Supplemental heat for a wood stove...opinions on mini split heat pumps?

[Sandhill Crane]

Are you guys talking 'air to air' heat pumps?
In Michigan I would think they would be a waste of money as far as getting much heat out of them. If you want to leave in the mid-winter for a week I question if you could rely on them to keep things from freezing.

 

[Mustang71]

We had a guy who had a house on an island on lake Ontario and he bought 2 LG heat pump mini splits from Amazon and had us install them. He was going to use them to replace the electric heat when he was in Florida for the winter. I can't imagine it worked very well especially when they are burried in snow.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Follow up with six weeks under the belt with a large (one outside unit, two inside head...I think they said 23k BTU capacity)...

Woodstove hasn't been re-installed yet, because the contractors need to reinstall the chimney (I don't trust my recently healed knee to do that much work off a ladder yet). I don't have a lot of seasoned wood, so I haven't really cared that much.

"Normal" December mix of warm and cold days averaged 20kWh/day by my figuring.

We're a week into the longest streak of sub-20° days since the same week in 1917/1918. With temperatures barely hitting double digits each day, I figure I've been keeping the house wood stove warm for 37kWh/day.

Almost never run the second, smaller head in the bedroom once I got another comforter. Even with the wood stove, I keep the bedroom door closed to keep it cool. Occasionally if I get home and the house is in the mid 50s I'll crank up both and have see the temps rise 7 degrees in 90 minutes with outside temps in the single digits.

At Connecticut bend over and grab your ankles electric rates, that still works out to only $105-180 a month for my 650 s.f. house. And I have a bit more insulating to complete in the attic.

Yes, wood is still cheaper...but this system is darn good and a lot better than when I was burning oil (granted in a less well insulated house).

Some of the electric usage also offsets; I put an indoor/outdoor thermometer in the basement to monitor the temperature. With improvements in insulating/sealing the basement so far its only dipped to 32° on nights with sub-zero temps with wind chill warnings...so I haven't had to run an electric milk house heater to keep the pipes from freezing like I would in this weather in the past. It gets down to freezing, but not long enough for the pipes to actually freeze (or what usually got me in the past, the little tube that tells the well pump to kick on).

Part of the construction also got the drains working in the basement again, and that alone saves me at least $30 a month compared to running the sump pump heavily.

NOW, next year when I have the wood stove re-installed and a good supply of wood ready life should be good

 

[Dalmatian90]

Probably the biggest drawback is I didn't realize the visual impact of the external conduit. Poor research on my part, I thought the lines were mainly run inside the walls.

Already had a pad from a previous screen porch to put the outside unit on. They ran the lines for the living room unit up and through the attic.

That should be high enough to not worry about snow 4 out of 5 winters around here, but I will sometimes have to go clear it.

The conduit on the front -- most of which just conceals the little drain line -- killed me though. They'll eventually be a deck here, with French Doors replacing the windows (you can see the ledger board for the deck, it's just covered with white aluminum instead of vinyl siding). Oh well, they make paint to match the siding ;/

 

[NSMaple1]

So - does that mean the condensate from inside units gets sent out by a different path than the lineset?

 

[Mustang71]

We always run everything for each unit together in one line hide cover. We put the indoor units on outside walls. That's one has 2 indoor units and I'm assuming a condensate pump on the inside wall one? I would have tried to avoid that cover on the front of the house. Mitsubishi are one of the best units out there.