Guys, check your thermostat temp accuracy.

[Scarpozzi]

How old is the heat pump? You may be dealing with more efficiency problems than anything. I used to have a coil-heat system from the 70s in my house. I lived there one season and realized how crappy it was. I paid about $7500 to have it replaced with a dual-fuel system. It's a heat pump, but when the outside temp drops below 40 degrees, the system switches to natural gas heat. That keeps the heat pump from having to work in the winter....they aren't very efficient below 20 degrees. It's not uncommon for heat pumps to run continuously and never achieve the setting on the thermostat...this is why many of them need service in the winter. I look forward to cold weather in my house because the heat coming out of the registers when on natural gas is far warmer than what the heat pump can produce. It's quite toasty!

2000sq ft home: My electric bills dropped from $250-350 a month to $75-125 a month....maybe I've seen a $150 bill from a few years ago before we switched to CFLs and I ran my computer 24/7....

 

[NoTine42]

Heat pumps suck for heating. Even the heat pump in my basement has an electric 'booster' and I'm in Atlanta. I found better performance, though, using an oil-filled electric radiator. Electricity in my area (coop) is cheap in the Winter months so it is a win-win and I don't have to hear the heat pump run when I set its thermostat to 58ºF.

Heat pumps are awesome for saving money on heating...down to 32 degrees outside. Below that, you need a gas 2nd heat source. (You can do full electric but gas is often better)

Heat pumps do not give you a toasty warm blast of air from the vents, so they are not as "comfy". In addition, as temps lower, the outside condenser coils may freeze up, so the system may temporarily reverse (run as A/C) for a defrost cycle...(very not comfy)
They are an efficient means of getting heat into a house. (When it's above freezing). Geothermal is better as a heat pump, but I would never want just a gas only furnace for efficiency sake.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

C'mon guys, we're on a tech forum. The true hardcore heat their houses with PCs.

 

[balloonshark]

Does the numerical number matter? Shouldn't you be setting the temperature for what feels comfortable? "The thermostat says it's 70 degrees. Therefore I am comfortable?"

(And me... I'm uncomfortable. Too hot in here, must be 85 or so. I'll turn the control down on my way to bed, regardless of what temperature it says.)

In my appt. my baseboard heat thermostat it set to around 55F. Meanwhile it's about 74F according to my thermometer. Using a baseboard thermostat is an art form. The first rule is to ignore the numbers. I should get the temp just right by the time spring rolls around .

 

[NetGuySC]

I live in a double wide or manufactured home (pick your term of choice) and my thermostat was mounted on the middle (joining) wall. The thermostat consistently read low. It may actualy be 78 in the house but the thermo read 71. I purchased a new thermostat and had the same results.

One day when the thermostat was removed, there was only a small 1/2 hole in the wall with the wire coming out. I took some cotton and filled in that small hole, remounted the thermostat and wallah, accurate temps were read.

 

[feralkid]

I live in a double wide or manufactured home (pick your term of choice) and my thermostat was mounted on the middle (joining) wall. The thermostat consistently read low. It may actualy be 78 in the house but the thermo read 71. I purchased a new thermostat and had the same results.

One day when the thermostat was removed, there was only a small 1/2 hole in the wall with the wire coming out. I took some cotton and filled in that small hole, remounted the thermostat and wallah, accurate temps were read.

Just FYI, it's "voila".

You're welcome.

 

[TheUnk]

A lot of thermostats have an +/- offset. If a number really bugs you.

 

[mikeymikec]

Does the numerical number matter? Shouldn't you be setting the temperature for what feels comfortable? "The thermostat says it's 70 degrees. Therefore I am comfortable?"

(And me... I'm uncomfortable. Too hot in here, must be 85 or so. I'll turn the control down on my way to bed, regardless of what temperature it says.)

+1

The thermostat here says 11/12C, room temps are generally 20-21C.

 

[Homerboy]

When it comes down to it, I don't really care what the number says. I just know if it's comfortable or not in my house.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Yep. At my old house I had to replace my semi-new Honeywell for another Honeywell. It was off a few degrees. Happens.

 

[John Connor]

Don't have a heat pump to worry about that!

This.

NG all the way.

 

[ControlD]

I have thought about replacing my inside unit with a NG one. Overall I have been pretty happy with the heat pump, but when temps get really cold I can pretty much watch my electric bill going up dollar by dollar. It is nice not to have to worry about CO monitoring though.

 

[rh71]

doesn't matter what it says as long as it's set at what I feel comfortable with (67 in the LV and 65 in the other rooms). It still comes on only when I feel it's needed... no?

