Emergency Heat Strips

[Fredkrueger100]

Need a little help from my friends. All my life I’ve had nothing but A/C in the summer and a gas furnace for the winter then we move to Oklahoma and I’m introduced to heat pumps. Here’s my issue, before we moved in I had all new HVAC units put in as well as a 22KW whole house generator. Last year during that big freeze a problem arose. When those darn emergency heat strips kick on they draw just about all the power that generator can produce. Right when we needed it the most the generator kicked off due to over-current. Here I am freezing my yayas off trying to troubleshoot the problem, with clamp meter in hand I figured out those stinkin’ emergency strips are drawing close to 82 amperes which leaves only 10A for the rest of the house and that’s just not going to cut it. Had the HVAC tech come out who said about all I can do is disconnect some of the heater strips, say run half of them and I should be okay. Problem is I’m not sure which wire(s) to disconnect. Here’s a couple pictures along with the wiring diagram and if you’d be so kind as to let me know if he was full of beans and if not just which wires do I pull?

I have a heat pump with emergency heat strips in my air handler. I don’t ever use the heat strips. I always use my heat pump. Never have an issue. My unit is right at a year old. It’s a four ton Bosch. I don’t know why your heat pump ain’t working rather than the strips.

 

[Fredkrueger100]

Well I can’t burn wood, the two fireplaces in the house do not have a chimney and are gas/LPG only but seems like they’re working. And yes! Heat pumps don’t do well in below freezing temps hence those darn 80A heat-strips.

What kind of system do you have if you don’t mind me asking? Mine never skips a beat no matter how cold it is. Also; I have a propane gas log set and it puts out a ton of heat. My house is just under 2000 square feet. My heat won’t even come on with the fireplace going. But when I go to bed I turn the heat on.

 

[RC2469]

wow 26 KW? that is huge. i run my whole place on an onan djc 6 kw.

I am talking about a code installed standby generator. If you run everything in your home that you can on NG or LP (furnace, water heater, oven, cooktop, and dryer), and do not want to run an AC, are less than 1300 sq ft, AND want the ability to run everything... 12-14kW minimum. At 6kW, I'm thinking furnace blower, refrigerator, TV, and a few lights. I'm good with that because that's exactly what I do. An inspected standby generator install is a lot different. NEC code doesn't care what you do in an outage, they care about the potential of what can be done.

 

[Firpo]

@Fredkrueger100 all three are two year old Carrier systems and they all function just fine. The problem lies with the second set of heat strips kicking in when it gets real stinkin’ cold (which btw is how it’s supposed to function) and we’ve lost power and are running off the generator. To reiterate, I slapped a Fluke clamp meter on the ATS and had the Mrs switch the largest unit to “emergency” which forced the system to run only on the two sets of heat strips which is exactly what happens when it’s 5° outside and the utility power is out. Turns out just that one unit draws around 82 amps which don’t leave much for the rest of the house. Thankfully I have a solution. Ty was kind enough to help me think through the wiring diagram and I was way over complicating things which I’ll blame on all the bad information I was getting from a couple HVAC techs. All I have to do is open CB2 and it will disconnect that pesky second set of heater strips which I’ll only need to do when our utility power is down. Easy Peasy. Thank you yo all for your help in finding a workable fix.

 

[n423]

My dog loves to be in front of our fireplace also.


View attachment 331515

 

[KG5VW]

My thoughts are to remove the excess loads that you really don’t need, run the heater warmer than you want, then disconnect the heat for a bit. Worst case move the food from the fridge to ice chests in the garage and unplug. Food will be fine for a couple of days in this weather. Don’t use the hot water heater either (instant on) or drain it and turn off breaker if you can block in the flow of water into it. Save the cooking for when the heat is off, should be able to stagger your usage to get you through until power comes back on. Write down all the stuff you may have turned off so you can turn it all back on. I am total electric but I installed a gas stove with the propane mod and run it on a 20 lbs grill cylinder. Using just the burners on top it went 6 months on a full cylinder. I only have a 3500 watt genny so I have no choice in shutting down the heavy loads if power goes out but with a wood stove in the livingroom I can provide heat as needed.

 

[Firpo]

I appreciate the input but I figured out not just a workable but also a good solution. Running just one gas fireplace it kept the 1450 sqft main level at 75° yesterday, 750 sqft bottom story (walk-out basement) didn’t drop below 65 without any heat and the 1450 sqft top story stayed in the low 60’s again without running that system. Not sure how accurate the gauge is on my 250 gallon propane tank but in running that fireplace for the last what, 3 days looks like it only used 3% so I could do this a looooong time. Also, after doing load calculations should we lose power and be running on generator power I’ll be running at 25%-35% at any given time and I could maintain that for 4-5 days.
I’m feelin’ good about our situation now.

 

[KOPBET]

Thankfully I have a solution. Ty was kind enough to help me think through the wiring diagram and I was way over complicating things which I’ll blame on all the bad information I was getting from a couple HVAC techs. All I have to do is open CB2 and it will disconnect that pesky second set of heater strips which I’ll only need to do when our utility power is down. Easy Peasy. Thank you yo all for your help in finding a workable fix.

Ty is a good man! Sounds a lot like post #4 lol.

 

[cowadle]

I appreciate the input but I figured out not just a workable but also a good solution. Running just one gas fireplace it kept the 1450 sqft main level at 75° yesterday, 750 sqft bottom story (walk-out basement) didn’t drop below 65 without any heat and the 1450 sqft top story stayed in the low 60’s again without running that system. Not sure how accurate the gauge is on my 250 gallon propane tank but in running that fireplace for the last what, 3 days looks like it only used 3% so I could do this a looooong time. Also, after doing load calculations should we lose power and be running on generator power I’ll be running at 25%-35% at any given time and I could maintain that for 4-5 days.
I’m feelin’ good about our situation now.

you like a warm house? i keep my house at 65 degrees.... it tickles me that people keep their houses cooler in the summer than the winter.

 

[Firpo]

you like a warm house?

Not exactly. My wife likes a warm house and well……I love my wife.