Wood stove and coal furnace heating

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Heat pump with backup electric resistant heating.
Last year's wasn't a really cold winter but it seemed like it just wouldn't go away.
And my wife would fire up a little space heater in the living room on the opposite end of the house that's not connected to the central heat and air.

How old is your heat pump? I saw a huge reduction in consumption when I switched my house in Alabama from the old contractor grade heat pump (10 SEER / 6.8 HSPF) to an Energy Star Trane (17.9 SEER / 9 HSPF). My electricity use for heating dropped 52% and my A/C 25%. It likely would have been even better if the contractor hadn’t oversized the unit.

My Lennox ductless unit in Oregon is 24 SEER / 11 HSPF and provides 100% BTU’s down to 0F and continues to work down to -22F. It doesn’t even have backup electric heating.

However, looking at my power consumption spreadsheets today makes it clear I need to do something about my house. I’m using as much electricity in my 1000 sq ft housing in Oregon as I did in the 1500 sq ft house in Alabama! The Oregon house is older (1976) and doesn’t have any insulation in the crawl space and only 5 inches of insulation in the attic. The Alabama house was on a slab and had 10 inches of blown insulation in the attic to which I added another 10 inches of fiberglass batt.

[oil pan 4]

I have a new modern wood stove and coal furnace.

I actually have what I believe is a stainless catalytic coated oxidizer, I'm going to make it fit in the coal furnace and attempt to catalyze the exhaust. Cutting and welding stainless is kind of my thing.

The heat pump is new enough to be r-410a charged and have a mechanical expansion valve.
But I'm sure it ain't no 24 seer like I put in the rental house before I realized it was going to be a rental house.

[JSH]

If it is R-401A it is at least 13 SEER / 7.7 HSPF. 2 Megawatts per month seems like a huge amount of electricity for a relatively modern unit. Have you checked your ductwork? That can be a huge source of leaks. When I went under my house with the home inspector for a prepurchase inspection we found 2 out of 6 vents completely disconnected. The tape had aged and cracked.

[oil pan 4]

All the vents blow air.
Only some of the ducts are accessible.
Yeah I havery had a vent disconnect on my house in Langley.
It was just blowing heated or cooled air under the house.
I hooked it back up and it definitely helped some.

[oil pan 4]

Oh and the house is 2,700 square feet.
But that's nothing. One of the guys I work with has a newer double wide and spends $360 a month heating during winter.
So he is at 3Mwh minimum.
My highest bill was $270.
It's going to be more like $140 this year.

[JSH]

You never mentioned that you live in a mansion That explains it then.

[oil pan 4]

I need a big roof to put my solar panels on lol.

[oil pan 4]

I found a 1,500VA UPS that runs off 48v.
Looks like where I work they have a few of these and they replace it new every year.
The coal furnace blowers will be plugged into this so when the power goes out the coal furnace doesn't burn all the paint off its self.

[oil pan 4]

Alright used 1.1 Mwh last month.
For October I put right about 1,500 miles on my leaf, which translates to around 375kwh.
So around 1/3 of my power goes to the leaf.
Tota bill divided over usage was $0.096 per kwh.
Base rate is 7 cents per kwh.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I have a new modern wood stove and coal furnace.
.

Connected to the heat pump and/or central heating , or ventilation to recover hot exhaust gas energy ?