Compact business desktops like others have mentioned are great. Depending on your needs, I also like using older or used laptops. They’re still power efficient if you get a recent processor model, people sell them for fairly cheap used, and sometimes having an attached keyboard and display is more convenient than having to hook up a crash cart
Ah, ok, good point. In my install, I did not opt to have them wire and install electric auxiliary heating strips for my unit, and the boiler & aqua coil is I believe being controlled by a control system that makes the unit think the boiler is a heating strip.
17 F is about the coldest it got in my climate last winter, so I guess that’s a good starting point.
So it seems my Heat pump alone would run at 4.2 kW for 31,800 Btu. at 17F. My blended electric rate is about $.12/kwH, so about $.5/hr to run.
For my house, I believe the load calculation would be that I need about 48,000 Btu to effectively heat. Our boiler runs at 0.75 gal/hr max, and heating oil was $4.69/gallon last winter, so the boiler would still need to run at ~20-25% of capacity(assuming it’s a linear curve) at 17F to reach that btu number based on 138,500btu/gal x 0.75gal/hr x 0.8(not so sure on efficiency) x 20% capacity = 16,620 btu, which I believe at 0.75gal/hr x 0.2 = 0.15gal/hr would be ~$0.72/hr. So that would give me a total cost of ~$1.2/hr for 48,420 btu.
Without a heat pump, I guess I would solely be burning oil, so that would need to be about 57-60% load, so 138,500btu/gal x 0.75gal/hr x 0.8 x .6=49,860btu, which I believe at 0.75gal/hr x 0.6 = 0.45gal/hr would be ~$2.1/hr.
It seems like based on my electric rates and the values from that heat pump, it should offset roughly half of my heating oil usage at the 4.2 kW electric consumption assuming the boiler has some sort of ability to modulate oil in take.
So, good question, the previous owner did install a vapor barrier covering the basement and crawlspace, so there is some other mitigation in place.
The current unit came with the house - HOMELABS HME020031. It keeps humidity down fine, but the pump is broken, so I’d like to replace it with something that should last for a while and hopefully run a little lighter on electric cost.
It seems it has a rating of 1.9L/kwh, whereas the aprilaire is 2.3L/kwH, so I suppose about ~20% more efficient. My other thought was they seem to have a better warranty so if something fails then I don’t need to replace the whole unit.
So, I was interested in the same thing to save energy not running the unit, but as I understand it they don’t dehumidify quite as much as a dedicated dehumidifier. I believe it only runs when I need hot water, so I’m not sure how often it would run on average for our water usage and if that would be sufficient to dehumidify the basement
https://archive.ph/8nNcQ