Author Topic: Heat pump/oil furnace hybrid: what outdoor temp to have the backup oil furnace k  (Read 2660 times)

trachma

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Wondering if anyone can help me figure this out. When our Mitsubishi heat pump (mxz-4c36na2) was installed in Fall 2021 (needed for a/c, but the rebate in MA came from setting up with an Ecobee to reduce our oil usage), the guy said to set the IFTTT app to have the heat pump turn off when temps dropped below 40F and have the (existing) oil furnace come on. But some recent reading made me wonder if his thinking was outdated, and that we could save money by running the heat pump even in colder temps.

Any advice about a good rule of thumb for when to switch based on outdoor temp? Or what info I would need to figure out a customized answer?

(I'm good at math but not an engineer, so I'm not totally sure how to begin this type of calculation. Please ELI5 me so I understand the thinking, if you would be so kind!)

bacchi

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https://hvacdirect.com/hvac/pdf/MXZ4C36NA2-U1-submittal.pdf

Your unit can heat until 5F. I'd switch over in the teens, myself, given your COP is 2.67 at 17f.

As for the calculations...

At 17f, your minisplit uses 3.340 kwh and transfers 22200 BTU/h.

How many gallons of oil is needed for 22200 BTUs?


trachma

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Quote from: bacchi link=topic=129569.msg3098894#msg3098894 date=1673198897

How many gallons of oil is needed for 22200 BTUs?
[/quote

@bacchi, the oil furnace is a Carrier (OVMAAB042112). The specs say BTU input is 112000 and BTU output is 94200. AFUE 85.2%.

Going off the eia.gov website, our heating oil is 138,500 BTUs per gallon.

So that would be ~.16 gallons for 22200 BTUs if perfectly efficient, but actually ~.19 gallons when you account for the AFUE?

Please let me know if I did that right.

If I did, I assume I just calculate my electric rate for 3.340 kWh and the cost of .19 gallons of gas and compare them (which shows that oil is slightly cheaper than the heat pump at 17F).

If I did the same price comparison at 47F (using the different heat pump efficiency info at that temp), could I kind of make a rough  graph of how the efficiency decreases as temps drop to ballpark my switchover temp?

(Thanks in advance for your patience wiht a non-engineer trying to figure this out. Much appreciated—especially if I need remedial tutoring here.)
« Last Edit: January 08, 2023, 03:21:53 PM by trachma »

yachi

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I looked up some rates for electric and Heating Oil prices in MA, and your math looks right.  I do believe you can graph the performance as a straight line between 17°F and 47°F and get a reasonable performance estimate.  While in heating mode, your outside coils operate at a lower-than-ambient temperature, and they frost up.  They'll frost up more with more moisture in the air, so the graph will not be 100% exact, but it should be a good guide.

By the way, I don't think this is a typical conclusion for other regions.  MA heating oil costs about $4.688 per gallon, while PA heating oil costs $4.437 per gallon, so it's less than 6% more expensive in MA.  But MA electric rates are about 30 cents/KWH to PA's 14.37 cents/KWH, so electric there is more than 108% more expensive than in PA.

But there is a second calculation you need to be aware of.  Heat pumps are awesome because they use the energy in electricity to pull more energy out of the outside air and put it in your house.  You can see this in the numbers you provided.  The 22,200 Btu/h that this unit provides at 17°F, takes only 3.340 kWh with a heat pump, but would take 6.506 kWh with resistance heat. But 22,200 Btu/h is far short of your furnace's 94,200 Btu/h.  Unless your furnace is almost criminally oversized, there will be an outside temperature where your heat pump cannot keep up with the heat loss through your walls and ceiling.  What happens at that point is your inside temperature starts to drop below your thermostat's setpoint.  Some inside units have built-in resistance heat that takes over if the temperature drops more than 2 degrees below the setpoint.  But resistance heat is much less efficient.  Each additional 10,000 BTU/h of resistance heat would require about 3 kWh in electricity.

Heat loss is generally proportional to the temperature difference, so if your existing furnace was designed to keep your house at 75°F on a 7.7°F day (a 67 degree rise), then a heat pump less than a quarter of the size would only provide a 16° rise, and would be ineffective in keeping your house from freezing on such a day.  Looking at these numbers it seems to me, the advice to only use it above 40°F is because it may not keep up at lower temperatures.

If your units have no backup resistance heat, or if you can turn that feature off, you could experiment and see at what temperature the unit stops keeping up.  You could also set the thermostat for the heat pump a few degrees above the thermostat for the oil furnace, in order to have an automatic backup should the heat pump be unable to keep up.

jrhampt

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We don't use the oil furnace as a backup unless the outdoor temps gets under 20 for an extended period.  Otherwise the heat pump seems to do fine.

Jon Bon

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I probably lean towards 25-30 myself, but I think I likely have a crappier HP than you do. I've got an upstairs downstairs thing, I keep my 1st floor furnace at 68, and my 2nd floor HP at about 65. So it does not have to run a ton when it gets very cold. The reverse in the summer time is nice though.

My issue is as it gets colder outside, the air coming out of my vents gets colder. So it takes longer and its like having the overhead fan on, which is unpleasant. I was laying in bed and waited like 30 mins for it to heat form 61 to 62, pumping out air that was like maybe 64 degrees!

Having back up furnace heat is great though.


