Electric bill doubled after new gas furnace install
lnm1016
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
We have two systems in a split level house. Heat pump upstairs. Gas furnace downstairs with some ductwork running from downstairs to upstairs. After new gas furnace install our electric bill has increased a ton. Any suggestion what could cause this and how to fix it?
Thanks!
Replies
Several possibilities.
1) The "balance" between the gas furnace and the heat pump has been disturbed, causing more of the heating load to fall on the heat pump.
2) The new furnace is somehow drawing more air into the house, placing more load on the heat pump.
3) The new furnace's fan motor is incredibly inefficient. If the old furnace had a DC motor and the new one is an induction motor this could make a significant difference.
Thanks! I'm having the installers come out again to take a look. This definitely sound like valid possibilities.
We did a large comparison of our daily electric charge from comparing last December and January to this year. So we compared last year's daily electric charge from our electric company and this year's daily charge. We then compared these charges based on the daily temperature so we could compare correctly. The daily electric charges are 50% higher every single day in our comparisons after the furnace was installed. We need to figure out why our heat pump is working overtime.
We installed a new heat pump last year. In the middle of the winter the compressor failed. We didn’t realize this had happened. We didn’t realize our electric bill was running 50% higher until several months had passed. So it might be your heat pump and not the new furnace
Yep, if the compressor fails then resistance heating elements will take over. It's even possible that the compressor was somehow disabled during the furnace install.
I'm hoping its not the compressor. I am outside a few times at night before bed letting dogs out to potty and I have definitely heard them come on. They sound different so I'm pretty sure I've heard both turn on recently. Hopefully, that means they're both working correctly. I'll add it to my list to discuss with our installer next week, though. Thank you
I'm guessing it is the backup electric resistance heat in the heat pump kicking in. But if nothing was changed with regard to that i(and compressor is running) t's hard to see why that would happen. And it's certainly not been a super cold winter where backup electric resistance would be called for very much. Possibly some miswiring of thermostat?
Another possibility - is the furnace fan set to run continuously whereas the old one was not? Figure maybe 700 watts for an "old style" AC motor on a 1 hp motor. That's the same as 7 100-watt bulbs running 24/7. (Newer DC motors are down toward the 100 watt range). Please let us know what it turns out to be!