We recently finished a new custom house for a customer that is heated with a Acadia Cold Climate air to air heat pump system. To my knowledge, it’s the first in our Upstate New York area. Homeowner moved in mid December. I have eagerly awaited the first full winter month electric bill to see how efficiently it was working. Dec. 30-Jan. 31 billing was just under $160. That is for heat, lights, appliances. The home is 2×6 construction with spray foam walls, 3/4″ insulated sheathing, foam insul in cathedral ceilings, cellulose in attic areas, icf foundation.
Total finished, heated living area is 3,300 sq.ft. This home sits on a hill with open western exposure to strong winds and a large amount of glazing facing southwest.
I am cautiously thrilled to death with initial cost of electricity, and looking forward to the next billing to see how Feb costs look. If they are similar, this system is going to be tough to beat for our climate. It was a fair amount less than geothermal with no digging or drilling expenses.
Anyone else had any experience with these systems yet?
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Just curious - I imagine that during the design a ResCheck or similar calc was done for the structure to see what the predicted heat loss would be, usually in the form of a total U*Area (that would give BTU/sq.ft/degF). What was the number? And how big (tons) was the Acadia installed?
Part of the low electrical cost would be from the very well insulated house, and part would be from leveraging the electrical power by using it to pump outside heat into the house rather than just using resistance heating.
Did the house have municipal water, or was it in a rural area with a drilled well?
Dick,
Yes, there was a mechcheck calculation done for the house although I don't remember the numbers. I could get them back from the architect or hvac people. You are correct that a lot of the savings are due to the level of insulation. The unit is not using any resistance heat at all, only heat pump mode at this point, even with a January that averaged the third coldest in history for our area, with quite a few days of subzero and single digit temperatures.
Water is by well not municipal supply. Also, most lighting in the house is cfl or led so that's also a factor.
I looked into them and quickly walked away. Heard a few horror stories but it could have also been a bad install.
Needing 8 units for one house I was not willing to take the chance. Good luck to you if these numbers continue to be so low.
Rob,
Eight units for one house? How the heck big of a house? Sounds gigantic.
The summer house. It's only 12K sq ft.
Only 12K sqft, huh? And maybe they put in the heat pumps so the heating costs wouldn't bankrupt them? Or maybe so they could showcase the home on some "green" type show and not be so embarrassed about the size of the place?
No Dick, Big is the house they call home. They have kept me busy for 18 years full time. Just started my 19th year the first of this month.
I hope you have better luck with them than what I was getting as feedback from my HVAC guy and a few others. One guy I heard of was filing suit over his install. The equipment was developed in Maine, Bangor area if I recall correctly. I read about it a few years ago.
Oh, I looked at the Cold Climate Heat Pump (predecessor to the Acadia) a few years ago for the upcoming project. I even spoke for a while late one day with Duane Hallowell (sp?), when he was with Nyle Specialty up in Bangor. Nice guy, open about what they had, numbers, etc. I guess he broke off from Nyle; I don't know what the commercial aspects of that were.The reason I asked about the water supply and the size of the heat pump installation was just curiosity. In my case, the house will be a lot more reasonable in size, and superinsulated, so that the design heat loss will be something under 2 tons, last I calculated. I imagine the heat pump may be a 2.5 ton. Since the house will have its own well drilled for water supply, and the heat load will be small, that makes ground source heat pump, standing column well, a perfect choice. The drilling is "free" (nothing extra for the GSHP), unless the well has to be drilled deeper to provide the estimated 200 ft depth of water column than was needed to get adequate water supply.Drilling cost is what seems to discourage GSHP selection. It puts payback further out. Eliminating the drilling cost from the equation puts the heating system cost more on even footing with a regular combustion type system.