The Best Heat Pump Thermostat Settings to Keep Everyone Comfortable
If your home seldom goes below freezing, a heat pump is your new best friend
Highlights
Heat pumps pump outside air into your home to heat it.
They work best in above-freezing temperatures.
Heat pumps are designed to run continuously.
A good starting temperature to set is 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
With an air-source heat pump system, you’re on your way to a more energy-efficient way of heating your home that will be kind to your wallet to boot. But heat pumps work a little bit differently than traditional thermostats.
Follow these useful tips to find a heat pump temperature setting that’s right for your family and ensure your system is working as well as it can.
1. Understand How Heat Pumps Work
Before you skip right to settings, it’s important to understand what makes your new heat pump system so different from other methods of warming the house you may have used in the past.
Traditional furnaces powered by gas work by generating heat which is pushed into your home through ducts courtesy of the furnace’s blower. Your heat pump has ducts, too, but it doesn’t periodically blast air through the ducts. Instead, the pump is constantly moving air.
Heat pumps take heat from outside and direct it into the home. The catch? They can only do this when the outdoor temperature is above freezing. Heat pumps go for their backup element, which uses a lot of electricity when the temperature goes below freezing.
2. Learn the Ideal Heat Pump Temperature Setting
According to the Department of Energy, you should try to keep your system at 68 degrees Fahrenheit, but the best temperature setting for you is only something you can gauge. The temperature you choose should keep you comfortable and allow your system to run efficiently when the home is occupied and family members are awake. Use the Department of Energy’s suggestion as a starting point, and you can adjust from there using the tips below.
3. Set With an Accurate Temperature in Mind
Gas furnaces intermittently blast air through ductwork to warm homes. But, because they aren’t constantly running hot air into your home, the hot air they release is usually warmer than the air generated by a heat pump.
Furnaces traditionally blast air at 120 degrees, while a heat pump will emit air between 90 and 100 degrees. Keep in mind that when you’re setting temps with a heat pump, a little goes a long way because the air is constantly being directed into the home. You should aim for the heat pump temperature setting that indicates how you actually want to feel.
4. Expect Longer Cycles With a Heat Pump
Another way that heat pumps differ from gas-powered furnaces is that heat pumps are more efficient when they are running all the time. By that token, no matter what setting you put your heat pump on, you can expect it to run significantly longer than a furnace’s cycle setting would.
Like selecting your new perfect temperature, you’ll have to go through some trial and error to find which setting works best for you and your home.
5. Leave Your Thermostat Alone
Homeowners with blast-air furnaces may spend a lot of time finding ways to save money with their systems. This process often means keeping thermostats off when sleeping and as low as possible throughout the day. However, this method isn’t effective with heat pump systems.
It takes these systems longer to heat the home than a gas furnace-powered system would, which means they naturally need to be on longer. Additionally, setting the temperature too low could mean kicking your heat pump’s backup element into gear, which will wind up using more power, not less. Again, aim for the temperature you actually want the home to feel like and then adjust from there.
Becca Stokes contributed to this article.
Frequently Asked Questions
While each thermostat is designed a little differently, and your user’s manual is the best resource for programming and setting it, most have fairly similar controls. The thermostat should have a way to change between different modes, including a “heat” setting, along with “off,” “cool,” and “em heat.” To set the temperature, navigate to the heat pump mode and use the dial or up and down buttons to choose the right temperature for your home. You may also be able to program an automatic mode that will switch between heating and cooling depending on the ambient temperature.
While auto mode may be the best way to maintain a steady temperature in your home, it’s less efficient than using heat mode—because it means the heat pump may shift over to cooling if the temperature inside your home goes beyond the set auto heat threshold. It also means you may be greeted with unexpected (and unwanted) cold air if you’re cooking up a storm or experiencing a nice sunny day during the winter. In short, if you’re most interested in efficiency, it’s best to keep your heat pump set to heat.
Unlike furnaces, heat pumps are actually more efficient when they run on longer cycles, and yes, they’re designed to run constantly during the colder months of the year. Keep in mind, though, that heat pumps have to resort to their backup element once temperatures outside drop below freezing, which can use much more energy and become costly.
There are many reasons a thermostat might go on the fritz, including faulty wiring, a dead battery, an error in programming the settings, or even a buildup of dirt in the physical thermostat itself. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to troubleshoot many common thermostat issues yourself, so you can get back to the easy-to-set, even indoor climate control you’re used to.