WIll heat pump work in NJ?

[RoBoTeq]

Interesting concept, although my furnace rarely runs more than 5 minutes at a time unless it's really cold outside (it's WAY oversized). I was under the impression that oversizing furnaces hurts comfort more than the gas bill. Then the question becomes is the short furnace cycle more expensive than using electric heat.

If you have an oversized furnace, that is even more of a reason to have a heat pump to take care of the heating unless it is too cold for the heat pump to do the entire job. That way, the furnace at least gets to run long enough to be somewhat efficient and not be eaten up by condensate caused by short cycles.

[beachtech]

I learnt a lot of things today except one. Having already a conventional heating furnace can one install now a secondary/primary heat source called heat pump or would I need to upgrade my furnace too?

Finally, I not that "hurt" with heating costs since it runs on gas as much I am hurt with high electrical bills during summer. Is there something called cool pump? Hope all understands the analogy here...

air conditioning will be the same, whether you buy a heat pump system or another straight air conditioner. A heat pump system is an air condtioner, witha three way valve that reverses the refrigerant flow in the winter time to allow for heating of the bulding instead of cooling.

upgrading to a newer system will gain efficiency and can help reduce those expensive summer bills.

upgrading to a newer furnace can help in reducing gas consumption, if you currently have an older 80% efficient furnace, going to 90-97% efficiency would help reduce usage cost. And then, using that newer furnace with a Heat pump system, you would further reduce the gas consumption.

how old is your current system? Through general wear and tear, a system typically loses about 3% of efficiency a year, so after ten years, you've lost a net of 30%.

[RoBoTeq]

I learnt a lot of things today except one. Having already a conventional heating furnace can one install now a secondary/primary heat source called heat pump or would I need to upgrade my furnace too?

Finally, I not that "hurt" with heating costs since it runs on gas as much I am hurt with high electrical bills during summer. Is there something called cool pump? Hope all understands the analogy here...

Yes, a "cool pump" is the opposite of a "heat pump". Every compressor bearing system is a cool pump. Only if it has the capabilities to properly reverse the refrigerant cycle is it considered a heat pump, which is also a cool pump.

[rikmeister]

i live in the poconos of pennsyltucky and it gets cold here. and my heat works great. have it for 19 yrs now and am upgrading due to increased efficiency of the newer models and mine is gettin old now. will either go geo or with a new heat pump with inverter technology.

[beeninyourshoes]

Depends actually! Let's say you leave for a week and put the heat on 55 for that week...you come home one night in February in a New England winter. Think a 300 heat pump will heat your home that night with a 25 ambient? Now let's take the SAME scenario and hit the same home the same night with a 3000 degree nat gas furnace w a comercial Honeywell true steam ($ if u install yourself = 9 gallons of water a day) humidifier. That 3000 heat is DRY , so it must be humidified. That same home will be 72 within 3 hours; I kid you not. I DISAGREE with heat pumps in the north east. Sorry & I don't care who it pisses off. If u run a heat pump constantly without leaving? Ok maybe, but it's going to cost you $$$$ way more than gas will. This is JUST plain common sence. The problem is that common sence is the least of the seances! So I'll spell it out in plain English for you. 300 degrees is 10% of 3000 degrees. Get it now? The guy above here who said he tore out his oil furnace for a heat pump who lives in the N east??? Wait till Jan / Feb comes! They put electric heat here in S Florida since the begining of time for a reason. Then they first burned coal then oil in the N east for a reason. Probably because the 300 degrees electric OR a heat pump kicks out won't cut it up there. Now redundancy, dual stage , whatever U call it...... Heat pump w a gas furnace? = OK. But most heat pumps have electric as "emergency" or dual, or backup heat. Sure gas prices skyrocketed. But us nat gas 10 times the cost than electricity? And 10 is a NICE round figure. I lived in S Florida all my life & Mass all my life. I think this is right there for anyone to see if you just think it through. Call ANY manufacturer rep and get an honest answer to this issue. Let me know what they say!

[dijit]

I learnt a lot of things today except one. Having already a conventional heating furnace can one install now a secondary/primary heat source called heat pump or would I need to upgrade my furnace too?

Finally, I not that "hurt" with heating costs since it runs on gas as much I am hurt with high electrical bills during summer. Is there something called cool pump? Hope all understands the analogy here...

A "cool pump" is just an AC. A heat pump is just an AC that reverses direction in essence and makes the outdoor coil the cold side and indoor the hot side instead of vice versa with an AC.

The only way I can think of to substantially lower your cooling bill in the summer is with a ground source heat pump, but installation prices are higher. Basically all a heat pump does is pump heat from inside to the outside or the outside to the inside. Long story short, ground source heat pumps are much more efficient at doing this. They can cut energy consumption in half maybe even better. But they cost more to install. There are many ways to do it, but basically they drill either holes or trenches in your yard, and bury some pipe(through which a nontoxic fluid that wont freeze easily runs). Instead of using hot air in the summer as your heat sink, they use the cool ground (and the ground is warmer than the outside air in the winter). Much easier to move heat from hot to cold than from hot to hotter. Might be worth looking in to.