 

[Carson Dyle]

The upstairs of my house is several degrees warmer than the downstairs, winter and summer. I'd guess it varies anywhere from a 3 or 4 degree difference to as much as 10 degrees in the summer if the A/C is off. My office, where I have several monitors, a computer and my network gear, is consistently warmer than the living room next door where the thermostat is.

It makes the numbers on the thermostat nearly meaningless, but it's still relative and I know where to set it to be comfortable.

 

[IronWing]

We do push the hot air downstairs with the vents and dampers. It still shoots upstairs.
Because heat rises.

And we cannot control it. Everything is wide open.

Make it less wide open.

 

[DrPizza]

The head engineer of the engineering department had control over one of the office spaces (that I had to work in). During the summer, because he could, he had the temperature in the low 60's. I froze all day. During the winter, because he could, it was in the 80's in the office. I roasted all day. The rest of the plant - several kilns, each hundreds of feet long; you can imagine how hot it was out on the factory floor during the summer - go out and check the kilns, grab some samples of product to analyze, build up a sweat, and come back into the arctic chiller.

He didn't set that thermostat to be comfortable - he couldn't have been comfortable. He set that thermostat to make everyone else envious of the engineers with their cushy office jobs.

 

[Booty]

Heat pumps suck for heating. Even the heat pump in my basement has an electric 'booster' and I'm in Atlanta. I found better performance, though, using an oil-filled electric radiator. Electricity in my area (coop) is cheap in the Winter months so it is a win-win and I don't have to hear the heat pump run when I set its thermostat to 58ºF.

What model radiator are you using? I was looking into those for supplemental heat...

 

[nickbits]

I installed a Trane ComfortLink II stat and its 70 is definitely colder than the old one but it appears to be correct. I was going to fudge the adjustment to make it work closer to the old one but I figured I'd just get used to it.

 

[steppinthrax]

Does the numerical number matter? Shouldn't you be setting the temperature for what feels comfortable? "The thermostat says it's 70 degrees. Therefore I am comfortable?"

(And me... I'm uncomfortable. Too hot in here, must be 85 or so. I'll turn the control down on my way to bed, regardless of what temperature it says.)

It does,

I hope you understand the higher you set your temp, the more money it cost to heat your home. I hope I don't have to go into an explanation about insulation and r-value with you.

 

[steppinthrax]

OP what is your backup heat source if you have one? Electricity is very expensive now and NG is very cheap. I have turned up the balance point as high as I can on my HP to whenever possible heat with NG. Even if your backup heat source is electric resistance you may find it cheaper to heat with that than trying to extract heat out of frigid air while running fans and compressors.

The problem of course is the variances in the weather from billing cycle to billing cycle. Makes it difficult to determine what's best.

So some parts of the US don't have natural gas. We don't. There is no gas line in our area. All the homes here use heat pumps.

 

[steppinthrax]

Heat pumps suck for heating. Even the heat pump in my basement has an electric 'booster' and I'm in Atlanta. I found better performance, though, using an oil-filled electric radiator. Electricity in my area (coop) is cheap in the Winter months so it is a win-win and I don't have to hear the heat pump run when I set its thermostat to 58ºF.

Heat pumps are the only option when there is no gas line. Heat pumps use about 1/3 the energy the heat the home v.s. resistance heat. The "backup heat" or AUX heat supliments the heat pump. They both run at the same time in certain circumstances.

 

[Carson Dyle]

It does,

I hope you understand the higher you set your temp, the more money it cost to heat your home. I hope I don't have to go into an explanation about insulation and r-value with you.

Wow. You completely missed the point.

Do you just blindly set you thermostat to 67, no matter how comfortable or uncomfortable that may be? That's not what most people do.

 

[Red Squirrel]

At work in our one office I found I was super cold until I set to thermostat to like 80. It could be -40 out and the AC was STILL kicking on at times. Most people at work would set it to like 70. I'd be freezing my balls off during the day. Night shift at least I could just set it to what I want.

In our current office I find 74 is actually hot. Just comes to show how they can really change based on different factors like location. The ceiling in the new area is also much higher so the air that comes out of the vents is not blowing directly on you as much as it did in the other office.

Also not sure who's bright idea it was to make them in Fahrenheit. This is Canada eh! I don't even go by the numbers because I don't know what they mean without doing a conversion each time so I just bring it up/down based on comfort alone.

 

[Humpy]

Does the numerical number matter? Shouldn't you be setting the temperature for what feels comfortable? "The thermostat says it's 70 degrees. Therefore I am comfortable?"

IME, yes. People will believe the thermostat, because it is the thermostat, and convince themselves that what they feel is not reality.