[swimorsinka]

I live in Colorado, so I'm in one of the colder climates with a decent amount of time spent below freezing each year.

I've had a Mitsubishi Hyper Heat mini-split system with 2 outdoor units and 3 indoor heads for ~7 years now. I'm trying to move houses to get away from it. It's crazy noisy during the winter, the temperature control is whacky, and it's 2-3X the price to run than a gas furnace with electric vs gas rates around here. Not only that, with new 95% or 96% efficient furnaces, I'm not sure heat pumps are any greener.

Don't get me started on the install costs and the fact that your average mini split unit is barely sized to heat a room, let alone a full house. For me, it was better than the electric baseboards I replaced, but I'd still prefer a standard furnace.

I think we need to be very careful forcing everyone to convert to these until the tech is more mature, especially in the Northern states and places like Colorado. I looked on forums recently to see if the tech has evolved in the last 10 years, but many of the recent buyers still had the exact complaints I listed here.

[ip26]

Who is your utility? It really shouldn’t be 2-3x much more expensive to operate, but could depend on your rates.

Colorado is actually a relatively heat pump friendly climate; it can reach incredibly low temperatures some winter nights, but once the sun is up it’s back to 20-40F. Compare this to months of continuous deep cold near the Great Lakes.

[swimorsinka]

Xcel Energy. I'm usually at $300/month for electricity from November-March. A comparably sized house with an efficient furnace would be $100/month in this area (or so I've been told). My non-heat electric usage works out to something like $50-$75/ month. Our electric rates average 13-14 cents per KWH, but we just moved to timed metering, so that can vary a lot depending on peak hours.

[ip26]

Wow, that's nearly 70kWh/day for the entire winter. Most units are only 4-8kW, which suggests your system is running 50-100% of the entire winter.

Using these numbers and an average COP of 2.5 (guess) you're at about 6 therms of gas per day, or about $5-6 while the electricity sets you back about $8.

When was your home built? When I was in the northern front range, we averaged maybe 1.5-2 therms of gas per day.

[swimorsinka]

1978. In reality the worst months are $300+ and the others are less, so the average isn’t really $300 - probably more like $200 or $250.

But yes, this is another reason I want to move. I’ve done all the insulating I can easily do without tearing everything down and starting again.

70 kWh a day sounds about right. That’s what I calculated for a max load when I was sizing solar systems.