A couple of years ago the installer told us he will install anything as he can get anything, price is similar, but has leas (no no, but least) problems with Mitsubishi and their warranty is best and parts are easiest to come by. Works well for us, think it is 6.5kW. We use it on either heating or cooling, not auto, because with auto the hysteresis is too much (on any aircon) and also with NZ high humidity when it changes from cooling to heating you get that typical evaporating-water-from-aluminium smell which I'm sensitive to. Our aircon has been set to 24/25 degC cooling all summer and running 24/7, will be set to something like 23 degC heating for winter once it gets cold enough.
Yogi02: You can look at mounting the outdoor unit to the outside wall to reduce distance to compressor. - Can have increased vibration/noise.
They can make the whole house shake and vibrate, I'd never do this after being in a two storey house with a heat pump on the side. Bad bad idea.
ObidiahSlope: HOMER SIMPSON: "We obey the laws of thermodynamics in this house."
As others have posted insulation is important for economic heating.
The usefulness of heat pumps is dependent on the difference in temperature outside and the temperature you want inside as well as the density of the air.
I am located in the south of the South Island. I have a heat pump and on cold clear dry winter nights my pump is really struggling.
In my locale if you have access to firewood and no clean air restrictions I would recommend a wood burner.
Fires are horrible things, polluting, reducing the air quality for the whole neighbourhood. I think they should be banned in residential areas.
Cold clear nights in Wellington are no problem for my heat pumps. What brand do you have, and what do they do that's not right?
mattwnz: What do people think about Hitachi as a brand of heat pump. Had a family member who was quoted a hitachi install.. They also have the choice of a mitsubishi, one of the silver designer series ones, but the sales person said that the exterior cases on the hitachi have special paint that lasts longer.
My Daikin and Fujitsu are still looking good after 5 and 3 years respectively. Not sure that's really a relevant factor in choosing a heat pump - efficiency and inside noise are my key things. I would look around before getting a Nocria again, especially the big ones like the 9-10kw I have. It's cheap to run and could probably heat a stadium, but the noise gets annoying. On super quiet it's ok, we just turn the TV up slightly.
Regardless of which manufacturer you choose, in my experience, it is important to chhose the right location. I am referring here to the warm (or cold) draught when the unit is in operation. It might sound like a nice idea to have warm air blowing straight at you,but as the unit switches on or off with the thermostat, it can be annoying. Sure you can deflect the flow in a different direction, but given the choice, I would choose a location where we could get indirect heat.
Be careful with Mitsubishi electric and Mitsubishi heavy industries they are two separate companies with two separate product lines, parts for the later can be a lot harder to find (although we had no problem (other than it taking a week) with the warranty after it broke down after 3 years
Most heat pumps (including both of mine) let you manually direct the air flow. Normally it will oscillate left to right and up and down, though my Fujitsu Nocria can only do up down or left right not both at the same time - the older Daikin is better for this. You can manually point them anywhere in the room, and even pointed away from you the whole room gets warm. Maybe not quite as quickly, but close.
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
Trusted