FLBiker

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You've got me thinking.  We have a heatpump upstairs (Fujitsu 12RLS3H).  We've been in Nova Scotia for 2.5 years (in the middle of our third winter) and I've never turned it off for cold weather.  I think the coldest it has been since we've been here is around -25c (so -13f) overnight.  I just looked at the manual, and this heatpump has an operating range down to -15c.  It sounds like I should turn it off if it's going to be colder than that.

We have electric baseboard resistance heat throughout the house and never use it.  We also have a pellet stove that we use during the day.  I turn it on a couple of hours before my wife and daughter get home, and then I turn it off when we go to bed.  Over night, the heatpump keeps upstairs fairly warm (~16C) and downstairs will drop to ~14C on cold nights.  On really cold nights, it could drop a bit cooler.  And we have the baseboard heat set a bit lower, just as a backup (around 13C).

uniwelder

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You've got me thinking.  We have a heatpump upstairs (Fujitsu 12RLS3H).  We've been in Nova Scotia for 2.5 years (in the middle of our third winter) and I've never turned it off for cold weather.  I think the coldest it has been since we've been here is around -25c (so -13f) overnight.  I just looked at the manual, and this heatpump has an operating range down to -15c.  It sounds like I should turn it off if it's going to be colder than that.

I've read in GreenBuildingAdvisor (based in Vermont) that people commonly report their units operating below the manufacturer's stated minimum.  Probably not very efficient at that point, but still putting out heat.

FLBiker

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You've got me thinking.  We have a heatpump upstairs (Fujitsu 12RLS3H).  We've been in Nova Scotia for 2.5 years (in the middle of our third winter) and I've never turned it off for cold weather.  I think the coldest it has been since we've been here is around -25c (so -13f) overnight.  I just looked at the manual, and this heatpump has an operating range down to -15c.  It sounds like I should turn it off if it's going to be colder than that.

I've read in GreenBuildingAdvisor (based in Vermont) that people commonly report their units operating below the manufacturer's stated minimum.  Probably not very efficient at that point, but still putting out heat.

Interesting, thanks!  I'm wondering if I would be better off letting it run (so that it's still doing it's defrost cycles, if nothing else) or if I should turn it off and then let it sit until the temp is back up above -15C.  I'll reach out to the manufacturer for a recommendation.

yachi

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You've got me thinking.  We have a heatpump upstairs (Fujitsu 12RLS3H).  We've been in Nova Scotia for 2.5 years (in the middle of our third winter) and I've never turned it off for cold weather.  I think the coldest it has been since we've been here is around -25c (so -13f) overnight.  I just looked at the manual, and this heatpump has an operating range down to -15c.  It sounds like I should turn it off if it's going to be colder than that.

I've read in GreenBuildingAdvisor (based in Vermont) that people commonly report their units operating below the manufacturer's stated minimum.  Probably not very efficient at that point, but still putting out heat.

Interesting, thanks!  I'm wondering if I would be better off letting it run (so that it's still doing it's defrost cycles, if nothing else) or if I should turn it off and then let it sit until the temp is back up above -15C.  I'll reach out to the manufacturer for a recommendation.

I'd be interested in what the manufacturer says.  If the unit isn't running, the outside coils will warm up to the outside temperature and any frost buildup that accumulates would be similar to what you'd find on your car's windshield.  It would also accumulate and disappear at similar times.  When the unit is running, the outside coils will be significantly cooler than ambient air - that's how it's getting extra heat from the air.  Sometimes the coils will be colder than the wet-bulb temperature.  That's the temperature where moisture drops out of the air - this is related to % humidity, so the lower the humidity, the larger the gap between wet-bulb and dry bulb (what we normally measure).  At the point where your coils are colder than the wet-bulb temperature, moisture drops out of the air on the coils and it freezes on the coils.  I think heat pumps run a reverse cycle to melt off the accumulated frost.

index

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It really depends on where you are. Generally 1 btu produced by gas is going to be cheaper than 1 btu produced by a heat pump. Especially the colder it gets.

If having snow is rare, a heat pump is a good option, if below zero is a regular occurrence a heat pump is going to be horribly expensive.

Source: Me, just installed a heat pump (in addition to a gas furnace) and I am not happy with its performance at all.

Heat pumps have performance curves you can look up in the manufacturer literature. Heat pumps are rated with a Coefficient of Performance (COP) at a specific outside temperature. COP measures the kW of heating (or cooling) provided for each kW of energy used. More specifically, heat pumps (and air conditioners) move heat from one location to another. So a COP of 3.5 means the heat pump is moving 3.5 kW of heat from the outdoors into the house for each 1 kW consumed. As the outdoor temperature drops, there is less heat available outdoors and the COP decreases.

You can calculate your breakeven point using this formula:



Then reference the COP chart, graph, or table for your unit. Example:



So for gas a 0.80 a Therm and electricity at 10c a kilowatt - the breakeven COP is 2.93. For the heat pump shown above, COPs are in excess of 2.9 at 30F and above which means the heat pump is more efficient than the furnace in this range.

The spec sheet for the Mr. Cool Universal Series everyone has been talking about on this forum is here:

https://mrcool.com/wp-content/dox_repo/mc-uni-perf-ss-en-01.pdf

Multiply HSPF by 0.293 to get COP. Spoiler alert. The 3 ton and larger Mr. Cool universal systems are not fantastic. 


See this blog:

https://www.daikinapplied.com/news/blogs/changeover-cop-calculating-the-value-of-electrification