We had central heating and air installed last year. Well to me if it is like 20 degrees outside it seems the heat that is blowed out is cold. If it is 34 degrees outside it is cold, but the heat seems to blow warm. In other words if there is frost hanging off the outside unit it is cold heat blowing. Is this normal?
I have been told that electric heat is colder than gas. I can say yes that is true, because my mom and dad have gas heat and it is always warm at their house. Someone told me to flip the switch to emergency heat when it is super cold outside. But I don’t understand why? What is that emergency heat switch for?
Heat is heat - it doesn’t come in flavours or colours.
Our perception of heat, however, is affected by many things, humidity and air currents, for example; different heating systems may affect these things.
Not to disagree with Mangetout, but the air that comes out of a heat pump (which I think is what Ashkicker means by “electric heat”) is cooler than the air that comes out of a gas furnace. That’s one way it saves you money.
The only question you should really be worried about, Ashkicker, is whether the temperature in the room gets up to what you have the thermostat set at. If it doesn’t, something’s wrong. If it does, you really shouldn’t worry too much about whether the air coming out of the registers is 100° or 135°.
I believe that if you check your manual, it will tell you under what conditions to use “Emergency Heat.” Usually it has to do with the outside temperature. This option will turn on some very-expensive-to-operate electric heating coils. Use it sparingly unless you have a lot of money to spend on your electric bill.
And we could complicate things further, by looking into negative temperature, which is warmer than any positive temperature… (cite)
I think Mangetout is on the right track. Estimating temperature with naked skin is tricky business. Get a decent thermometer, and log the temperature for a few days. At the same time it would be interresting to measure the air flow, to see what’s going on.
I am talking about a heat pump. And I read the link KneadToKnow gave and I believe I may fall in the category of #2- The customer just thinks it’s blowing cold air.
It does kick off and on and I believe it reaches the temp that it is set on. Our house is old and drafty. So, since we are new at this central heat and air thing I may just be “thinking” it is cold air. We used to use a Kerosene heater which really threw out the heat and I might just be used to that.
Be certain to check the air temp after it has run a bit. When the system first kicks on it’ll blow the ambient (likely cold in your case) air out of the vents first making it feel like cold air is coming out.
After that like others said you need to get a thermometer to test the temp and not judge by hand (very unreliable method).
Also be sure to close off your vents appropriately. Generally in winter you want the downstairs vents open and upstairs closed…reverse for summer.
I’m gonna have to disagree with that. A properly-designed system will work effectively only when all vents are open and unobstructed. Upstairs/downstairs systems should be designed with a lever at the point the two lines diverge so that you can send change the proportion of the air that is sent to one or the other, but you should not close of registers. That will significantly affect the performance of the system. If your system does not have such a balancing lever, you should have one installed.
Other things that will affect the performance of a forced-air system include keeping doors closed (once the room pressurizes, it will cease to recieve any signficiant amount of air because a forced air system will not send air into a room it cannot then flow out of) and running the system with a dirty filter (the motor will have to work extra hard to pull air through the filter).
When a heat pump blows out air it is about 20 degrees F hotter that the air it sucks in. So if you turn down you temp while at work and come home to a 40 degree house it will take a while to warm up the house as the blowing air will blow at about 60 degrees. As the room slowly increases in temp so does the blowing air. Heat pumps are VERY economical, so much so that it is recomended that you keep it set at a comfortable level ALL DAY. DON’T USE THE EMERGANCY SWITCH! It actually turns on heating coils that will drive the electric bill through the roof.