RIP dragon candle

[sonia]

When I was six years old, I was dragged along when my mom visited a friend. The friend had sculpted and painted a whole fantasy scene out of candles, large castle, knights, the works. There was a small upright orange dragon with painted scales that six-year-old me fell in love with, and the lady gave it to me.

That was the beginning of collecting dragons. Of course I never burned the candle. I have carried it with me from dorm to apartment to house all this time. In this house I had it upstairs on a shelf nestled in with a few stuffed animals and other treasured relics of childhood.

Today I noticed that the dragon was face down. I went to set it upright, and realized it's not that it had been knocked over. It *melted*, probably during the June heat dome. 116 degrees! Fifty-two-year-old me cried real tears and ceremonially carried it to the trash.

Ironically, I was looking closely at that shelf because I'm thinking about getting a heat pump mini-split for my bedroom, which is unheated except for a small electric heater I mostly don't use. There's no air conditioning in the house, although the basement stayed cool even during the heat dome.

The HVAC person said the room would be comfortable year-round. YES, I want that! Sadly, I'm not sure it would actually happen. Online reviews of the Mitsubishi system are mixed about reliability, and I'm worried that it would be noisier than I would be happy with. And also off-gas at first and give me headaches. Not to mention costing $6K+ to install.

It would require rearranging furniture, which I find myself reluctant to do. It feels right the way it is. There's a tall bookshelf which wouldn't really fit anywhere else, since the upstairs is a built-out attic with sloping ceilings. It's filled with memorabilia, not books, but I kind of like having the old photo albums and games visible, even if I rarely open them.

I think the first step is to run the silent electric heater that's already there more frequently. If I'm willing to spend $6K and then pay for electricity to run a system, I can just pay to run what I have. I think it would need supplementing if it gets really cold, but it's better than nothing.

While I love the idea of being cool and comfortable in summer, I also like sleeping with the windows open and being in contact with my surroundings. I resist shutting myself away from the natural world to run a machine instead. I hate that climate change is tilting toward needing air conditioning here.

Anyone out there have experience with heat pumps? What do you think of them?

Comments

[azurelunatic]

We just had someone in today to consult about one of those! We're leaning towards getting it, because this past summer was hard on alexseanchai and me, and my partner didn't much like it either.

[sonia]

What brand are your installers recommending? It was a rough summer for sure.

[elainegrey]

The heat pumps in the southeast I am used to are whole house systems. I grew up with them and have One now. They are far more efficient for heating than electric heat and have little maintenance.

I have heard of the splits and know an architect who thought highly of them.

With a cooling system I would want to be very clear about how condensation was routed.

[sonia]

Thanks for the info. I will check about condensation!

[elainegrey]

Also, i am sorry for your loss. I can imagine the ache.

[sonia]

Thanks! It's an odd mix of completely irreplaceable, nothing like that in the world anymore, and the thing itself wasn't that important in my life. Ah well!

[tylik]

My place is heated / cooled with a mini split. (It's both fairly small, and passive solar, which cuts down on the need for both.)

I have a Mitsubishi, and I love it. Just love it. It's quieter than the system it replaced, and deals well with both the heat and humidity we tend to get. (And it heats well too, though here the AC is more important, especially in a passive solar house.)

[sonia]

Thanks for the info!

[adrian_turtle]

I'm sorry for the loss of your dragon, and glad you had so many years together.

[sonia]

Thank you! :-) It fit just so in my hand, and I have a vague memory that the lady really *saw* me, which was associated with the gift.

[sanguinity]

We have a Daikon heat pump mini-split that we installed, I dunno, ten years ago? When we got rid of the antique gas heater from the 1940s.

We're happy with the heat pump. It kept me up the first few nights we installed it, but then I got used to it and could sleep through it. I can hear it when it runs during the day -- if I'm recording podcasts, I turn it off in that room -- but now that I'm used to it I don't ordinarily find it obtrusive. We don't use the bedroom one that much -- low heat during the dead of winter, and then AC a couple of hours in the evening during the summer on the high-nineties days, just enough to cool the room to sleepable temperatures again before opening the window for the night. (The room is south-facing and doesn't have great air circulation.) During the heat dome we ran it all night, but mostly not.

