David, we have a house in Portland, OR and have just installed a heat pump
to replace an ancient oil furnace (hot water). I mostly followed the advice
of my heating/cooling guy here in MI. He likes and uses Trane. I've had very
good performance and reliability with the hardware he's installed over the
last 10 years or so, furnaces, hot water heaters, A/C. So, I went with Trane
in Portland. Lowest to highest SEER was ~13 to 16K$. They also have a 1.2K
rebate at the moment. The higher cost unit, SEER 19, if memory serves, have
better lifetime and I'm told are a lot quieter. So, in the long run, the
higher cost unit made sense to me since the longer lifetime made the cost a
wash.
Problems:
Sounds like you have forced air? I didn't and I didn't realize that the
quote did not include repairs after drywall and ceiling tiles were removed
to install the heat ducts. Our basement tenant is very angry about the
amount of dust and dirt and thinks they didn't drop cloth her furniture and
so forth. I probably should have checked references harder than I did.
Brian in MI
> From: "David C." <cavanadd@verizon.net>
> Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:46:05 -0700
> Cc: Shop Talk List <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
> Subject: [Shop-talk] Heat Pumps?
>
> We're thinking of installing a heat pump in the near/medium term (this
> year or next). We live in the north Puget Sound area, so it never gets
> really cold, and the summers are moderate, but July and August can get
> into the high 80s occasionally. The main reason(s) for installing it
> would be to (1) decrease our heating costs (propane); (2) have A/C
> available in the summer when needed (hardly ever) and (3) increase the
> eventual resale value of the house (probably 20+ years out, though).
>
> It looks like most of the heat pump compressors and controllers are made
> by only a few manufacturers, Goodman, Nordyne and a few others. It also
> seems there are three levels of SEER ratings, around 13, >15 and >18. I
> assume the price goes up with the SEER rating. We also did some poking
> around on the Web opinion/review sites, and it looks like there is a lot
> of variation on customer satisfaction even within one brand, which leads
> us to believe that the most critical part of the whole process is
> probably the installation and setup.
>
> It looks like the older, lower SEER rated units still use R22, which is
> still available, and should be for some time, but is being phased out.
> The newer, higher efficiency units use R410a, which I don't know
> anything about other that it runs at pretty high pressures (500 psi or
> so on the high side). It also looks like there is another efficiency
> rating, HSPF rating which rates the heating efficiency. These ratings
> don't seem to be as easy to find as the SEER ratings.
>
> Anyone have any current experience with a heat pump install? Does the
> added expense of a very high efficiency unit pencil out over time? How
> about warranties? Some have a 10 year compressor warranty, others
> "lifetime"....Who's lifetime, I wonder.
>
> I have a pretty good facilities background and have a lot of commercial
> and industrial HVAC experience, but nothing on the residential side, or
> with heat pumps, so any info would be welcome.
>
> Thanks
> Dave C
> _
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