Heat Pumps

Hey,

I'n just wondering those of you that have these, what is your average power bills in winter and what area of the country are you in?
Do you use any other source of heating other than the heat pump?

We are renting and are thinking of maybe asking landlord if they can put one in but before we do, investigating the costs of power bills vs what we are paying now when using heaters and a night store.

We are in CHCH.

Thanks!!

Depending on how big the heatpump is, and how turned up you have it, it should be reasonably efficient. DH is a electrician- if you have a idea of how big the heat pump is your looking at, I could ask him for a rough idea for much much it'll cost?

Ours is cheap to run, in winter (we don't have it running yet) we set it on warming on 15 degrees, the lowest warming setting it'll go to, if it gets really cold we'll put it up to 16/17degrees but that doesnt happen often and we are in southland! We find it just potters along at 15 degrees and keeps the place warm.
BUT ours is only doing the hallway/bedrooms (BIG area still, we are in a old house, huge rooms, high ceilings.) This winter with baby we might turn it up and leave it a bit higher, but will see how we go. We have a multi fuel burner in the lounge/kitchen area, but none of that heat goes into the bedrooms/hallway.

We pretty much just use it to keep the chill off, and find it great for that. Think our power bill averages $200 a month in winter. Higher end would be $250-$280, but that was when we had 2 other girls here with hot showers etc in winter (its only us 2 now)

We are in Palmy...

We have no other heating in our house apart from those ecnoheat heaters in the bedroom however those only get turned on to warm a room up before bed if its extremely cold.

We have a fujitsu, when we run it its on 20-21 degrees and usually from 7-7. Our power bills in winter are around the 170-190 mark.

We got a heatpump put in a few months ago as our woodburner is no longer usable as it is not a clean burning one so needs to be removed.
Anyway. We have out heatpump on 24/7 as our house is quite cold (don't have much in the way of insulation) and our last bill was $188. Up about $80 from what it normally is but we had no form of heating other than the fire previously.
We got a 9kw (or thereabouts) Panasonic Heatpump. They put it in our lounge facing the couches which gets a bit annoying blowing down onto us all the time. Our house isn't very big and we were told that one large one would heat the whole house but it doesn't really. We have a thermometer in Islas room which is down the end of the hallway opposite our bedroom and lately it's only been 15-16 degrees in her room even tho we have the heatpump set at 21-22. Overnight we have to crank the heatpump way up to 24 just to keep Islas room at 18 or above. It's a PITA if we are still up watching TV tho. We will be sitting in the lounge in shorts and t-shirts cause its so bloody warm but her room will only just be warm enough. We are getting a Heat Transfer system put in next week to try and get more heat down the end of the house where our bedrooms are.

My brother installs heatpumps Dani, and we have a GREE, its not a "known" brand but its a really really good one, we have it going early morning and at night, and sometimes during the day if we get cold snaps.
Because our little flat is attached to my parents house, dad pays the power bill, but our share of the power is probably around 100-130(thats just a guess!).

We have a oil heater in the kids room, which only gets turned on when its really cold, which isnt that often just yet.

I love our heatpump, its soo much better than the horrible gas heater we had, and much much safer with a toddler and baby in the house :)

DH (electrician) says there are some units out there which you can have one outside unit which will run a couple of inside units (instead of one outside unit for one inside). He has installed one outdoor unit and they could have up to 4 inside units off it. If you have a fairly stretched out house with the heat pump in the lounge then the heat won't move, its nothing to do with the size of the heatpump its how your house is set up and where you put your heatpump.

When they work out the size of the heatpump they usually work it out by the square metres of your house, not layout. If you've got 4 doorways in the way it won't travel so well to bedrooms, no matter where its set up.

Quite often 2 small ones is more economical than 1 large, cos you can have them both turned down and puttering along, or at different temperatures, instead of one cranked up to try and move the heat through.

I know in our house having only one heatpump would be a waste of time (we have one heatpump in the hallway, and wood burner in the lounge) simply cos if we only had the heatpump in the lounge, the air wouldn't move through the doorway into the bedrooms at all. We also have high ceiling stud which is another thing to take into consideration.

Also in terms of insulation your best way to help insulate your house is pink batts in your ceiling as its 30% heat loss that way (the whole heat rises thing!), placemakers and that often have specials and thats involved in the government grant aswell? Really worth looking into as don't wanna waste $$ putting heatpumps in for it to blow up and away!
I'm pretty sure placemakers can let you tick it up on GE aswell..???