Sitting here in the living room being not as warm as I want to be seems like a good time to write about my mini-split heat pump project. 35 deg outside and trying to bring the entire house above 60 deg. Wearing a sweater with throw over my lap.
A couple of years ago, I became aware of an advance in heat pump heating. The new "Hyper heat" designs allow extracting heat from sources as low as 0-10 deg while previous designs did not produce heat below a source of about 40 deg. That makes the new versions suitable for the sole source of heat in our area where lows do not often go below 25 deg and never below 10 deg.
With the realization that I was going to find tending a wood burning stove tedious, I put my first mini-split in the dining room before the 2021 cooling season. A 12000 btu/hour unit. In retrospect, 18000 btu would have been better. The 12000 btu does a fair job of heating and cooling the three rooms I normally "condition". During very hot weather, I had been using a 6000 btu window unit in the bedroom at night. I added a 9000 btu mini-split to the bedroom.
This morning, with outside air at 35 deg, the two units together are only slowly raising the temperatures in five rooms. The goal for this cold spell is to prevent under house plumbing damage from freezing. The two units seem marginal for that purpose. I plan to run them around the clock for a couple of days. The longer term plan is to install another 9000 btu unit in the living room. I find the redundancy attractive. I can survive with only one working unit and keep much of the house comfortable with two working units. Though I am surprised at the slow movement of heat out of the rooms where the units are located. Or, maybe it is the rapid dissipation of heat out of the adjacent rooms.
I've been using DiamondAir "Ductless Heat Pump Mini Splits":
https://www.diamondaircorp.com/
1/22/2022
After a day and night in the upper 20s and lower 30s, I have decided to upgrade my 3rd unit order from 9000 to 18000 btu. The existing 9000 plus 12000 btu units were just not up to warming the five rooms that I frequently use. Judging from last summer's experience, I believe that will give me far more cooling than is required.
2/26/2022
Third unit installed and working well. Some of my trouble with the first two units is "cockpit error". They work much better when I twiddle with several functions such as "turbo" mode and output air "swing". I now believe the first two units might have been sufficient. As measure by my Curb system, it looks like peak power pulled by all three units is about 4kw. "Hunkered down" overnight power on a freezing night looks more like 1kw. That is, with most of the house about 60 deg.
Here are indoor unit operating instructions:
https://www.diamondaircorp.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/DF2009-DF2024HMSI%20User%20Manual.pdf
And for the remote:
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