That would be my first choice, but installation costs can be prohibitive. But the same with solar panels. You have to look at initial cost vs long term savings, and energy is going to be doing nothing but going up. In essence, it is the equivalent of installing solar panels (saving energy and producing energy have the same effect on your utility bills)

[beenthere]

Depends actually! Let's say you leave for a week and put the heat on 55 for that week...you come home one night in February in a New England winter. Think a 300 heat pump will heat your home that night with a 25 ambient? Now let's take the SAME scenario and hit the same home the same night with a 3000 degree nat gas furnace w a comercial Honeywell true steam ($ if u install yourself = 9 gallons of water a day) humidifier. That 3000 heat is DRY , so it must be humidified. That same home will be 72 within 3 hours; I kid you not. I DISAGREE with heat pumps in the north east. Sorry & I don't care who it pisses off. If u run a heat pump constantly without leaving? Ok maybe, but it's going to cost you $$$$ way more than gas will. This is JUST plain common sence. The problem is that common sence is the least of the seances! So I'll spell it out in plain English for you. 300 degrees is 10% of 3000 degrees. Get it now? The guy above here who said he tore out his oil furnace for a heat pump who lives in the N east??? Wait till Jan / Feb comes! They put electric heat here in S Florida since the begining of time for a reason. Then they first burned coal then oil in the N east for a reason. Probably because the 300 degrees electric OR a heat pump kicks out won't cut it up there. Now redundancy, dual stage , whatever U call it...... Heat pump w a gas furnace? = OK. But most heat pumps have electric as "emergency" or dual, or backup heat. Sure gas prices skyrocketed. But us nat gas 10 times the cost than electricity? And 10 is a NICE round figure. I lived in S Florida all my life & Mass all my life. I think this is right there for anyone to see if you just think it through. Call ANY manufacturer rep and get an honest answer to this issue. Let me know what they say!

Weather the heat is from a gas furnace or a heat pump, the moisture in the house is not destroyed by the heat.

Heat pumps have been used in PA for over 40 years.

[tinknocker service tech]

Depends actually! Let's say you leave for a week and put the heat on 55 for that week...you come home one night in February in a New England winter. Think a 300 heat pump will heat your home that night with a 25 ambient? Now let's take the SAME scenario and hit the same home the same night with a 3000 degree nat gas furnace w a comercial Honeywell true steam ($ if u install yourself = 9 gallons of water a day) humidifier. That 3000 heat is DRY , so it must be humidified. That same home will be 72 within 3 hours; I kid you not. I DISAGREE with heat pumps in the north east. Sorry & I don't care who it pisses off. If u run a heat pump constantly without leaving? Ok maybe, but it's going to cost you $$$$ way more than gas will. This is JUST plain common sence. The problem is that common sence is the least of the seances! So I'll spell it out in plain English for you. 300 degrees is 10% of 3000 degrees. Get it now? The guy above here who said he tore out his oil furnace for a heat pump who lives in the N east??? Wait till Jan / Feb comes! They put electric heat here in S Florida since the begining of time for a reason. Then they first burned coal then oil in the N east for a reason. Probably because the 300 degrees electric OR a heat pump kicks out won't cut it up there. Now redundancy, dual stage , whatever U call it...... Heat pump w a gas furnace? = OK. But most heat pumps have electric as "emergency" or dual, or backup heat. Sure gas prices skyrocketed. But us nat gas 10 times the cost than electricity? And 10 is a NICE round figure. I lived in S Florida all my life & Mass all my life. I think this is right there for anyone to see if you just think it through. Call ANY manufacturer rep and get an honest answer to this issue. Let me know what they say!

talk about being misinformed
if a furnace gas or oil ran at 3000* i think i would be running realy fast also while the fire department was on its way
flue gas depending on age and fuel is between 90* and 600* and air temp for the average gas or oil furnace is between 125 and 180* and heat pump at 25* r-22 is about 90 and r=410a is about 105 witch is enough to heat any house till the btu load is to great for it to keep up
if you have a 36,000 btu heat pump and the house needs 60,000 this is when the secondary will kick in because you now need more then a heat pump can deliver.
please do your home work

[RoBoTeq]

i live in the poconos of pennsyltucky and it gets cold here. and my heat works great. have it for 19 yrs now and am upgrading due to increased efficiency of the newer models and mine is gettin old now. will either go geo or with a new heat pump with inverter technology.

If you have enough tax liability to take advantage of the 30% tax credit, geo is the best investment right now. Talk to an hydrogeologist about doing a two well open system in your area. Wells can be drilled as close as ten feet apart as long as the dump well is on the lower part of the rock fractures so as to not cross contaminate the supply water.

