3-4 good (several days each) outages per winter.


But that calendar still says 2005. Guess the weather didn't notice.

[Pat]

BlueRidge, We too get lots of brief duration outages. If I didn't have a UPS for the computer I would have gone totally insane song ago (instead of about half way.) I suspect that over time I will reasses my situation and put in a system like Gary has. Fully automatic has a lot to be said for it beyond the "training sessions" with the wife. How would you like to be gone for a week or two and return to adefrosted fridge and a spoiled freezer full of meat?

I am going to a birthday party tonight at the house of a guy with a manual switching back up system. During a recent outage he successfully switched over to generator for his freezer, fridge, A/C, lights, etc but when power was restored he couldn't get those circuits back on grid. It was a cockpit problem. I went over expecting the worst but solved his problem in about 30 seconds. He needs a plastic laminated instruction card posted next to his manual transfer arrangement. All this manual stuff is OK but can your wife work it while you are gone? What about if no one is home?

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[BlueRidge]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
How would you like to be gone for a week or two and return to adefrosted fridge and a spoiled freezer full of meat?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's see.... We have two refrigerators and two freezers.


I think we need an automatic solution!


Working on it...


Even though we're in the 21st Century! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[lliefveld]

Could someone, in relatively simple terms, explain about a heat pump to me? We're building a new home and will have off-grid solar. We started out by thinking we'd put everything on the solar, then we were told that heat generating appliances needed to be on propane. Looking at a propane furnace, I saw that the propane usage would be huge. Now, we're looking at radiant heat. But I'd be interested in learning a little more about a heat pump... You still need a heat source, right? So what's different about it?

[Bird]

I'd heard, and read, a bit about heat pumps, but had no experience with them until we moved into our current house just over a month ago. And since I know very little about them, I hired a man in the business to come check this out and teach me a bit about it. So, from a real amateur, here's what little I've learned.

I guess you know that air-conditioners have a compressor, condensor, and evaporator to circulate a refrigerant (freon) to cool a house. They, in effect, remove heat from the house and put it outside. With the heat pump you have basically the same air-conditioning, but there are some valves that reverse some things so it removes heat from outside and puts it inside. Now everyone says that's fine until the outside temperature gets down to about 40 degrees. So the heat pump system also has an electric heating coil to give it a boost when needed. And when the heating coil is heated up (electrically, of course), that's when you use more electricity. Now the guy I hired told me, if it's too cool in the house, to not raise the thermostat more than 3 degrees at a time, and you'll save on electricity. He said if you raise the thermostat setting more than 3 degrees, the heating coil will heat up to try to boost the indoor temperature faster.

Like I said, I'm new to it, but I've known several people who have had and/or do have heat pumps and they've all liked them. You might want to read this thread on TBN.