re: AC Unit Question

A heat pump can only heat a house when the outdoor temperature is around 40 degrees. When temperature goes below 40, you need auxiliary electric heat strips. You can also chose to go with a standard AC unit and straight electric heat strips for heating.

You don't need to be looking at SEER rating, you need to look at tonnage. The SEER rating is efficiency, tonnage is capacity.

Also, natural gas is common and plentiful; there's no need for a heat pump.

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If I lose power during the winter, my generator kicks on and runs my natural gas furnace. I also have a New England Soapstone wood stove for back up. I had to live several months without reliable heat in south louisiana during the winter and swore I would never be without a reliable source of heat again. I can live without A/C but frick the cold.

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There was a recent thread about what you rather do with out AC or Heat in South LA, the overwhelming response was heat, most said it was of no real value in South LA, and rarely turned it on. Good to see I am not the only one that would give up AC before heat even in S.LA!

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True, but the blower of a gas furnace can be powered with a very small generator, I run mine off a Honda EU2000

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How do you manage to connect your blower motor and control board to your Honda EU2000 generator?

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How do you manage to connect your blower motor and control board to your Honda EU2000 generator?

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My blowers/air handler is plugged into a standard 20 amp outlet next to the unit in the attic, I run a extension cord from the generator through a attic window unplug the unit from the outlet and plug it into the cord. My Trane unit came with the power cord and plug installed so I would assume that this is the typical power connection for most gas furnaces.

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So your air handler is 120 volt 20 amp unit???

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Actually it is 120v at 5.2 amps, its a Trane unit with a 1/5 Hp blower motor, that and the ignitor/control circuitry are the only parts using electricity. From the Trane catalog it looks like the highest current draw of their gas furnaces is 10.2 amps, and that was their largest unit and it has a 1/2hp blower motor. I would think gas units by other manufacturers would be similar in their electrical requirements.

electric furnace provides heat. I think the AC guy is trying to say the heat pump is not needed but would require less energy to heat the home. I'm so confused

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I'm so confused

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You can have an electric furnace (heat strips like an oversized toaster) or a heat pump (ac running backwards).

Heat pump is initially more expensive but heats cheaper than heat strips. If you like to run your heater a lot and keep your home nice and toasty, go with a heat pump.

If you only kick the heater on to get the chill out, go with heat strips.

On a side note, heat strips tend to dry out the air more.

Gas heat is by far the most efficient and cheapest way to heat a home in south Louisiana. But if you don’t have gas, you must depend on electricity for your heat. Heat Pumps only come into play during the heating cycle and are all electric. The heat pump unit will only be able to heat your house to 40 degrees outdoor temperature. Then you will need to have auxiliary electric heat strips installed in your electric air handler to heat your home below 40 degrees. A high efficiency heat pump will be less expensive to heat your home vs only having to depend on the electric heat strips with no heat pump. As for as the air conditioning, there is really no benefit to having a heat pump.