Heat pump working correctly?

Had a brand new HVAC system installed and wondering if it's working correctly. I have the 10 year warranty and such but before calling I wanted to check here.

It's 30 degrees F outside and the aux heat is going and only putting out 88 degrees at the closest vent which is about 2 feet away from the unit. Farther away it get's down to 83 degrees

It's also seeming to take breaks. As I type this the air coming out of the vent is at 67 degrees but the thermostat is saying aux heat.

It's been 67 degrees in the house for the past 2 hours with the aux heat running.

Never had electric heat but this kinda blows ( pun)

 

I've been told the heat pumps are inefficient at anything below 32 degrees.

 

Heat pumps do not behave like strip heat, gas heat or other where you are accustomed to a significant delta T at the vent.

 

Yeah, it's working as designed.

We have one, and a gas log fireplace insert, too.

 

Thanks! Good to know.

If my house has a fire place I could heat the parts we actually stay in with just the fire place. That'd be awesome

 

Make sure your heat strips are actually connected and working. Heat pump won't do crap under 40 degrees nor is it supposed to

 

Heat pumps working at different outside ambient temperatures are by design. I had one way back in 1980 that would work to supply at least some of the heat until it got down to 27 degrees outside. Of course at those temperatures, the aux. heat was supplementing it also. Being 67 degrees in the house for the past two hours is a sign to me that something is not working correctly.......unless you have your thermostat set to 67 degrees. And remember, when the outside temperature gets down to some setpoint that the heat pump has, and there starts to be frost buildup on the outdoor coil, it will switch over to defrost cycle.....which is basically turning it back into an Air Conditioner....blowing cooler air in the house and putting enough heat at the outdoor coil to defrost it. This is taken care of by a defrost thermostat, which operates a defrost timer, and a defrost relay. But the bottom line is that your house should NOT be 67 degrees for two hours when the outside temperature is only 30 degrees.

 

Thanks for this thread, new to the heat pump myself!

It's been driving my wife crazy that the air coming out of the vents feels cooler than it should be but yet, our home is running at the set temp, usually between 68-70.

My 83yo neighbor shed some light on the heat pump last weekend, said the secondary heat coil (guessing thatswhat yall are calling the AUX???) doesn't fire up until temps drop to about 20* which we have a few times already. He said probem is, it's not efficient and the meter spins like a tornado.....yikes! Otherwise, when temps go beyond freezing, he said it's efficient and does the job. Prior owner swore he rarely ever got an electric bill over $175 anytime of yr.....I guess we shall see.

Question, would it be worth the effort to use a portable electric heater to supplement?
I realize it too is electric but he made it sound like the h/p is REALLY inefficient.

 

An electric heater would be exactly what the aux heat is, so no that would not help you at all unless you are only trying to heat one very small space independently of the rest of the system. Heat pumps are quite efficient you just have to let them do there thing. The best ones are the dual fuel ones that have a gas furnace as the aux heater.

 

Cold outside and you call for 70 inside, a furnace blows 100 till you get there. Feels nice and warm. Your heat pump blows maybe 75. Feels cool to your skin, but still gets you to 70, and should save you money. Just gotta get used to it. Aux heat isn't saving you money, especially if it's electric...

 

Thermostat was set to 70 and all morning was trying to get there. I finally just turned the thermostat to 68 to stop quickly spinning the electric meter on aux heat with not enough result.

The aux heat was only blowing at 85 degrees which didn’t seem hot enough.

 

A few things: your target delta T on a heat pump is much lower than a gas furnace, but it should still be in the 20 degree range. 70 in, 90+ out is pretty typical. There are plenty of variables that move that number though.

They're also really hard to evaluate in HP mode. We assess refrigerant levels in cooling mode, because it's much more consistent. Your installer should have weighed in the charge adjustment so conditions don't matter that much, but there's a chance it's low on refrigerant. If it's a package unit, disregard. They're critically charged and don't require adjustment.

Your strip shouldn't come on unless the heat pump isn't keeping up. At 30 degrees, your HP has plenty of heat to absorb. We actually install inverter systems not that will run down to 15 degrees with almost no degradation in performance.

You want your strip to come on during extreme temperatures. If you sized your HP to maintain temp all the time, you'd have a system that's oversized, and the inefficiency that goes along with that would cost you much more than the KW your strip uses periodically.

Lastly, go outside and make sure that the air your HP is putting out is freezing cold. I've seen plenty of installers fail to properly configure a thermostat and cause the equipment to run in cooling mode. When it doesn't satisfy the stat, it brings on aux heat and they fight each other. Usually they figure it out after the first $1000 utility bill.

 

Broome????

 

This morning I have the HP going it's 34 degrees outside.( House is again at 66 this morning and if I turn the thermostat to 70 the aux heat turns on, if I turn it to 68 the HP turns on)

The temp in the vents is the exact same as the temps when the aux heat is on. I checked the air coming out of the top (where the fan is blowing air out of the unit?) when the Heat pump is on and it's 10 degrees cooler than outside air temp.

I guess my question is. Does Aux heat increase the air temp coming out of the vents or just get it to the same level as the Heat Pump when the HP can't pull enough heat from the Outside? I may have wrongly though that it gives it a boost and heats up your home faster.

I think my heat pump is fine. I think the thermostat and aux heat maybe the issue. The thermostat is a nest and it seems like a PITA

 

Mine give them a boost of about 2 degrees but one thing to keep in mind is where your ducts are. I have some that are insulated and run through a crawl space but they still do get cool when heat hasn’t cycled for a while which has an effect. Also has the unit formed any ice on it?

 

No it doesn’t, forget what mine pulls but it a fair amount of current iirc.

 

Just went outside and the fan wasn't going but warm air was coming out. Saw condensation on the copper pipes and such so I'm guessing it was defrosting. Will check next cycle.

I'm getting my temps from the closest vent thinking it'll be the most accurate, but also checking all the others and there is a consistent temp drop the farther away I get. The house is tiny and all the ducts are in the crawl space. 1200 sq ft. The first vent is on the other side of the wall from the package unit.

 

Pellet stove

\thread

 

Called the HVAC company. Tired of the house not heating passed 67 degrees after running for hours. My old unit before it kept breaking would heat the house to whatever we wanted

 

I'm actually a big fan of the pellet stove, used to heat my garage with one of these and it worked REALLY well til it didn't.

I bought it used, and used it myself for nearly 10 yrs but the last few became a p.i.t.a....one of the sensors or auger was finally crapping out I think cuz it'd shutdown on it's own with fuel still in there.

Since learning about how inefficient the heat pump can be in the colder temps here I've already brought the topic up with the little lady so a pellet stove might be in our future. This is my first winter here so we'll see how the electric bill looks before I act.