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reffug

reffug

Joined
May 28, 2004
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'in dat der briar patch'
OK as most of you my wife and I are in the process of constructing a new home and one of the things I thought I was set on was the HVAC system. Course this was before the fuel problems that have been encountered as of late. Originally I had planned to put in a 5ton Heat Pump and a High Efficiency Propane Furnace to back that up if the temp drops below 35. Talking to my elec. contractor he suggested I rethink the Propane and go with an elec backup dual system with 20KW worth of draw on 2 circuits due to the fact that at 3.99 a gallon propane could get real spendy real quick. Interested in opinions on what you fella's would do if doing new construction. Oh and yes I am installing a wood stove and fireplace in the basement.
 
candles....:D...lots of freaking candles.
 
hi

$3.99 gal?damn where you live?it is $1.50 in midwest.my bro just built a new house.have large pella windows facing south to let sun help heat!he put in heat pump with propane backup.works great ,propane furnace does not run very much at all.go with electic water heater.you wont use much propane.the large windows facing south help alot.you will be real happy with this setup.i know this bussiness well ,would not steer you wrong even though you are a moderator.good luck dude!!!:beer:
 
What about ground-source with the heat pump. No need for backup and easier to do when under construction.

Ed
 
Ground source heat pump! Works well for AC too.
Cheers,
Sean
 
Pardon me for not knowing as this ain't my field but WTF is a ground source???
 
reffug said:
Pardon me for not knowing as this ain't my field but WTF is a ground source???
Click to expand...


it's a heat pump the pumps heat into or out of the relatively constant temperature earth. These can be very efficient. One of the pluses is that if you have a pool you can use the heat pump to pump heat from your house into the pool water, for heated pool at no additional cost.

In any case, what it avoids is trying to get heat out of the air when it is cold outside, and trying to pump heat into hot air in the summer.
 
Steve C said:
it's a heat pump the pumps heat into or out of the relatively constant temperature earth. In any case, what it avoids is trying to get heat out of the air when it is cold outside, and trying to pump heat into hot air in the summer.
Click to expand...

OK I'm getting the general idea, but I have never heard of such so is this something that all major manufactures i.e. Trane, Goodman, Carrier etc... make. I have never seen any reference made to that type of heat pump on there websites.
 
in floor radiant heat is the way to go, not cheap to install but VERY low energy use and it feels SO good.
 
an in ground heat pump aka geothermal heat pump seems still to be a theoretical idea because of the high cost. Talked to a heat pump installer up country and he does a ton of conventional heat pumps new and retorfitted but has yet to do a single below ground job.

Has anyone actually used a heat pump, in ground or otherwise, to heat their home? I have heard they take a long long time to heat a house up and that some homes end up with some cold spots that the pump just cannot warm up.

Also, anyone have any experience with a wood stove power forced air as a heat pump back up? I've heard that a high efficiency wood stove installed in the basement attached to a blower is a viable and economical backup for the few weeks of the year a heat pump can't cope.
 
semlin said:
an in ground heat pump aka geothermal heat pump seems still to be a theoretical idea because of the high cost. Talked to a heat pump installer up country and he does a ton of conventional heat pumps new and retorfitted but has yet to do a single below ground job.

Has anyone actually used a heat pump, in ground or otherwise, to heat their home? I have heard they take a long long time to heat a house up and that some homes end up with some cold spots that the pump just cannot warm up.

Also, anyone have any experience with a wood stove power forced air as a heat pump back up? I've heard that a high efficiency wood stove installed in the basement attached to a blower is a viable and economical backup for the few weeks of the year a heat pump can't cope.
Click to expand...

I have a Vermont Castings high efficiency wood stove with vents that draw hot air into the forced air system. Works well, but does take time to heat the joint up. I fire up the oiler to get the temp up, and use the wood to maintain it. Not a bad little system. 2400 sq/ft house heated by 1 wood stove. Of course, the basement, where the stove is... tends to be just a touch warmer than the rest of the house!

A heat pump will warm and keep your house at an even temp. I don't know about the cold spots, but I am suspect. It does not heat like a furnace, but it will keep the temps nice and even easily. Geothermal is nice if you live in a cold climate, but if your temps don't go down much below 0 (32 fer da yanks), there is not much point to the extra costs.
 
thanks Steve. We have a small Vermont castings stove at our summer place and it is a great stove. Do you use alder or softwood to keep yours going?
 
semlin said:
an in ground heat pump aka geothermal heat pump seems still to be a theoretical idea because of the high cost. Talked to a heat pump installer up country and he does a ton of conventional heat pumps new and retorfitted but has yet to do a single below ground job.

Has anyone actually used a heat pump, in ground or otherwise, to heat their home? I have heard they take a long long time to heat a house up and that some homes end up with some cold spots that the pump just cannot warm up.
Click to expand...

My former brother in law used to install these in upstate NY (around Albany). This was like 15 years ago. So yeah, they're not all that theoretical as they do actually work. But there is a large impact on the building site as you have to run a lot of pipe under the ground to a depth below the frostline; the colder the area is, the more pipe you need to install. He told me he had done some vertical installations too. This is where you run the pipes straight down, as if in drilling a well; I think the idea is that you run a bunch of connected vertical pipes but not so deep as you would if actually drilling a well. The benefit of this is that it requires less real estate, but does incur greater expense for the work to be done.
 
I was talking to my hvac contractor when I had my house built and they do geothermal heatpumps regularly in maryland (I think trane or carrier makes them, one or the other or both). The aren't typically installed because they aren't the cheapest option and it's hard to say how they will appraise when you sell.

If I wanted a house to stay in I would consider them, however I need to keep moving every couple of years.
 
Landpimp said:
in floor radiant heat is the way to go, not cheap to install but VERY low energy use and it feels SO good.
Click to expand...
I second Pimp. I install alot of radiant floor heat on my projects. My clients love it. Also just installed Suntouch heat mats under 1700 square feet of ceramic tile-very, very nice.
 
Geothermal from Trane, horizontal loop is the cheaper way to go if you have soil that can be easily trenched. I had a conversation with a contractor who installs them in Tenn. and says they are great. Another plus is in the cooling mode the product of the unit is hot water. You plumb it into the water line before the water heater and you save on heating the water. No 220 because you have no compressor. The whole system can be run off of a "small" generator as opposed to a normal heat pump.

Oh, you will qualify for a larger home loan because of the known savings of these systems. Expensive as hell but they have a life span about twice the normal heatpump.

We are planning to build in 2-3 years and that is what we are going to use.

http://www.nibe.com/heating/produkter/mvp/funktion.htm
 
Tell ya what. Ate some nice hot mexican food for lunch today and I still have wicked fxxxing heat coming out of my ass tonight. You may want to consider that.

Put your bitch out on the street to earn an extra $1 or $2 and invest more up front.
 
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