Solar power systems for the home

[Twitchy15]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

I've got zero experience with heat pumps so am curious as to why it will take so long? For comparison a furnace is typically a day to do.

We had a new furnace and heat pump installed and it just took one day, so unless this is a special type of heat pump? geothermal?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Our heat pump install started yesterday, it's going to take most of the week to get set up.

How is the heat pump so far?

Are you hoping for some cold weather to see how it performs?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

How is the heat pump so far?

Are you hoping for some cold weather to see how it performs?

It's been really nice. Noticeably quieter than furnace heating, and the temperature in the house just seems to be much more stable with the heat pump versus the furnace.

Will be interesting to see it performing in cold weather, however we do know that these unit have been installed in lots of sites here in Calgary and are performing just fine.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

It's been really nice. Noticeably quieter than furnace heating, and the temperature in the house just seems to be much more stable with the heat pump versus the furnace.

Will be interesting to see it performing in cold weather, however we do know that these unit have been installed in lots of sites here in Calgary and are performing just fine.

Are you able to measure the Kilowatts consumed by your heat pump to compare against last years GJs of gas consumed to be able to evaluate cost efficiency and heating efficiency?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by GGG

Are you able to measure the Kilowatts consumed by your heat pump to compare against last years GJs of gas consumed to be able to evaluate cost efficiency and heating efficiency?

Not right now, there will be a monitor installed at some point in the New Year I believe. Utilizing my solar app unfortunately won't show it, as the inverter for that is tied to our existing breaker box in the basement. The Heat Pump and all accessories for it are tied into a new box in our garage, so when I upgrade the solar array next year I will have the inverter moved to that site so it can capture the entire house electrical usage.

With all these upgrades over this year I am in a deficit scenario for my existing solar array. Our current 3.3kW system will most likely be bumped up closer to a 10kW system with our new usage levels.

[Bigtime]

Look Ma, no gas!



Alert the war room.

[Lubicon]

Bigtime, I'll be curious to hear how the heat pump does later this week when we get that cold snap. Do you mind giving us an update?

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Bigtime, I'll be curious to hear how the heat pump does later this week when we get that cold snap. Do you mind giving us an update?

My folks have had a heat pump since last fall. It does well between -15 and +15 but when it gets lower than that they need to start a fire in their stove to supplement the heat. That said, they are animals and just don't care about being cold in their own house.

[Twitchy15]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Look Ma, no gas!



Alert the war room.

wow! curious how it performs with these crazy deep freeze, if you end up getting / have solar probably works out but I would imagine electric heat strip back up would get costly.

[Bigtime]

Hi all, lucky me I’ve been home all week with Covid. But that does mean I have been around to monitor the heat pump. Has been operating well until yesterday evening, when I noticed it started to lose the battle to hold temperature in the home. With our new insulation I let it slide overnight and we’ve woken up to a house about 3 degrees cooler than last night. Have written our contractor and they are sending out a tech from the install company to check it out, most likely scenario is that the electric backup hasn’t kicked in for some reason.

[puffnstuff]

I have a question, not solar or heat pump related. It came up in conversation about the Ford truck commercial that shows a power outage so they hook their electric truck up to the house to power lights etc
Somebody said the rest of the neighbourhood would also be able to pull power from that truck. True or false? Or does it depend on what kind of power meter the home has, as in one able to sell/put self generated electricity back to the grid

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Hi all, lucky me I’ve been home all week with Covid. But that does mean I have been around to monitor the heat pump. Has been operating well until yesterday evening, when I noticed it started to lose the battle to hold temperature in the home. With our new insulation I let it slide overnight and we’ve woken up to a house about 3 degrees cooler than last night. Have written our contractor and they are sending out a tech from the install company to check it out, most likely scenario is that the electric backup hasn’t kicked in for some reason.

Tech here now, the heater was not drawing power. Troubleshooting now.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I have a question, not solar or heat pump related. It came up in conversation about the Ford truck commercial that shows a power outage so they hook their electric truck up to the house to power lights etc
Somebody said the rest of the neighbourhood would also be able to pull power from that truck. True or false? Or does it depend on what kind of power meter the home has, as in one able to sell/put self generated electricity back to the grid

Here in Calgary in the event of a power outage those of us with solar get shut down too. They don’t allow what is called “islanding” as that could cause us to be putting live current into a line they may be trying to repair. If you have battery backups those would kick in I believe. So my guess is in the electric truck scenario the truck would act as a battery, and no power would be going out to the rest of the grid for neighbours to pull from.

[Fuzz]

It's definitely a huge safety issue, because if repairs have to be made, there could be homes energizing the lines. That's really bad. I'm not sure about Calgary, but I think in places where it is permitted, you need an isolator that disconnects the house from the grid while power is fed from the vehicle(or solar, or a home battery). When power is detected as restored from the grid, it automatically re-enables that connection.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Tech here now, the heater was not drawing power. Troubleshooting now.

One of the limit switches tripped apparently. All fixed up and we are slowly heating up again with the electrical backup doing its thing.

[Torture]

Have all of my work for Greener Homes scheduled in March/April and just got an email that because I haven't done anything (aside from getting them to fix my account because I couldn't access it, and then applying for the loan/having that approved...) they've closed my file.

*facepalm*

[photon]

Oh man that sucks. I'm in the same boat scheduled for April, hopefully they don't close mine.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

One of the limit switches tripped apparently. All fixed up and we are slowly heating up again with the electrical backup doing its thing.

How's it going? Did the fix work?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

How's it going? Did the fix work?

Yup, once that was reset the heating element started doing its thing and we got back up to normal temps. Everything holding steady now.

[DoubleK]

Excellent. Good to hear.

Are you happy with the performance?