[Greenbuilding] Ductless Heat Pump Performance - November 2011

[Richard Garbary]

Paul:

Very similar experience. The previous owner of our Don Mill's townhouse
took out the baseboards and installed a 15 kw Carrier electric furnace that
was poorly ducted through exterior walls,garage and bulkheads. I thought
the meter flywheel would fly apart whenever the thermostat called for heat!
On the coldest days the air coming out the registers was barely tepid. Heat
pump technology has come a long way. They could be considered as grid
extenders. 2.5 outputs for every 1 input is a pretty good argument to rip
out conventional resistive heating and possibly an option to oil and gas.

Cheers,

Richard


====================================================================================================
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:45 PM, Paul Eldridge <
paul.eldridge at ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> When I lived in Toronto, my first home was an old Victorian that was
> heated by a 30.0 kW electric furnace, and when the thermostat called for
> heat all 30.0 kW kicked on, the blower ran for however long then shut off,
> with this being repeated perhaps a hundred times a day during the coldest
> days of the year.  Compare this to our two ductless units that draw a few
> hundred watts each more or less continuously in mild weather and maybe a
> 1,000 or so watts when temperatures turn sharply colder.  From a utility's
> perspective, one is a sleeping collie curled up in front of the fire and
> the other the proverbial bull in a china shop (my gift to Nova Scotia
> Power: http://i362.photobucket.com/**albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/**
> TheKids.jpg<http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/TheKids.jpg>
> ).
>
> I just received our most recent power bill and as at November 24th our
> twelve month rolling average now stands at 10,998 kWh (space heating and
> cooling, domestic hot water, major appliances and all plug loads).  Over
> the next twelve months I hope to shave that by another 1,000 kWh.  The
> previous owners of this home in the year prior to our purchase consumed
> some 5,700 litres of fuel oil and if memory serves 14,600 kWh of
> electricity, so we've made good progress to date, but there's still more
> work to be done.
>
> Our consumption data for the first five days of December:
> http://i362.photobucket.com/**albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/**
> 111201-111205.jpg<http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo69/HereinHalifax/111201-111205.jpg>
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>
> />Paul:
>
>>
>> Thanks for the details. So, when the temperature drops a  degree or two
>> you
>> only have an incremental (tiny) increase in power consumption. The
>> implications are huge. If more homes installed these ductless units* with
>> inverter technology* ( Nova Scotia is ideal with average winter
>> temperatures of -3 degrees) the utility wouldn't have to do massive
>> ramp-ups trying to cope with thousands of baseboards simultaneously
>> demanding 1,500 kw - 4,500kw or oil furnace burners demanding 1.5 - 5 amps
>> when the temperature drops. Also, many don't factor the electrical input
>> of
>> burner motors and distribution fans ( many running 24/7 through
>> non-insulated leaky ducts in crawl spaces, garages and attics) when
>> costing
>> out their gas and oil central heating systems. The fact that one appliance
>> is providing heating and air conditioning is very appealing.
>>
>> Very impressive.
>>
>> Richard/
>>
>
>
>
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