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[creeker]

WOW i jsut found another site that say ouside heat pumps can make four times the energy as a resitive heater....SELL THE STOVE...i give up

In all seriousness, I truly don't believe the electric bill would be much if at all higher with just using the electric heat pump.  The wife says shut it down for the month of march and see, but what if I am wrong and the electric bill goes up to $500?  lol

[willieG]

i think rsi has the best idea about gettting the tool that can acutally measure your usage..if yoru brother inlaw has the same kind of heat pump, put it on his and see just what his usage is for a few days or try your own. then try all your stuff , maybe you have a trickle loss some where..i had one a few years back and it cost me a few hundred dollars beforei found it

[willieG]

i found this tidbit on thenet aswell  average home (what ever that is) in ontario or michigan electric furnace  for the year 30,000 KWh....outdoor heat pump 15,000 KWh ..geothermal 8,000 KWh

i knwo there will be a lot of variables but just thought i would throw it up there. maybe some guys can emember what they used and compare to this?

[Scott7m]

Geothermal is way over rated, I put boilers in for people with geo many times.

Geo customers went from 600 with a heat pump to 475 after a 20k dollar investment and were freezing to death...  Install the wood boiler the bill is $100 and there toasty warm

[Crow]

  I also agree with RSI. An energy meter may be $200 well spent. I just received my first electricity bill since October. It appears my so called "smart meter" (we have 3 different time of use prices) was not working properly and I was issued a credit.  Geez, maybe I'll get one too and keep an eye on things.

[willieG]

  I also agree with RSI. An energy meter may be $200 well spent. I just received my first electricity bill since October. It appears my so called "smart meter" (we have 3 different time of use prices) was not working properly and I was issued a credit.  Geez, maybe I'll get one too and keep an eye on things.

you in ontario crow?..my dad had a small machine shop in teh country and itwas on a road where three phase went down so we put it in the shop...we had the same meter for 15 years...they came one day and said they thought our meter was wrong and they were going to send it in for testing and we could be there if we liked...my dad trusts no one so he went to watch the test.....our meter was over reading by 5 percent...so my dad thinks 5 percent for 15 years allright!! they creidited him 5 percent of the last three months before they read the meter

[Crow]

  Yes Willie, I am from Ontario. Makes you wonder how many other meters are not right. Not sure if Creeker has the same meter as us but may be the same type of issue. My wife's parents had theirs changed (not by choice)- it was not reading enough kwh, hydro changed it and when the tech finished said he will be back again as this new one was not working at all. He had to hit it a couple times to get it working.

[Scott7m]

Your breaker to the heat pump may be off but that don't mean those heat strips aren't coming on. 

That would explain all of it.. 

[willieG]

Your breaker to the heat pump may be off but that don't mean those heat strips aren't coming on. 

That would explain all of it..

Oh Oh :bash:my geothermal has a warning light if they were to come on...but they cant..i didn't buy them i only seen the light come on a couple of times and back then i had a woodinsert that i would fire up to tack care of it

[creeker]

Your breaker to the heat pump may be off but that don't mean those heat strips aren't coming on. 

That would explain all of it..

At this point I think it may be more to do with something you said earlier than anything... the heating of the water.  I have a side arm exchanger... and I don't feel it is very efficient, if efficient at all in heating the water.  I turned the breaker off to the hot water heater yesterday at 2... we will see today if I still have hot water after showers and what not.

[dolphin13]

I started my stove at the end of October.I have a heat pump w/ propane back-up that cuts on at 40 degree F. I to was disappointed in my electrical savings and started researching my usage,I hadn't noticed but my Killowatt usage had started going up by 25%-30% in the summer of 2012.When I started my stove the killowatt usage compared to prior year stayed about the same (8% reduction) still happy as I was not using any propane.Not ready to believe the electric usage I called the power company and started investigating with my amprobe.The power company sent a guy out and he did the same thing I did ,we couldn't find any load to support the KW usage.He decided to get a monitor (PMI?) put on the meter that monitored the usage 24/7.Heres where it gets fuzzy,the results showed a draw of close to 30amps almost constantly on a 120v circuit (BS).The electric guy couldn't explain it,I had amp draws 30times a day w/ my meter that refuted those readings.Long story short November & Dec. usage no savings.Since the study, with no changes made Jan. and Feb. usage down 40% on elec. the electric company has no explaination.Now my bill is around $100.00 and no propane.

[creeker]

^ Good information.  I just contacted my electric company and spoke with them about this.  They are going "check into" my account and call me back and then send someone out to see what is going on.

Thanks for all the information guys!

[kybaseball]

Your breaker to the heat pump may be off but that don't mean those heat strips aren't coming on. 

That would explain all of it..

That is true as I had my breaker pulled outside and the heat strips was coming on.

[Scott7m]

I'm still going with that the heat strips are on "if" the meter is correct

[creeker]

^ How would you know if they were coming on?