Heat pumps (which are standard installs around here) are running continuously and running up energy bills like crazy. We have them in our house as well, but we also have a propane gas furnace as an auxiliary. I usually run that furnace when temps dip below 25F. Nice and warm -
Can’t stand heat pumps, but they were already installed when we bought the place in 2021.
Good luck John - hope you get some relief soon.
I just installed two minisplit AC/heat pumps this summer and so far I am pretty happy with them. This is the first major cold spell I had with them so I was a little concerned, but like you. I have a propane heat as backup. We had 3 days of high teens to low 20s and the heatpumps worked very well. The house stayed in the 70s the whole time. The only concerns I had was the first time they had to defrost. A lot of odd noises coming out of the machine, but it fired right back up.
I'm interested to see what the light bill is for this month, but from past experience I know it would have been @100 gallons of propane to keep the house that warm. And with propane at $2.50 a gallon it may still be cheaper in the long run.
I will never get rid of the propane space heaters because I know how shaky the electrical grid is in Texas. but it is nice to have options.
Those invertor drive minisplits cut my light bill in half this summer. I think thats where the minisplits will shine for me. We only get two or so months of cold here but 5+ months of heat.
Quick info trip here. I did a more extensive review on the old site but when it crashed all that stuff got lost. And I never hit print!
As a matter of normal heat pump operation in winter, the outdoor coil gets colder than the air. Frost and ice accumulates on the coil, eventually impeding airflow enough that the unit can't absorb enough to pump it inside. So the unit goes into defrost to melt that ice buildup. They will rattle (the compressor fighting against high pressures), shake, and "smoke" might be seen rising from the unit (it's actually steam). You're also not getting compression heat inside during this process, so keeping defrost cycles as infrequent and as short as possible helps efficiency immensely. There comes a point though where the temp and humidity outside are so low the unit can't produce enough heat for the inside to make it cost effective. That's where the back-up heat comes in. That used to be around 25 degrees for units I worked on. Apparently they've gotten that setpoint lower now. Plus fancy computer controls to run the defrost only as long as minimally needed saves power, too.
I don't have much experience with mini-splits, and inverters sound like modern variable speed compressors (which were so expensive very few people had them). Your units are 2021's. I'd really be interested in how they continue to work and how long they last.
