Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Jul 13, 2011 3:04 pm Hi, I currently live in Gisborne Victoria and have ducted natural gas heating. We feel the cold and like to have our house heated to 23 degrees all the time and sometimes 24. We are moving to Hobart Tasmania and looking into reverse cycle air conditioners / heat pumps. One shop has told us that we would struggle in the cold climate of Hobart when it is cold to heat the house to more than 21/22 at max. Our house is an old house with the 10 foot ceilings. He said could possibly get the heater to heat to a higher temp by oversizing but didn't recommend that as then it is not as efficient and switches on and off a lot more. Is he telling me the truth? What have others experienced using heat pumps in a cold climate area? Will we just have to suck up the higher gas prices in Hobart and stick to gas heating to get the warm temperature we like? At least our house area is covered by natural gas. Thanks, Dale. http://www.DiscountLovers.com.au http://www.SettledIn.com.au . Re: Heating capability of heat pumps in cold climates like H 2Jul 13, 2011 4:15 pm dale-reardon Hi, I currently live in Gisborne Victoria and have ducted natural gas heating. We feel the cold and like to have our house heated to 23 degrees all the time and sometimes 24. We are moving to Hobart Tasmania and looking into reverse cycle air conditioners / heat pumps. One shop has told us that we would struggle in the cold climate of Hobart when it is cold to heat the house to more than 21/22 at max. Our house is an old house with the 10 foot ceilings. He said could possibly get the heater to heat to a higher temp by oversizing but didn't recommend that as then it is not as efficient and switches on and off a lot more. Is he telling me the truth? What have others experienced using heat pumps in a cold climate area? I believe he is right. Are you looking at ducted air conditioning OR split-systems? With properly sized ducted reverse cycle air conditioner and with right amount of outlets you should be able to warm up your house relatively consistently to 23°. Although if we are talking about old house with no proper insulation and with 3m ceilings then I would say 21/22° is max you can get. And I'm not sure about those very cold days we have sometimes in Tassie (for example last week we had a bit of a snow and +1°C during the morning). During those days you may even struggle to get it to 19-20° It's much much worse with split-system air conditioner. MOST houses in Tassie have either wood-heaters or split systems. We are renting relatively new insulated house with split-system air conditioner installed in living area. Last week was very cold (-1 to +2 during the night, +5+7 during the day), our split-system worked almost non-stop, and it was no more than +17/18 in the living room after all (I don't even want to mention the bedrooms +11+13C) On the other hand with wood-heaters you will probably get your +24° quite easily. I've been in a few old houses which use wood heaters and they were very warm inside. And wood is quite cheap too. If you have natural gas available in your area, then I would say go for it. It will probably be the cheapest and most comfortable option. You may also consider wood-heater, however they have their disadvantages... In a house we are owner-building we are going to install ducted air-conditioner/heat pump, but in our case it should be sufficient enough as the house will have very good insulation (R3.5-5.0 for the walls) and very good double glazed windows (Uw1.3) Welcome to Hobart Re: Heating capability of heat pumps in cold climates like H 3Jul 15, 2011 9:23 pm Have you considered a ground source heat pump? The reason that the air source heat pump struggles, is because it is hard to extract heat from cold temps eg -1C to 7C. The ground temperature is probably around 15C to 18C so getting heat from it is much easier. You can expect 400% to 500% efficiency from a ground source heat pump (GSHP) versus 100% to around 400% efficiency for an air source HP and usually when it is really cold outside, the efficiency is at its lowest - exactly what you don't want. You will keep your bills lower and be able to achieve your desired temps regardless of how cold it gets (ground temp doesn't change much even if it is a super cold year). The cons are that it has higher up front costs but if you are confident that you will be living in this house for a long time, it is probably going to end up paying for itself and then save you money while achieving your desired temp. Where I live now, we have gas ducted heating and I would far prefer a heat pump - next place:). Gas is getting really expensive. Depends how much direct sun it gets. Is there any shading (eaves or trees)? If the sun hits a window directly it doesn't matter too much if it's double or single… 1 12671 Hi guys, I want to butt a concrete vegetable garden bed against a concrete build up of a carport. It will be a 700mm high wall about 120mm thick and I will run a 12mm rio… 0 2615 There may be answers here but can't find anything. I have a closed in veranda, four windows. 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