re: Heat Pump in extreme cold

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The thermostat has nothing to do with the system, why would that do anything? You may be right and I’m ignorant I’m honestly asking?

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Heat pumps go into Aux mode if set point is 3 degrees or more than temperature. This is supposed to heat the house up faster, but for whatever reason, be it wiring, insulation, unit size, or a host of other problems, I find I lose heat if this happens at extreme cold temperatures. Therefore, I work the set point to within a couple degrees of temperature so the unit stays in Stage 1/Fan without Aux, and work the set point up as the house warms up. At a certain outside temperature, even this fails (as it did a bit last night), but it could be why he didn't get anywhere during the day.

Believe me after the 3rd year of this I'm going to dive into what's up overall. With it being only 2/3 days a year this is an issue I soon forget, and then here I am again . I don't have the reverse problem, AC works great when it's 105 here.

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Everything ran but cold air out of the vents.

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My upstairs is a heat pump, and it was like 8 degrees out last night. Surprisingly it barely kept up keeping.

Even though the air may feel cold coming out of the vents, try using a thermometer to get actual temps. At these temps it is not a noticeable, but the temp coming out of the vent was actually warmer than the ambient temp of the house.

In extreme temps like this it may only be like 7 degrees warmer than house temp. Still cheaper than running Aux heat if it can keep up.

Edit, I misunderstood, sounds like the temp difference is too great and it should be using the electric heat (aux heat). Temps out of the register should be pretty warm.

I have heard in really southern places, they dont even bother with those since they are never used. But never seen it in practice.

Some thermostats also have a small flame that will blink when the strips are active.

Update

Tech came and had a couple problems. Thermostat was set so that it never went to emergency heat. Then they found a bad breaker not letting some of the strips come on. Will be back today to fix that, luckily we had heat last night and everything still under warranty.

Back in 1981 I was building a house for my Mom and Dad, the power company were giving rebates and pushing an all electric house. Guess what, my dad worked for the power company. He said both heats better than Natural Gas. He didn’t fall for it. A/C with Gas for the winter. Remember this, you look at bathrooms and the kitchen in your house, they have 20 amp receptacles, that’s because of the electrical pull. Hair dryers, toasters, etc. Anything with a heating element has a larger electrical pull.