#1 Heat Pump Sizing Mistake 2024 🔥 | HVAC Buyer’s Guide

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In this video we talk about heat pump Systems in 2024 and everything you need to know. If you're shopping for a heat pump there is a lot to consider and you want to make sure your system is sized properly. An oversized heat pump won't work properly for several reasons, and in this video we cover several of the costly repairs and conditions that are created by oversizing heat pumps.

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[Daniel_Ho_Status_]

Upgrading from an R20 attic to R50 knocked about 20% off my heating and around 30% from my cooling run time. I guess attic heat soak is a thing. It'll still take 10 years to pay back, but it felt worthwhile.

[linchee]

What is your suggestion for a 1300 s f single level home in utah. No basement but crawl space. Got bids for single stage and 96-97% efficiency furnace.

I live in northwest Montana and have radiant floor heating with an electric boiler and no air conditioning. I am wanting something like the Daikin Altherma for both heating and cooling and possibly hot water as well. If I understand correctly the Altherma is not currently available in the US. Is there a reliable alternative or do I wait for the Altherma? Love your videos.

[bobgreenspun]

What are the ways to measure the ideal air flow for an existing duct system?

[nigelgarrett]

Good job explaining this to homeowners and newer hvac folks. Spot on information but in my Nate Heat pump certification training in 2011 they trained us to size a heat pump in a heating dominant climate to take care of more the homes needs by over sizing slightly if the ducts can handle it. Maybe that’s why a few manufacturers are coming out with higher static air handler models. With the inverters like Daikin you can go bigger because it’s an inverter and trim it back 10 percent in cooling.

[VikramBailur]

I have a single unit 90s installed 3 1/2 ton evaporator and 2010 condenser with a 1995 installed furnace w 100kbtu in Virginia. It's 80% furnace which is probably operating at 70% original capacity. This means at peak it's giving me less than 5 ton of heat anyways. Will a 4 ton heat pump work as a replacement? Will a variable speed compressor or 2 stage work in this case?

[michaelm]

We have a one level 3000 sf house in southern california built in 2012.
We currently have gas forced air furnace and central a/c with 4 ton and 3 ton units for cooling.
We had the following testing done on our current system:
Blower Door- 740 cfm @ 50 pascals
Manual J
Winter Outside db °F 24 Equipment load 52048 Btuh
Summer Outside db °F 98 Equipment Total Load (Sen+Lat) 32746 Btuh
Duct Testing
3 Ton - Total leakage is at 6% of your total airflow design (1200cfm) with a .59 external static.
Delta T 20°
4 Ton -total leakage is at 5.5% of your total airflow design (1600cfm) with a .74 external static.
Delta T 22°

Our contractor is proposing one 5 ton 19 SEER variable speed inverter system with 2 zone automatic damper zoning.

Questions
1. If you say to match the system size to the cooling load, will a 5 ton unit be enough to handle the heating side?
2. Some say that 5 ton heat pumps are never a good choice. Is it a problem replacing 2 sets of equipment with one?

[robo]

Great video :)

It's really hard to find youtube videos specifically about sizing for heat pumps. It's also difficult in get someone in my area (10598) to perform a proper analysis.

Companies are always sending a SALESPERSON who either wants to slap a heat pump onto to my current ducting or recommend a ductless system for my entire home. (I currently have a 15 year old AC ducted system & a baseboard hot water, oil fired.)

I would respectively like to see a deeper dive into sizing, including benefits of upgrading insulation, flex versus tin ducting, an example of ducting system calculations, & when a hybrid heat pump system (ducted & ductless) makes sense. Lastly, anything else you do when you calculate a home's sizing.


(Down the road I would also love to see a global analysis of a heat pump / solar powered system, including backup battery economics. Maybe this can be done through a solar expert who makes YouTube videos that you think does a great job.)

