Thread: Slow drip to prevent freezing...

You should have electric strips on your heat pump that you can put on with a setting. In fact as new as yours is they should come on automatically. Mine do and I can set them to stay on while the heater is running. Prepare for a higher electric bill if you do.

Originally Posted by "D"

You should have electric strips on your heat pump that you can put on with a setting. In fact as new as yours is they should come on automatically. Mine do and I can set them to stay on while the heater is running. Prepare for a higher electric bill if you do.

I respectfully add that is assuming the installer installed a 2 stage heating thermostat. Around here if you let these guys install a heat pump they a likely to not ever put heat strips in the air handler or worse install them with a single stage thermostat. 90% is about you can count on, makes a Man do his own work a lot.

the past 3 weeks its been negative temps here in Iowa. this week its the warmest with high of 34. I'm ready for warm weather!

In Central MS suburbia HOA land, the newer houses here have gas furnaces as part of the HVAC system, although my bonus room has its own Mitsubishi minisplit HVAC, which is heat pump-based. My wife’s cousin was here during some of our coldest days and slept in the bonus room, so the minisplit was apparently working. The older houses in my neighborhood started building in the mid-2000’s, and some have tank water heaters, while newer houses like mine have tankless water heaters. We also have manablok water distribution and valves inside the house, so that I can turn off the outside faucets when it gets cold—out of habit, I still cover them to remind me that I did turn the faucet off. I do end up dripping the inside vanity faucets that are along an outside wall on the hot water side to keep the water in both tankless heaters from freezing—I did have the one on the west wall freeze and didn’t free up until late in the afternoon the next day or so when it did warm above the freezing point and enough afternoon sun hits it. The east side didn’t freeze because of constant use from kitchen and guest bathroom, and we just took showers in the two bedrooms and bonus room on that side while waiting on the west side to thaw.

Since I'm not a licensed plumber I don't have a gas furnace. My FIL had one with a spark plug and injector, it's only byproduct was water. 100% efficient. Since I install my own equipment and my cost are very low I don't think the money would work out any better for us. Still a high efficiency gas furnace would be Uptown!

I forgot to mention that the only issue that I have with my gas furnaces is that it dries the air out too well, so I have to run humidifiers in the bedrooms as well as a larger room humidifier in the living room to keep us from coughing all the time and turning into prunes with cracked skin and nosebleeds. There's only so much we can do with drinking water and using good lotions and creams for the skin and ointment for the noses.

Originally Posted by jjue1979

I forgot to mention that the only issue that I have with my gas furnaces is that it dries the air out too well, so I have to run humidifiers in the bedrooms as well as a larger room humidifier in the living room to keep us from coughing all the time and turning into prunes with cracked skin and nosebleeds. There's only so much we can do with drinking water and using good lotions and creams for the skin and ointment for the noses.

Yup, our humidifier is running nonstop and we’re still drying out. Lotions, creams and some sore throats…

Originally Posted by jjue1979

I forgot to mention that the only issue that I have with my gas furnaces is that it dries the air out too well, so I have to run humidifiers in the bedrooms as well as a larger room humidifier in the living room to keep us from coughing all the time and turning into prunes with cracked skin and nosebleeds. There's only so much we can do with drinking water and using good lotions and creams for the skin and ointment for the noses.

When you live 14 miles from the Gulf of America a lack of humidity is a extremely rare problem.