Heat pump or wood stove

If you are running the heat strips you have waited too long to start up the stove. Those things eat about 3 times as much power as the heat pump for each BTU that you get back from them. At the least use the stove to keep those things shut off. Running the heat pump along side the wood stove is just fine for heating but will cost more than just running the stove. On the other hand, how much do you really save compared to the work involved? Only you can judge that aspect. If it is just killing you to keep up with wood only, let the heat pump share the load.

begreen said:

Our heat strips are set to come on at 23F. They've come on only a couple times. Once when I manually triggered them to make sure they were working. And once when we returned from vacation in winter and I wanted to warm up the house quicker.

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Most likely the strip heat comes on when it goes into defrost cycle. It's probably set at 90 minutes unless you have a newer one that has defrost on demand. This tempers the air so it doesn't feel cold when in defrost.

I like to run my heatpump during shoulder season.

My stove is just a helper to the heat pump. Someday I'll figure out how to distribute the heat from the basement to upper floors. I'm a candidate for a wood furnace but that won't happen.

When daytime temps get above 50* with nighttime temps above 35*, I use the heat pump exclusively. It is clean, easy, and very inexpensive to run in my well insulated home. I harvest and process my wood (oak & hickory) right off my own property for free, but like to save it for colder weather. The only exception is sometimes when I have company over for dinner during warmer winter weather, I will build a smaller fire and burn it on a real low air setting for the fire show. People love to watch the secondaries burn.

We have a 3 year old heat pump in a nice big rental house in Asheville NC and that thing has been a nightmare for us. Wish we had installed a central gas furnace instead.
Very high electric bills and does not do a good job of heating the house.

@ Simonkenton, if you have a new heat pump that isn't working well, you should probably have somebody take a look at it. There's no reason a properly sized heat pump should not keep a house at a comfortable temperature.

@ realstihl, I don't know if this is a viable change for your home or not, but if you can have your cold air return for the heat pump relocated to the same room as the stove, then you can use the furnace blower to help move warm air from the stove around.

@ begreen, for that low of auxiliary heat temperature you must have a two-stage heat heat pump, yes?

Simonkenton said:

We have a 3 year old heat pump in a nice big rental house in Asheville NC and that thing has been a nightmare for us. Wish we had installed a central gas furnace instead.
Very high electric bills and does not do a good job of heating the house.

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My experience is very different but I have a ground source heat pump, some people call them geothermal, that runs mostly on good will. Last month's power bill was under $90 so I can take that even with no wood burning. Gas around here is propane so I really never considered it. Propane might as well be heating oil in terms of costs. The house I am living in has natural gas and that is nice but it is only available in the city, not where I am building or what the OP has installed. I have no idea if nat gas is even an option for him.

Mountain Man 511 said:

I was just wondering if there was a temperature where it made more sense to heat my house with the heat pump rather with the wood stove.
I pay 9 cent a KWH and my heat pump pulls 3 kw.
The reason i'm asking is i'm older and have to carry my wood up 14 stairs to the stove. We have to keep the house warm for my 81 year old mother-in-law.
Don't get me wrong i love our new Mansfield stove and yes we bought it to help with the heating bill but just seems like there is a point where it would make more sense to use the Heat Pump and save the wood for the colder days.
New to all of this so i do appreciate any help. I do know that if the night time temp is 40 or above the stove is almost to much it does really get warm.

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Before I bought my Blaze King, I used my heat pump when temps were above 40. Below that for any length of time, I would run a small, hot fire and just let it go out. Hated it cause temps would spike then we'd be cold in the morning and need to bump up the heat pump.

It sounds like it'd just be best to use your heat pump. I enjoy keeping a fire going bc we have no children and its my "responsibility". Just use your stove if it gets below 40 even though your wood is free; you're still paying for the heat in chainsaw/splitter gas/maintenance and your time/physical health.

Simonkenton said:

We have a 3 year old heat pump in a nice big rental house in Asheville NC and that thing has been a nightmare for us. Wish we had installed a central gas furnace instead.
Very high electric bills and does not do a good job of heating the house.

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I also have had a bad experience with my ASHP. Without having gas available, it still may be the best option for a non-solid fuel, but I used to cringe at the electric bills. Just one thing to note, and I'm surprised the government sponsored tipsheets that always go around telling you how to save electricity never caveat this, but do not use a programmable thermostat with an ASHP. Since most automatically kick the backup electric in every time the house tries to warm up, you'll have a much higher proportion of resistance than HP.

brant2000 said:

Just one thing to note, and I'm surprised the government sponsored tipsheets that always go around telling you how to save electricity never caveat this, but do not use a programmable thermostat with an ASHP. Since most automatically kick the backup electric in every time the house tries to warm up, you'll have a much higher proportion of resistance than HP.

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That is so true. I am presently using only my heat pump to keep my "house under construction" warm enough to work and keep pipes from freezing. It runs less than 20% of the time at stage 1 only. One day I thought another few degrees would be nice but when I moved the thermostat from 55 to 56 not only did the stage 1 and stage 2 come on but so did both stages of resistance duct heaters. Heating from 50 to 55 when my system was first installed cost me an extra $20 that month for the single event. The only way I will raise my temperature now will be when my stove already has me running well above the setting I am contemplating using. That way the house can ease into it and not end up with "emergency" heat coming on.

I'll do that next time they are out. They still have some work to do because I really am just under construction. Little things like the return air ducts are not yet in service. At present the return air is nothing but a draw on the space where the water furnace is installed. They also do not have all of their money yet so they will be back.

brant2000 said:

I'm surprised the government sponsored tipsheets that always go around telling you how to save electricity never caveat this, but do not use a programmable thermostat with an ASHP. Since most automatically kick the backup electric in every time the house tries to warm up, you'll have a much higher proportion of resistance than HP.

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Recently, all the tipsheets I've seen say to make sure you install a smart recovery thermostat. The programming on these varies, but in general, they monitor how long it takes to bring the house up to temperature, then start the heat pump the appropriate amount of time before your programmed temperature increase so that it reaches the programmed temperature at roughly that time without needing the auxiliary heat.

This does not necessarily apply if it is really cold out, in which case, heat pumps usually need help from the auxiliary resistance heat, especially single stage heat pumps. But this is a wood-burning forum. That's the best time for heat pump owners to be burning wood.

They usually also have an auxiliary heat lockout temperature (what begreen called the strip heater kick on temp). When the outdoor temperature is above that point, it will not use auxiliary heat. This is usually something the installer should set, unless you understand the considerations behind it. Usually you want it a little bit higher than your system balance point.

begreen said:

Just like stoves, all heat pump systems are not the same. We have a programmable thermostat on our heat pump. It has the house comfy for when we wake up in the morning. It does not trigger the strip heat, ever. (When outdoor temps are below 25 I set the thermostat on hold at 60F because we are heating with wood then.) Our electric bill increase with the heat pump running is quite reasonable. Typically it adds may $40-60 a month, depending on how much it needs to run. With cord wood running near $300/cord the heat pump is cheaper during mild weather.

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How can I tell if the strip heat is on?

begreen said:

If it comes on frequently and the thermostat is old you might not know without watching the meter. Our thermostat has an indicator light. It lights up red when it's on. Otherwise, a burning dust smell, electric meter spinning merrily, warmer heat coming from the registers.

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thanks