[jeffflowers]

My girlfriend has a 1500sf manufactured home built 2005. It seems well built and had to meet HUD standards for construction and insulation at the time. We are in New England. Avg winter temp of 25 but can go to or below 0 a few days. She has a combined hvac unit. The compressor is 3.5ton and the gas furnace is 90btu input 70btu output. I"m looking at installing a heat pump. Companies like Mr. Cool are telling me a 3 ton would be sufficient. (they don't make a 3.5). But even if the 3 ton would be sufficient for cooling, your explanation of how it can keep up with the heat makes sense now. Would it make more sense to go up to a 4 ton inverter?

[eDoc]

Ignoring the increased possibility of equipment failure, if your system requires more airflow your ducts will be noisy. This is especially obvious if you have a zoned system where a house-sized system will end up directing all its air into one smaller "half" of the home.

[DeadLock]

Thanks for the video. I have a 2700 sq ft home in NY, with a single zone AC for the entire home. We have 7 registers on each floor, mix of 8 inch, 6 inch flex and 4 inch in the 2 bathrooms. We have an older 13 seer Trane 4 ton AC unit, which is not keeping up. We added 2 zone mini splits on the 1st floor in the hot spots (window dinning room, kitchen) which helped. I would like to change the central system to a variable speed heat pump and am leaning towards a MR COOL / MIDEA / inverter type system with handler sized at 5 tons. These units have dip switches to go to 4 tons if needed, is that a good plan? I totally agree with the attic sealing being the best bang, will be doing that as well.

[mattsnider]

Are you guys authorized Rheem heat pump dealers? Thanks for the info. I’m going to replace my two system central ac and furnace soon.

[JoeBardo-nl]

Great video. I am building a duplex in northeast pa. Slab on grade 3 bed 2 bath internal garage. Living space is about 1175 each unit. My local distributor sized it at 3.5 ton. I think that is way too much!!? It all single story. Only 6 windows per side. Do you have any input? Thanks in advance.

[brandonv]

I've hit neg 20 last 2 years in lone tree

thoughts on Gas vs heat pump for garage heat?

[khv]

Seems like the inverter technology is in the newer side. How reliable are they?

[chucky]

Hi, another great video! In it you mention the Daikin Fit Enhanced. I haven’t been able to find any info, technical or otherwise on Daikin’s website and I’m considering the Enhanced for my new CCASHP but only if I can find some technical performance info on it. As a rep just wondering if you can either post some info or maybe email the info to me assuming there aren’t any issues with doing that?

[ronaldgibson]

Can I put a Daikin Fit on a double wide modular home? I have a 4 ton A/C coupled with a electric furnace. Thanks

[anthonyspadafora]

Very good but 99% of the time is stretching it. When we do heat loads we change the design day at 10 degree intervals so we are able to better calculate our heating curve. We do this because modulating boilers use outdoor reset controls but we also do this with heat pumps with fossil fuel backup. In my area we use a design day for heating at 9 degrees. usually the heat pump sized for a/c will satisfy the load to around 30 degrees. As the switchover is now done by the thermostat with an outside sensor it becomes relatively easy for me to instruct the customer how to change the parameters. I will usually set the switchover at 25 degrees and inform the customer if they cant get the stat to satisfy, bump the switchover to 30 degrees. Our weather here during the winter is below 30 much more than 1% of the time. I would say the heat pump will satisfy the stat 65% of the time but not 99%. Another point is most heat pumps are based on max tonnage at 47 degrees so you need to look at the performance chart to see what BTUs are being put out at these outdoor temps. Many of your cold weather inverters will put out undiminished BTUs down to zero but it is worth looking at the COP of these units at these lower temps as depending on your cost for electricity may not be worth running it. Propane here was 1.27 a gallon this year. That is 92k BTUs for a 1.27 and electric has gone up considerably the last couple years. So the switchover is not solely based on BTU output but also cost of operation not to be confused with "efficiency". Excellent video.

[wings]

Do you get down to Colorado Springs? Or have recommendations for folks there?

[csanch]

At 10:35: "and and shut it off." That made my day!