Electric Bill unexpectedly high

[elhombresinnombre]

"So 1kW energy will give you between 2-4kW of actual heat." That would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Conservation of Energy.

No. It's not creating heat, it's mechanically sucking existing heat out of the surroundings and the process is completely within physical laws.

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Well, yes....
and no.

The law of conservation of energy means that energy in must equal energy out in some form or other. Gas is no different it's just an awful lot gets wasted in the exhaust etc. A heat pump isn't generating heat (well, it is, but only a tiny bit due to mechanical action) it's sucking in and concentrating existing heat from the outside atmosphere which is how it is notionally providing more heat than the energy used to process it. With bog standard electric heating, all the energy gets converted to heat eventually. Most of your 1kW coming through the meter (which will normally be between 0.02-0.05% inaccurate) will be turned to heat either as a slight warming of the wiring or an intense heating of the coils. Even the light emitted from a radiant heater will decay down to heat. 100% in = 100% out. It's the law ;-)

Your heat pump needs to put work into the refrigerant fluid, all of which is not converted to heat to heat your home since some of it is lost to entropy in the expansion and compression cycles.

 

[FrankPintor]

There are various alternative heating options if you don't have natural gas in your area.

During our stay in Chile, I had a chance to use a pellet heater.

My sister's cabin has a wood stove heater, which doubles as a cooking surface.

People in the campo use portable garrafa (propane) heaters.

Once you're set up to use pellets, you can't go back to using normal wood? Do people use pellets on the Argentinian side of the mountains? I know that in the south of Chile there was a big push some years back to switch to pellets, it seems they're more efficient, so they help with the awful air pollution they have there, but they tended to run out, leaving very unhappy people with no heating in the middle of winter.

We got a Ñuke Coral 60, which has an integrated (small) oven, so things like pizza, chipas, bread and so on would be possible to make.

I imagine propane heating would produce a lot of humidity. In the south of Chile, paraffin heaters like the Toyotomi models are popular, but the humidity and condensation on windows or any cold surface are unbearable.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

Your heat pump needs to put work into the refrigerant fluid, all of which is not converted to heat to heat your home since some of it is lost to entropy in the expansion and compression cycles.

I think we might be talking about different things. In the case of the traditional electric heater in the home, all of the energy consumed decays to heat in the end. How much you lose depends on your insulation and ventilation amongst other things. A heat pump/aircon is different inasmuch as it uses a smaller amount of energy to extract a larger amount of existing heat from the surroundings. If the engine of the heat pump is mounted outside then you will lose the smaller amount of heat generated by the engine to the atmosphere but gain the bigger amount of heat claimed from the atmosphere to warm up your home. They are not equivalent systems but they both obey natural laws

 

[carride]

Getting the gas connection and approval cost USD 1250, then the generator itself plus installation cost USD 7300. The generator is a Generac 8kVA model. 8kVA should be enough to run the lights, fridge, freezer, and either a few air conditioning units, or 2 underfloor heating units, but it doesn't seem to be able to manage all that, it goes down at what I estimate to be 5-6kVA, which is disappointing.

That is an impressive backup system. Nice to have for all the power outages. For our small house, I have considered a smaller backup generator to keep the boiler operating which needs the small circulator pump pushing hot water through the radiant heat system, plus some lights, occasional cistern water pump activity, while sacrificing power to the refrigerator freezer. Lots of UPS devices keep the Internet and smaller tech devices operating for a few hours. Perhaps the next more rural build will require a 8kVA similar. Also thinking solar rooftop water tank for hot water, and solar for charging as third redundant battery system. A geothermal heat pump system only in my dreams.

A heat pump such as a reversed air-conditioner is between 200-400% efficient.

I enjoy heat pump spilts for the occasional needs to cool rooms in summer, though I hate warm air blowing around so it is not a consideration. Radiant heating is what I know, and so far have no desire to change.