We also like its air-filtration properties: during the bad smoke summer before last, we ran both units on the fan setting all week, and it kept the smoke down in our living spaces. The rest of the house filled up with it -- this is a leaky 1907 house -- but the rooms in which we were running the units were livable.

Our biggest problem with it is during the first hours of thaw after a solid freeze: ice from melting water can accumulate on the blades of the exterior unit, throwing it out of balance. The fix then is to run the AC on full to melt the ice back off again -- usually a quick-ish fix, under an hour. This happens, dunno, every third winter? (It did not happen during February's ice storm, for reference.) And is probably impacted by our having trouble with the gutters on that side of the house. Usually it can be fixed in less than an hour of running the AC.

I would also say that the landscaping near the exterior unit is affected: it's cold-than-ambient in its outdraft during the winter, and hotter-than-ambient in its outdraft during the summer. Depending on where you position it, you might eventually want to put in some north-east/mid-west hardy plants around it.

[sonia]

Thanks for the details! Good point that I can use it intermittently as you describe, even if the installer said it's more efficient to just keep it running. And also good to know about air filtration. The placement wouldn't affect plants (narrow strip between house and driveway), but another good point to keep in mind.

Your description makes it sound like the obvious next step to adapt to climate change, which is a different narrative than, "I've become weak and need to be more comfortable." They might both be true!

[sanguinity]

Yeah, it's much happier maintaining a temperature than changing one -- it doesn't have a lot of oomph, and it's obviously designed to run at a low intensity (which is likely why it's most efficient there). Perhaps we'd do a little better in the summer with monitoring the bedroom temp and turning on the AC when it rose to whatever-we-want-it-to-be-at-bedtime, then keeping it running until then? But I don't see any percentage in keeping the unit running overnight, when the open window will bring the room to a lower temp, for no energy cost, than what we've set the AC at.

Oh, I meant to say: it also has a movement sensor that you can turn on or off, that will back the thermostat off three degrees if the room appears to be unoccupied. We've disabled that feature for the bedroom, because it can't determine that we're there but asleep, and there's no point in changing the room's temp just because someone passed through to change clothes. But we do have it enabled for the living room. It frequently mistakes "working quietly at my computer" for "no one here", but that just reminds me to take periodic get-up-and-move breaks.

Re climate change: you don't have to use the AC any more than you actually want to, but we've been very happy to have it as summer highs have increased, and especially now that we're working out of our house and are here all the time.

[azurelunatic]

This is extremely helpful to know, I said, glaring at the Daikin unit over my head, currently blinking apathetically at me (again) during this Seattle snowstorm freeze-and-melt-and-freeze-again.

[sanguinity]

Oh no! Good luck getting the blades unfrozen!

[silveradept]

We are sorry for the loss of one of our wax family.

[sonia]

Thank you!

[amethyst73]

We have been quite happy with ours, which is a Lennox. One thing that you'll want to have checked: Heat pumps generally have a heating coil, which is basically there in case the heat pump function doesn't work and you NEED HEAT NOW. The factory default on our thermostat was to have the heating coil turn on if there was three degrees of difference between the set temperature and the ambient temperature. This was unnecessary and likely drove up our electricity bill last winter more than it ought to. We got someone to come out and check it, and they changed it so that the heating coil will come on only if there's a 10-degree difference between set and ambient!

Your electricity bill will go up. A bunch. I'm not sure how the cost analysis comes out vs natural gas (or whatever) in your area. But having the possibility of AC as well (which we used a couple of times this summer) is WELL worth it. And if your electricity is at least partly from renewable sources, you're doing the planet a favor. (Man, I miss solar panels... there are some disadvantages to living in a forest area!)

Good luck!

[sonia]

Huh, interesting that they have built-in backup. Thanks for pointing that out!

I'm not sure I would use the gas furnace any less in the rest of the house, although I guess I could turn it down sooner if I retreat to the bedroom earlier in the evening. At this point I'm ready to pay for some comfort.

[to_do_list]

Have nothing on heat pumps, wanted to send condolences on the dragon. Seems you had so many meaningful years together.

[sonia]

Thank you! It's been lovely to have the loss acknowledged here.