[RoBoTeq]

Depends actually! Let's say you leave for a week and put the heat on 55 for that week...you come home one night in February in a New England winter. Think a 300 heat pump will heat your home that night with a 25 ambient? Now let's take the SAME scenario and hit the same home the same night with a 3000 degree nat gas furnace w a comercial Honeywell true steam ($ if u install yourself = 9 gallons of water a day) humidifier. That 3000 heat is DRY , so it must be humidified. That same home will be 72 within 3 hours; I kid you not. I DISAGREE with heat pumps in the north east. Sorry & I don't care who it pisses off. If u run a heat pump constantly without leaving? Ok maybe, but it's going to cost you $$$$ way more than gas will. This is JUST plain common sence. The problem is that common sence is the least of the seances! So I'll spell it out in plain English for you. 300 degrees is 10% of 3000 degrees. Get it now? The guy above here who said he tore out his oil furnace for a heat pump who lives in the N east??? Wait till Jan / Feb comes! They put electric heat here in S Florida since the begining of time for a reason. Then they first burned coal then oil in the N east for a reason. Probably because the 300 degrees electric OR a heat pump kicks out won't cut it up there. Now redundancy, dual stage , whatever U call it...... Heat pump w a gas furnace? = OK. But most heat pumps have electric as "emergency" or dual, or backup heat. Sure gas prices skyrocketed. But us nat gas 10 times the cost than electricity? And 10 is a NICE round figure. I lived in S Florida all my life & Mass all my life. I think this is right there for anyone to see if you just think it through. Call ANY manufacturer rep and get an honest answer to this issue. Let me know what they say!

I was a manufacturer's rep for over a decade, and I say you have no clue as to anything you have stated here. Heat is heat, there is no dry heat. Heat pumps work just fine up into Canada.

[wisepole]

If you have enough tax liability to take advantage of the 30% tax credit, geo is the best investment right now. Talk to an hydrogeologist about doing a two well open system in your area. Wells can be drilled as close as ten feet apart as long as the dump well is on the lower part of the rock fractures so as to not cross contaminate the supply water.

My CPA guy told me geo is way up the ladder in terms of labor which wont be covered with fed. credits. Just too darn costly.

[RoBoTeq]

My CPA guy told me geo is way up the ladder in terms of labor which wont be covered with fed. credits. Just too darn costly.

Get another CPA. The entire total cost of the geo system, including all needed groundwork, is considered in the tax credit.

If your total cost for a completed geo system is $20k, then you have tax credits of $6k which do not need to be used all in one year. Now you have decreased that system cost to $14k and have a ground system guaranteed for 50 years. If after 25 years, you need to replace the geothermal unit, you only have the cost of the unit, not the groundwork.

[Gross]

My CPA guy told me geo is way up the ladder in terms of labor which wont be covered with fed. credits. Just too darn costly.

time for a new CPA. its 30% off of the entire invoice...even if it includes lanspacing after the rough grading

[wisepole]

How much land area is normally required? Just a basic ball-park would be great. I have not much....

[hearthman]

"I lived in S Florida all my life & Mass all my life."

One shoe in Fla and one in Mass? Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Uh, I don't think you're gonna find a lot of support on your math around here. Sounds like you're mixing flame temps with supply air temps. Besides, there is no much more that goes into overall efficiency.

Seeing a lot of heat pumps going in around SE Pa with combustion backup such NG or LP. Haven't see an oil fired b/u yet. Thermopride heat pump?

[RoBoTeq]

How much land area is normally required? Just a basic ball-park would be great. I have not much....

Too many factors to consider. In parts of PA, in the mountain areas, you can have two wells drilled 10 feet apart for an open loop system. Every situation is at least a little different.

[Cooked]

Think what you could do with a 3000 degree furnace. Make horseshoes, cook hot dogs faster than a microwave, get rid of the clothes dryer....endless possibilities really.

With all the discussion of what's cheaper, HP, resistance heat, oil or gas one thing that hasn't been brought up is the cost per btu. It varies wildly geographically.

As for the original question, a HP in NJ, of course it will work. Will it need some type of supplemental backup, of course it will. Is electric resistance cheaper than gas or vice versa, depends on your area's cost per KWH, cost per 1000 cubic feet of natural gas or cost per gallon of propane.

As far as electric backup heat or any other electric heater they are 100% efficient.

[ampulman]

Cain is able! 9-9-9

I'm glad you clarified that.

[RoBoTeq]

I'm glad you clarified that.

DARN! I was hoping no one caught that. I even thought about the two spellings when I first wrote it and still put the wrong one up.

[vangoghsear]

Heat Pumps and Air Conditioners are a form of overunity device. In other words, they appear to achieve greater than 100% efficiency, but what they are doing is pulling their energy from a hidden source; in the case of A/C or H/P that source is the heat in the air, so the hidden source is the sun.

As was stated, electric resistance heat is 100% efficient, you put 1 heat unit in, you get 1 heat unit out. The calculation for those readers who don't know it is 1 kW = 3412 BTU. However, that same kW used in an 3.0 COP heat pump will do 1 kW = 10,200 BTU or the equivelent of 3 kW of electric resistance heat.