Normal heat pump operation?

[mgfarmer]

My wife and I are in a new home and are new to heat pumps. The heat pump had been working great during cooling, but have noticed it doesnt do as well heating. For the past couple of nights it has gotten into the 30's. When the heat first comes on its pretty cool and then slowly the temperature at the register rises. After about 8-10 minutes of run time the air at the register finally gets to anywhere from 95-100 degrees. Is it normal for it take a little while for the air at the register to warm up? I know its not going to come out hot immediatly like a gas furnace would, but I am not sure If I need to have a tech take a look at it. I just wanted to get your opinions, incase I am bothering the tech for something trivial. So far even though it slowly warms up we havent had a problem with it reaching the t-stat set point.

[Sleuth]

That's within the "normal" range. Actually pretty "good".

You can see why we don't recommend large set back temps for heatpumps.

Make sure your filters are clean and the oudoor unit isn't
covered with debris.

This is the best time of the year for "preventative" check-
ups if you're having doubts about the performance of your
equipment.

Heatpumps are not known to overwhelm you with sudden heat.

Dave

[thorton]

That's exactly the way my heat pump works. I also agree with superheatslueth, that is one of the reasons not to use much of a setback at night. When new to heat pumps, one must understand that they don't work like a furnace, that the heat absorbed from outside and then transfered into the house is not as warm as what a typical gas furnace or oil furnace would produce. An example of my particular heat pump operation this morning was....6:55AM Carrier Thermidistat(in smart recovery) called for heat from a nightime setback of 67 degrees to a daytime setpoint of 70 degrees. The maximum supply air temperature at the supply air register furthest from the fancoil was 94 degrees F at a outside temperature between 32.2 to 34.1 degrees F. The heat pump would not hold supply air to 94 F all the time as once the heat pump frosted to approximately 70% the supply air temp would albeit slowly start to drop off to a low of about 87 degrees immediately before a full defrost. Once the defrost was over(about 3 minutes)then the supply air temperature was 77 degrees F and would slowly increase to the 94 degrees F that I previously mentioned. It is 8:50 AM right now and the heat pump has stopped because the Thermidistat set point of 70 degrees F has been satisfied. Doesn't that sucker absorb heat?
I hope this helps some on how my heat pump works, anyways. I also would like to add that my heat pump is a Carrier 38YZA 2.5 ton which uses 410A refridgerant and a Carrier fancoil with 15 KW if electrical back-up (and there was no back-up heat on as I have it locked out to 0 degrees F)

Thorton
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T