Anyone here use one of those heat pumps

[Saleenguy]

They use the ambient air outside to heat and cool your home or shop. I am building a new shop this summer, and am looking to install one, hear they ause a lot less hydro than just a regualr electric furnace. Do not have natural gas where we live, so its electric and wood for heating the new shop. Please chime in if you have any insight. Thanks

[Vinford]

My neighbour installs them and sells them.
According to him his prices are as good as anywhere , Ive never checked however.
He built a new house and I watched him put in his system its pretty simple.
Any special questions just ask and ill ask him he loves talking about it.

[Saleenguy]

Originally Posted by Vinford

My neighbour installs them and sells them.
According to him his prices are as good as anywhere , Ive never checked however.
He built a new house and I watched him put in his system its pretty simple.
Any special questions just ask and ill ask him he loves talking about it.

Thats great.

Basically my needs are simple.
Kamloops is a desert, so we get cold and heat.
In winter we can get weeks of -30, and in summer weeks of over 40.

Living in the country as we do, we have only hydro, no gas or such.

I am building a new shop this summer, and its going to be 40 x 60 feet, and have 16 foot ceilings.

I want to heat it with wood backup on real cold days, the rest of the time its just going to be electricity.

I already know what the wood heater will be, its going to be a Blaze King, as I have had them before and they are awesome.

I need to heat and cool the shop though, and even when the heats off, leave the blower run almost 24 hours a day to circulate the air.

I am thinking of a heat pump to heat and cool it.
But hear once it gets cold out you have electric heating coils in the heat exchanger part to heat it.

So was thinking I probably need about 100,000 BTU's of electric coil as well as the heat pump part.

I wonder how well they cool in summer though?

And I wanted to get the blower motor in a DC current, s I heard they last longer, and use far less energy than the AC blowers, since I will leave the fan part run all the time.

Thanks vinford.

ps. maybe he needs a deck or bumper made....wink

[Vinford]

Actually I screwed up , he does geothermal.
It keeps his house warm in the winter and cold in the summer.
The pipe isnt any big deal to put in the ground the expense seems to be in the pump.

[Saleenguy]

Originally Posted by Vinford

Actually I screwed up , he does geothermal.
It keeps his house warm in the winter and cold in the summer.
The pipe isnt any big deal to put in the ground the expense seems to be in the pump.

I looked into geothermal, but hear of too many problems once they get a bit older.

So not going that way.

Thanks very much anyways

[brickie]

Saleenguy.Build with masonry and build a masonry boiler/wood stove in the middle. It's worked since forever.