 

[sammo]

I have a mini-split frío/calor in the bedroom. On very hot days during the summer, I only use it to cool down the room before going to bed.I have an almost silent USB fan that I sometimes use at night to blow air across the bed.

During the winter, on colder nights, when the temperature is forcast to be near freezing, I turn it on just long enough to take the chill out of the air and I turn on the manta térmica which is under the sheet on the top of the mattress. I usually keep it on all night on the lower of two settings.

I also wear two pair of socks and two "ski-skins" aka "termas elásticas" and usually three layers for my torso. I wear a knit cap "Rocky" style 24/7 all winter and I have several, so that I always have one that has been recently washed.

This was a relatively warm winter, with no very "hard" overnight frosts. I only slept with the mattress warmer on the higher setting five or six nighs and it was never so cold in the living room, which serves only as an unheated passageway between the kitchen and the bedroom, to make my face hurt, at least a little.

When I first met my wife and we video chated everyone was wearing jackets inside the house! I wondered why ?
After this electric bill, I know why.

Next winter I will wear more clothes!

 

[Rich One]

When I first met my wife and we video chated everyone was wearing jackets inside the house! I wondered why ?
After this electric bill, I know why.

Next winter I will wear more clothes!

Well as ex President Macri suggested (was criticized) "don't run arround the house barefoot and musculosa /undershirt". Save energy dress up

 

[FrankPintor]

Well as ex President Macri suggested (was criticized) "don't run arround the house barefoot and musculosa /undershirt". Save energy dress up

Well, I want to be able to walk barefoot about the house without my feet feeling like blocks of ice and my nose running (the two go together, apparently). I love underfloor heating. I never liked Macri anyway.

 

[FrankPintor]

That is an impressive backup system. Nice to have for all the power outages. For our small house, I have considered a smaller backup generator to keep the boiler operating which needs the small circulator pump pushing hot water through the radiant heat system, plus some lights, occasional cistern water pump activity, while sacrificing power to the refrigerator freezer. Lots of UPS devices keep the Internet and smaller tech devices operating for a few hours. Perhaps the next more rural build will require a 8kVA similar. Also thinking solar rooftop water tank for hot water, and solar for charging as third redundant battery system. A geothermal heat pump system only in my dreams.

I enjoy heat pump spilts for the occasional needs to cool rooms in summer, though I hate warm air blowing around so it is not a consideration. Radiant heating is what I know, and so far have no desire to change.

You motivated me to check on the solar energy quote: it was USD 13680 + IVA for a 10 .6kVA installation. We have a mid-sized house, I guess, 170sqm, and normally 3 people and a dog living here. From next week we'll be 6, for a few months.

Power outages out here also take out the water supply, so it's nice to have 4000 litres in tanks on the roof and also the gas-driven backup system. We should be able to last a few weeks in the zombie apocalypse.

Having an internet connection and WiFi running in a power cut was (to me, at least) an unexpected benefit. The generator keeps everything running in the house, and because it's a fibre internet connection, I guess there are no repeaters needing electric power in our area.

There have been a bunch of micro power cuts of seconds or minutes recently, I also have over and under voltage protection. 60A per phase (3-phase connection, with the monophase appliances being distributed among phases R, S, and T). Our architect said it was better, that occasionally one phase goes down, which the others stay up (we also have phase selectors).

When you and @elhombresinnombre talk about heat pump splits and reversing the aircon, it's just a normal hot / cold split (condenser outside) air conditioning module?

 

[carride]

When you and @elhombresinnombre talk about heat pump splits and reversing the aircon, it's just a normal hot / cold split (condenser outside) air conditioning module?

Good question. @elhombresinnombre sounds like the expert. Though yes, I assume all the air conditioning units which have both heating and cooling features (reversible) with the condenser outside are heat pump technology. If the ac only has cold air, then it sounds like a traditional less efficient system, which I wonder if even a purchase option in Argentina these days.

My understanding is the heat pump technology can also be used with a radiant heating system. buried in the ground piping plus a heat pump and heat exchanger warms the water for the radiant flooring.