My new heat pump almost doubled my electric bill in January

I had a brand new Mitsubishi heat pump installed in October to replace my old gas furnace. First big cold snap in January hit and my electric bill jumped to $340, compared to $180 with gas last year. The installer told me it would be more efficient but he didn't mention I'd need to keep the backup strips off to save money. I'm curious if anyone else with a cold climate heat pump has tips for programming the thermostat to avoid that spike. What settings do you use on nights below 20 degrees?

3 comments

3 Comments

richard_west52h ago

Derekgibson nailed it, turning those emergency strips off is the whole ballgame. My installer never told me about that either, I found out the hard way after a $350 bill in December. I started setting my thermostat to 62 at night and let it warm up slow in the morning, maybe 2 degrees every hour. That alone saved me like $70 the next month. You gotta remember these things work best when they run a long time at a steady temp, not cycling on and off. Also check if your thermostat has a setup menu where you can lock out the backup heat entirely, I did that and it made all the difference on those 15 degree nights.

hall.quinn2h ago

Yeah but nobody's talking about the defrost cycle... every time that runs your heat pump dumps cold air into the house and the strips kick on to compensate, so I set my thermostat's defrost time to minimum and it cut my usage more than anything else.

derekgibson3h ago

Keep those emergency heat strips turned off manually in the thermostat settings unless you absolutely need them. Honestly, setting the temp to 65 at night and letting it recover slowly in the morning saved me about $80 on my February bill.