The Money Pit: A New Heat Pump System

We had known for quite some time that our old heat pump system was not going to last very long. When our friends came up to spend Thanksgiving with us, and we spent all day cooking, the AC couldn’t keep the house cool and it was only about 70 degrees outside. The day after Thanksgiving, Fabgrandpa called a local heating and cooling guy, who came out and diagnosed that the system needed freon added to it.

We have never owned a heat pump before, so we didn’t have any idea that it would freon in it to heat the house as well as to cool it. The guy added $250 worth of freon and said it may or may not hold it. We were hoping it would make it until we needed the AC this summer. However, the day after we bought the new car, we were sitting here watching TV when I started smelling a smell like an electrical fire.

Since the smell seemed to be coming out of the heat vents, Fabgrandpa turned the heat pump off, and the smell went away. But as soon as we turned the heat back on, the smell came back. Lucky for us that we had three small electric space heaters. We plugged them all up, and they kept the house relatively warm, even though we were in the middle of a cold snap around the first of March.

So, now that we figured out that we needed a new heat pump, we had to figure out how to pay for it. We talked to a special family member who agreed to give us a loan so we could replace the system. Those things are NOT cheap. After we had our financing figured out, Fabgrandpa called three heating and air companies in the area to make appointments for them to give us estimates for installation of a new system.

BAH! I can not believe how hard it is to get any kind of work done on the house in this county! The First Guy did not show up for their estimate appointment. We STILL haven’t heard from them over a month later. The Second Guy came out and gave us an estimate that we could live with, and we told him we would call him the next day after we talked to the third company. The Third Guy came out, and although he gave an estimate that was a little bit lower than Second Guy, we liked the installation plan that Second Guy talked about, so we decided to give the job to him.

Fabgrandpa called Second Guy back, and left a message with the answering service. Second Guy never called back. After waiting a day and a half  for Second Guy to call back, we finally called Third Guy, which happened to be Advanced Comfort Technology, and gave the job to him. Dwayne and his crew showed up the very next day, on a Saturday, and installed the new Carrier Heat Pump System in no time at all. The installation included a new digital thermostat in the hallway.

I am really curious to see if the new system will save us money on our electric bill this summer. Because we weren’t here last summer, we really won’t know what the difference will be. I’ll have to wait until next winter to compare the heating bills with this years. You know I’ll be letting you know.