On the fence about heat pumps?

 To the editor:

In October of 2014, Dave’s World of Dover Foxcroft installed a Fujitsu heat pump at the Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce. As director, I cannot begin to express how grateful I was to have a constant, even temperature throughout the building without burning hundreds of gallons in oil. As a small non-profit, every penny is precious, and the winters had been very long and expensive.

I absolutely cannot function when I am cold. I cannot think, and I tend to get somewhat grumpy. I would try my best to keep the thermostat as low as possible to save money, and I would run a small space heater under my desk near my feet to keep me as warm as possible. Since my desk is situated in front of a window, it was very difficult to warm up on most winter days.

Once the heat pump was installed, I unplugged the heater and put it away. I set the temperature on my heat pump to 72 degrees, which seemed to be the perfect setting to keep the entire building comfortable. I kept the furnace thermostat on 58 degrees in the event of an unexpected malfunction with the heat pump during my absence.

Throughout the winter, the heat pump was my faithful source of heat. The only time I noticed some difficulty was when the temperatures would drop lower than 10 below. The heat pump would turn itself off to thaw itself out and then restart. Those were the only moments I would need to utilize the furnace. And yes, they were only moments.

On another occasion, the heat pump did not seem to be working properly. I called Dave’s World and they were in my office the same day. They reset the heat pump and it was as good as new. This article isn’t particularly about spectacular service, so I will move on, but I was a very happy customer!

I waited until mid-June to ask my treasurer for a report, specifically a comparison of 2014 vs. 2015 from September to June. I was expecting a big savings on my oil because we hadn’t had any deliveries, but I was a little concerned what the increase in my electric bill would be from running the heat pump continuously for months.

The results were impressive, and I thought worthy of sharing with the public. From September 15th to June 15th of 2014, the chamber purchased $1,707 in oil and paid $610.15 for electricity. In 2015, during the same months, we paid $44.95 for oil and $594.11 for electricity! Apparently it took more electricity to run the space heater occasionally than it did to run the heat pump continuously! That is a savings of over $1,670 in one season! The chamber is a fairly small building, only two rooms, a small office and a bathroom. If we could save this much, how much more would a homeowner or business owner with more square footage save?

I am looking forward to utilizing the heat pump this summer, as well, for cooling the Chamber office. Now, there’s something my furnace could never, ever do.

Denise Buzzelli

Executive director

Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce