Why is this costing me a FORTUNE?

[RoBoTeq]

I am in the same general area of the country as the OP is. My house is about the same square footage. With a 2.5 ton heat pump system, my balance point is after the outdoor ambient has been below 32 degrees for 8 hours, give or take a few minutes. (I still have not hooked up my auxilliary hot water coil and have no electric heaters, so yes; I can be that specific! )

For most other houses in my area, the balance point is higher because less cooling is needed compared to heating. I just happen to have a small rancher with finished attic rooms, which is very similar in heat gain/loss to what the OP has.

The point being is that over the past month or so, we have had many days where the auxilliary heaters were needed to maintain indoor temps. But, not at the cost of energy that the OP has been seeing.

[energy star]

Post pics off all you can. Call your contractor back and have him check the heat pack with a clamp meter. Ask him to make the system run WITH back-up heat, and then with NO back-up heat. Your heat pack is coming on often or all the time. What size duct goes to the second floor?

How far is the indoor unit from the outdoor unit? Ask him how he charged the system? Tell us his exact answer

[Minnish]

I have been checking the thermostat every time the heat kicks on and I have not seen the "aux heat" indicator but it is in the low 50's today, not sure if that makes a difference. We never had to pay for oil, we changed the system over the week we moved in (early November). The previous system had an asbestos shield in it and our inspector told us to change it out immediately, esp. with an infant in the house. I'll try to answer all of firecontrol's questions:

1. I was at work when the rep came out so all of this is secondhand info from my fiance. The person brought out to check the system was introduced as an AirTemp rep (we dont know if it was a sales rep or a tech, as RoBoTeq mentioned). She looked at the outside of the house, looked at the unit and said it was the right size. I don't believe any tests were done, nor did we receive any paperwork or even a business card. She looked at the wiring going into the unit and said it was ok. She also came down into our basement and said to help the unit we should consider better insulation, which we are in the process of doing. My fiance says he doesn't remember her saying anything about emergency heat or those settings.

2. I can only assume about the previous owners energy consumption. They were an elderly couple, retired. We are in our 30s with an infant and we both work. When we moved in we replaced the ancient dishwasher and refrigerator with new energystar appliances and switched the bulbs in the rooms we use most to LED or CFI (in the process of converting to all LED). Since receiving the first bill we have been extremely careful to use only what we really need as far as lights, etc. They had a 12 year old a/c unit, don't know how much they used it but it gets pretty darn hot here in the summer. Since they had oil heat and an electric a/c I would think if they did have high bills they would be in the summer, and still not over $500 if they averaged out to $140.

4. The $200-$250 a month was a guesstimate more than anything. I would not have been shocked to see a bill into the $300 as we learned about the house and its energy requirements. I came to the number by looking up people in this area with similar sized homes, similar family size and heat pump only systems. I was seeing $250 as their highest numbers so that's what I was prepared for. Over twice that was unexpected, to say the least. I should also mention that I really expected our second bill to be MUCH less than the first because we were running on emergency heat for so much of that first month and when we got into the second, everything seemed fixed.

5. I don't want to completely blame this on my hvac guy. I was a little peeved yesterday and I shouldn't have put the fault solely on his shoulders. I do think the insulation does contribute some but with the plethora of issues we have come across since the process started, a lot were silly mistakes. The wiring was one thing. We also decided to replace all of our vent covers as we were told the old ones did not have baffles, come to find out they did indeed have baffles. Having us run on emergency heat for over 2 weeks was probably not a great idea. We were told that a heat pump was the most efficient way to go. I should have done my research a bit more but as he was recommended to highly by our realtor I just trusted him. He also makes comments like, "Well the heat pumps I have put in before were in townhomes." He is a great guy and I like him a lot, I am just beginning to question his level of expertise and experience. I fully admit I could be 100% wrong now at the unit could be working perfectly but this electric bill has me doubting. We did contact him this morning and he had pretty much told us he is done (I would probably feel the same way in his shoes). He said the rep said the unit was fine so his job is done. He feels the insulation is the issue so I have someone coming out tomorrow to do an insulation audit on the house.

I cannot tell you all how much I appreciate everyone's comments. I came here just wanting to know if I was crazy for thinking that this number wasn't right and something could be wrong. We have a lot of great leads to check on now.

[energy star]

He could have something (low voltage) wrong and every-time the outdoor unit starts, the axillary heat may be coming on. If it's not wired correctly that red light not coming on may mean zip. Next time an HVAC tech visits, tell him to pop the stat and take a pic of the connections. Good luck

[firecontrol]

Sorry to hear that the contractor has "given up" on answering your concerns in a manner that did nothing to answer your questions.

So, the ball now is basically back in your court. I'm going to guess that the cost to install the new system wasn't cheap and now the electric bills are sky high. I suggest you do some research and find a different contractor that is everything the first one wasn't and then some. Check all sources of references and ask for customer referrals and recommendations (current) that are from customers that hired them to fix something others couldn't before hiring someone.

Make it understood that you hiring them to document (I can't stress the documenting part enough) your system's performance, correctness and that's it's applied and sized properly and to give you a price for correcting anything they find that is not correct. You're not hiring nor do you want them to send a salesperson. You want a highly qualified technician with the needed test equipment.

Once you've had the assessment done it's your choice again. If the report comes back that things are wrong and lists what needs to be fixed etc. you can either hire them to do the work right off or share the information with the original contractor and give him the opportunity to make things right at no additional cost. Either way, make sure you get something in writing from the experts that states they can do things A through Z and by doing so will save you or at least "should" save you X amount on your energy bills.

Good luck. Keep smiling.

[motoguy128]

Sorry to hear that the contractor has "given up" on answering your concerns in a manner that did nothing to answer your questions.

So, the ball now is basically back in your court. I'm going to guess that the cost to install the new system wasn't cheap and now the electric bills are sky high.

I'm not sure if we've clearly established if the bills are truely sky high. Something is off however, so I think it's time for a new contractor to take a look. A new set of eyes is never a bad thing. Plus, being a heat pump, jsut keeping it 72F indoors instead of 69F can swing power consmption by 10% of more.

[firecontrol]

Motoguy128, I agree that the conversation hasn't established the validity of the bills one way or the other. What was established though is that the customer believes they are "sky high" and that, in my way of looking at things, is always validity enough until facts are presented that prove things one way or the other.

All of us joining in on this conversation, being the professionals that we are, would have done minimal things if we were at her home to answer her questions. We would have done the heating load calculations, verified that the equipment sizing was correct, checked the controls to verify they were working properly in all respects, checked the equipment and every other part of the system to verify that it was operating and installed and functioning correctly. We would have provided her with the facts we found either verbally or written and then patiently walked her through the understanding process needed to grasp the information so that her perception could be replaced by these facts. Would things change or stay the same is anyone's guess at this point.

From the beginning her contractor has failed her. There were beginning issues with the install which supposedly were corrected. A second person was brought in to verify that the job was done right, but seems to have done nothing but do a walk through and make claims and suggestions that don't seem to have been backed up with any facts. The contractor has now used that "experts" observations to distance himself from his basic responsibilities as a contractor having taken this customer's money in return for providing a service.

I call them like I see them. The contractor either doesn't have the knowledge, experience or facts to personally back up his own work and explain to the customer why things are the way they are, or he simply chooses not to. Experience leads me to believe that he can't back up his work for any number of reasons and is hoping that human nature (of the customer) will just make this all go away and he can go onto the next job never learning a thing.

The facts are the only things that are going to ultimately resolve this issue for the customer one way or the other. Who provides these facts so the customer can finally have peace of mind is now the customer's choice.

To the homeowner, Minnish, I do hope that you find the answers and that you share your findings with this forum.

[mayguy]

What is the make/model of t-stat? A higher end t-stat w/ outdoor sensor can lock out the Aux heat.

[Minnish]

I finally have some answers! First we had an insulation guy come out and check the house. It certainly can benefit from added insulation so I imagine we will be doing that shortly. I am also incredibly lucky to live near the wonderful RoBoTeq and he came out and took a look at our system. Again, I was not there for this as I was working (I miss all the good stuff!). From what was relayed to me there are significant installation issues. The greatest of which seems to be that the ducting is far too small, 8" instead of 14", causing major pressure issues. I hope RoBoTeq can explain more fully what he found. I give him full reign to explain everything, if I attemped it would sound like "there is some filter in the return, it's too close to something else so the air isn't moving right." Not exactly technically specific. He has given us a few names that his company recommends. I will be looking into each of them and bringing them out for an estimate so we can finally take care of this.

I was hoping that our previous contractor would be open to communication from us regarding the issues found so he can learn from this and become a better contractor but only time will tell if he will come around. I doubt we could get him to pay for the new contractor to fix the mistakes he made. This is a very expensive learning experience.

Again, thank you all. There is no way I can properly express my gratitude for all the wonderful responses and especially for RoBoTeq's kindness and vast experience. A huge weight has been lifted from our shoulders.

[Snapperhead]

I am also incredibly lucky to live near the wonderful RoBoTeq and he came out and took a look at our system. Again, I was not there for this as I was working (I miss all the good stuff )

Oh no ! Quick , go check your sock drawer , see if all are accounted for , he has this strange fettish , im just sayin

[crmont]

We keep the unit set at 68 all the time. The unit is no longer icing over after he discovered he had wired it incorrectly. When it was icing over before it was the entire inside unit and the line running to the house but that seems to be fixed.

If the indoor coil and/or refrigeration lines were freezing while in the heat mode then that explains a lot!

Was robo aware of that particular issue when he was there?

[RoBoTeq]

Without going into too much detail at this time, I very much suspect low indoor airflow causing the heat pump to shut down on high head to be at least a main issue with this system. There are obvious ducting issues that are certain to be causing low air volume that I was able to see. Because of the circumstances, I did no invasive testing. The ducting issues definitely need to be addressed before anything else can be done, so there was no need for me to go any further.

[energy star]

What was wired incorrectly?

[RoBoTeq]

What was wired incorrectly?

The wiring was correct by the time I looked at it. I do still wonder if the thermostat codes for the wiring and functions have been set properly though. Once again, I have to be careful about doing anything more than observing. Since I saw enough that most likely is causing issues, there was no need for me to look any deeper.

[lentz]

Hope you fine the problem soon.

[lentz]

Adding more insulation will be a great help also.

[RoBoTeq]

Adding more insulation will be a great help also.

I didn't really see a lot of issue with the insulation. This is a cape cod styled house that has about 6" of bat insulation in the ceiling spaces. The house is also all brick, as mine is. Even if there is no insulation in the walls, as there is none in mine, there is just not that much heat transfer through the walls.

[motoguy128]

Structural brick often has 4 courses with a gap between the pairs. I think that gives you an r value of about 5. The interior course becomes interior thermal mass and peak temps have less effect so so the heat pump runs less in the coldest temps... and better wont need heat strips as much.

Throw plaster or drywall on framing, and without any insuation you have another maybe r3.


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[energy star]

What thermostat does he have. I still say that heat pack is coming on way more than need be. Maybe the heat pack is not staged and is entirely too large.

[beenthere]

What thermostat does he have. I still say that heat pack is coming on way more than need be. Maybe the heat pack is not staged and is entirely too large.

Low air flow can cause the aux heat to come on when it shouldn't be needed. But it would be nice to know what thermostat he has.