Two electric bills in Putnam County, and the heat pump that answers each one

Reading the bill before the brochure

An FPL customer in Palatka Heights and a Clay Electric member on a lake near Interlachen call with the same story in August: the bill jumped, nothing in the house changed. Nine times out of ten the first question we ask is the age of the heat pump. A fifteen- or twenty-year-old unit loses efficiency slowly for years and then quickly at the end, and the bill is where that shows up before the thermostat does.

A heat pump is the right machine for this county because it does both jobs with one outdoor unit: cooling for the long season from mid-May to late September, and heating for the dozen or so freeze nights. Replacing a worn one with a current Lennox model is the single largest cut most Putnam households can make in a summer electric bill without changing how they live.

Retrofit or new construction

New construction is rare in Palatka; the county’s median house dates to about 1972. So nearly every heat pump we install is a retrofit, and the retrofit question is never the equipment alone. It is what the equipment connects to.

• 1950s to 1970s block houses in Newtown and along US 17 often have a handler in a hall closet and a duct trunk in the attic that was sized for a smaller, weaker system. A new high-efficiency heat pump needs airflow those ducts may not deliver.
• Frame houses from the 1890s to 1920s in the historic districts frequently have no ducts at all, or a 1980s retrofit stuffed through closets. A ducted heat pump may be the wrong tool; a ductless one may be right.
• Manufactured homes, which make up close to half the housing in some Putnam ZIP codes, run belly ducts under the floor. Those ducts split, sag and pull in crawlspace moisture, and a new heat pump bolted to a failed trunk fixes nothing.

Ductwork realities, and what we do about them

On the first visit we measure static pressure across the handler and look at the return. In a lot of 1970s houses the return is a single grille in a hallway that was never large enough. We quote the duct repair or the added return as its own line, so the homeowner can see what the house needs apart from what the equipment costs. Skipping that step is how a brand-new heat pump ends up with the same bill as the old one.

Well-water homes get a look at the condensate drain for iron and sulfur scale, and a float switch if the handler lacks one.

Schedule a heat pump estimate

Sizing for the river basin

Humidity decides the size here. Summer dew points in the St. Johns basin sit in the oppressive range for four months, and a heat pump that is too large cools the air before it dries it. We run a load calculation on the actual house, with its windows, orientation and insulation, and we would rather install a correctly sized two-stage or variable-capacity unit that runs long and slow than an oversized one that short-cycles and leaves the house clammy.

The result on the bill is twofold: fewer kilowatt-hours, and a thermostat that can sit at 76 or 77 and still feel comfortable because the air is dry. On either utility, that is where the savings come from.

Cook’s installs Lennox heat pumps and services every major brand from the Palm Coast headquarters, about 35 miles east. Free estimates on new systems; financing with low monthly payments is available.