Michigan Water Furnace Series 7 - what should I expect?

There were some software bugs in the energy usage calculations of the thermostats in earlier versions, falsely displaying the energy usage. Your's might not be updated.

 

Mine is running v2.0.

 

Are there any general guidelines for how often or at what outside temp the electric heat should be kicking on?

 

Whenever the unit cannot hold the temperature above a certain threshold. Independent of outside temperature. Most single and dual stage systems are designed to kick in supplemental heat at the 98% percentile, meaning that load conditions exist during 2% of the heating season where your house needs extra heat. Outside temp is only one factor. Wind, solar gain, internal heat gain etc are other examples.
Now, variable speed technology changes that a bit, since it now sometimes makes financial sense to simply put in a 1 ton bigger unit, since the difference in price is minuscule.

 

Just to give some feedback as far as how my unit is performing since it has been cold the last few days..

I have run times of 20-24 hours per day.
Yesterday the low was 0 and "stage 2" was reached for a brief period, but no electric heat has been used.
I do not have any zone or an outside temp sensor though.

 

Neokane your unit doesn't sound like a series 7, you mwntion stage 1 and 2, series 7 is variable speed with like 12 stages I believe.

CJ

 

The energy usage bar graphs on the color thermostat are coded to show stage 1 and stage 2. With the Series 7 compressor speeds 1-6 are reported as "stage 1" and compressor speeds 7-12 are reported as "stage 2" on the energy usage screens.

 

It is a series 7. As Geoxne mentioned, the energy graph indicates Stage 1 and 2. Whereas the unit fluctuates between the various speeds.

 

Your home seems much more efficient than mine and standard ceiling apparently helps out a lot. It's been in the 10-15F range and my "bill" is already up to about $12 today with all stage 2 and electric heat in the past 21.5hrs.

 

How was your bill for the month of January?
I was billed for 1760 KwH for geothermal for January. This is the first winter I have had geo, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

I can say that the symphony is incredibly low when it is recording wattage. Not sure where the discrepancy comes in.

 

Believe it or not, I still do not have a meter on my house. It's been over 6 months now. It would be nice to see what my actual bills will be, instead of guessing from the stat. How much is your KwH cost?

 

My first 250 are 15.7 cents. After that it is 9.7 cents. However, with geo, I get a special heat rate for Oct - March of 6.29 cents.

 

I'm going to call the power company tomorrow and get some rate info. DTE has Oct-May winter rates for geo in MI and also off hour discounts too.

 

DTE in Michigan is 5.47 from 11am to 7pm and 4.03 from 7pm to 11am.

 

If you are still interested. I used 1120 kwh for Feb.

 

Finally got my meter installed 2 weeks ago. Only took them 6 months. Now it's in the 60's and I probably won't get a normal full month winter bill until next season.

 

Better late than never. I was told the first year is the worse year anyways. I am interested to see how your numbers compare.