Heat Pump Questions

I am having some heating issues here at my house. First a little back story… I have lived in the house for 3 years, The HVAC system was new 8 years ago (5 years old when we bought house). We had an issue earlier this year and the guy came out and put in a new pressure switch, and it had been fine till today. I got home and it was 55 in the house and the heat was running, but blowing cool air. I switched it to emergency on the thermostat and the house has warmed up now to 68 degrees and is cycling on and off and holding. I was told by the HVAC man last time that if you have to kick it over to emergency, something is wrong. I live in a small town and cannot get a hold of the guy. After reading online a bit, I have read that sometimes it is just too cold outside for a heat pump to work properly. I would trust the guys on this site much more than a google search any day. Do I need to worry about running on emergency for a while until I can get my local man here? Is it normal after a week of this cold of weather to need to switch to emergency? Do any of you have any advise for me? I have not ruled out calling someone else but would like to avoid making a guy come out here to tell me its cold as hell out and you need to run emergency until the outside temps get above 0. Thanks in advance!

Some heat pumps are more capable than others, I would recommend switching over to gas heat when its 10 to 20 degrees out or less,there will come a point where you have to decide how much electricity you want to use vrs gas. On a system that new I would imagine there should be a setting on your stat if it is a communicating system or a outdoor t stat to switch over to gas heat automatically for you.

I definitely would not worry about running on emergency since you stated it was zero and house only at 55, I run a heat pump also but pretty much anything under 20 I switch to gas, I have a 2 year old Bryant system, they have a new unit that will work down zero or so. So in your situation I would say it’s operating according. They can only pull so much heat from outside, hence why your house was 55.

I had a heat pump at our old house. The thermostat was set to automatically switch over to natural gas at 20 degrees ( emergency Heat). Our heat pump was not the ground type but relied on the air to extract the heat from it. There are models that can work at a much lower temp but a higher cost.

Thanks guys… I know nothing about the system, the previous owners of the house were an older couple. The husband was an all around handy man and worked 47 years at a packing plant, retiring as the head of maintenance. He installed it, our local man is not very familiar with this particular system. It is not ground source, I know that because the local guy told me he has never sold a heat pump unless it was ground source.

Well… things went well overnight and then in the last half hour or so the house has dropped down to 64 Degrees

Over the last 20+ years, we’ve installed a lot of heat pumps. Popularity varies. Peak efficiency seems to end around 30 degrees and becomes much much re expensive vs gas to operate.

Which thermostat are you using? Does it display error codes?

Most common issues we run into have been
1 excessive water in the vent fan
2 restrictions in the vent pipe – I have a few clients that are obsessed with keeping bugs out and put fine screen over the pipes. That screws up the pressure for the switch

Also pending the pitch on the vent pipe, you might have too much ice build up in extreme cold weather

3 now t as frequent, but wind direction blowing directly into the vent
4 LP units not having the water column adjusted correctly

jbg1219 wrote:

Thanks guys… I know nothing about the system, the previous owners of the house were an older couple. The husband was an all around handy man and worked 47 years at a packing plant, retiring as the head of maintenance. He installed it, our local man is not very familiar with this particular system. It is not ground source, I know that because the local guy told me he has never sold a heat pump unless it was ground source.

Post up the make/model of your heat pump, as well as your emergency heat source – gas or electric coil on the furnace, or electric duct coil downstream of the heat pump?