Goodman in Oregon

[41gasman]

I was reading a thread and
there was a guy who said he
had a goodman 13.5 seer heat
pump.And he lived in Oregon.
If you are him would you please
post here.I have some questions
I would like to ask you.
Thanks in advance.
41Gasman

[go_redskins]

I suppose that might be me. I have a Goodman 13.5 seer heat pump and was responding to a guy who lives in Oregon. I actually live in Washington state.

[41gasman]

Can you tell me what equipment you have
and what you think it cost you to run
it? Also I believe all goodman heat
pumps and air conditioners are R-22.
So.....how loud would you say the
outdoor unit is? Would you put it
next to your bedroom window? Or say
down the blockand in a hole someplace?
What is your impression and or thoughts
on over all quality.Any beefs or
complaints.How long have you been
running this system? What did you have
before? And last but not least.
Would you install this system
again? Well I guess that ALL I
really needed to know.<:-}

I started carrying the Goodman
line of equipment several months
ago.I like there furnaces quite
a bit for being as cost effective
as they are.But I have not used
there heat pumps or a/c units
yet.I have a job coming up
where the customer has been
receptive to the cost analyses
of gas verses heatpump.I live
in the same climate as you do
so I just HAD to jump at the
opportunity to ask what your
experience has been.
Thank you in advance.
41Gasman

[go_redskins]

Here's my story with far more detail than you want.

I have a Goodman CPLT48 heat pump and a Goodman AEPT60 airhandler with a 10KW heat strip. I guess this would be top of the line for Goodman which of course came with an economy price tag.

The setup replaced a Payne 80% gas furnace (no AC) last summer and I've been extremely happy with it. That's not to say I've had no issues with it. But I've learned a lot about HVAC over the past year and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Yes, it's R-22 as are all Goodman outdoor units (AFAIK). It's rated at 77 decibels which I guess is about average or a little better. The only references I can compare it to are my neighbors' 2 year old Trane XL13 (or was it XL14) AC which is a bit louder and another neighbors brand new Trane XR12 AC which is much quieter. All three houses are facing the same direction and about the same size, but my summer electric bills seem much lower. In fact, my summer electric bills hardly went up at all after I got the heat pump (maybe $20-$25/month) compared to previous years with no air conditioning.

I did have noise issues with my unit once winter arrived. Since it was now running during sleeping hours (as opposed to daylight hours during the summer), I finally started noticing and being bothered by the noise. (The unit sits about 20 feet away from my bedroom window.) While it didn't sound that bad outside, I would hear a constant duh-duh-duh-duh-duh sound in the bedroom which I thought was coming from the compressor. I bought a second sound blanket to wrap around the sound blanket that was already on the compressor and found that it made no difference. I later realized that the annoying sound was coming from the condenser fan because I couldn't hear anything inside the house when it was in defrost mode. Looking at the fan blade carefully, I noticed that one of the blades was slightly out of line compared to the others. I bent the blade up a bit and the noise inside the house became much better. The blade is still not quite perfectly in line with the other blades and I can still hear it running inside the house, but it's a more constant sound which I don't find bothersome.

The other issue I had involved higher than desired usage of the auxiliary heat. There were a number of different factors involved. One was the heat pump came from the factory with the defrost timer set to 30 minutes. This caused the heat pump to defrost very frequently and often with no frost on it at all. The second was the defrost thermostat which is located on the bottom return bend of the outdoor coil and doesn't open til it hits 80°F. (I bought 2 more defrost thermostats, and they all opened at about 80°F.) The position and cutoff temperature of the defrost thermostat seems to vary by manufacturer. But Goodman's settings seem overly conservative. The defrost cycle on my unit tended to run a lot longer than needed and continue long after any frost had been completely melted away. The liquid line coming out of the heat pump would reach nearly 110°F and the defrost cycle still wouldn't shut off sometimes. That led to the third factor which was the indoor thermostat. I'm guessing the thermostat (Aprilair 8365) has some kind of anticipation algorithm which tries to guess when auxiliary heat is needed. The long and frequent defrost cycles seemed to fool the thermostat into thinking that auxiliary heat was needed even though the heat pump could maintain my desired temperature (within 2°F of 73°F). So all of these factors were causing the heat strips to be used more often than needed.

Now despite all this, I think most anyone (professionals) looking at my heat pump would have said everything was working properly and I would agree. Even on days when the temperature dropped into the teens, the daily electric usage was still only about 115 KWH which implies about 80 KWH was used for heating or $6.40/day which is still lower than what I was paying on an average day (low = 35°F) with a gas furnace.

After much investigation and trials, I finally settled on a configuration that I'm happy with. The defrost timer is now set to 60 minutes. 90 minutes seemed to minimize total defrost time, but the total run time of the heat pump was higher because it was running less efficiently with frost for longer periods. I moved the defrost thermostat to a bend close to the midpoint of the outdoor coil. With the defrost thermostat moved, the defrost duration seems just about right. The bottom row does sometimes have a small amount of frost at the end of the defrost cycle, but it doesn't grow even when it's cold for an extended period of time. I also disconnected the auxiliary heat at the indoor thermostat. Even down in the teens, the heat pump by itself was maintaining temperature close enough to 73°F. So I decided I didn't want the thermostat turning on auxiliary heat whenever it decided the house wasn't getting warmer fast enough.

Since I made these changes my highest daily electric usage was 85 KWH or about 50 KWH for heating. That's just $4/day for a colder than normal day and about half what I was spending for gas heat on an average day.

My average winter month heating bill dropped from over $200/month to about $80-$90/month. And this is despite keeping a 2800 sf house at 73°F 24-hour/day.

My impression of the Goodman units is that the major components are solid, but the fit and finish is a bit lacking and appearance wise may look cheap to some people. But performance wise, now that I worked out the little problems, it is awesome. Even as it was originally, I think I would have been very happy with it if I was a normal person who didn't constantly watch over it and notice the imperfections. If I had to do it all over again, I would get another Goodman and the exact models that I bought. I love my Goodmand heat pump.