No heating appliance should be used 24 hours a day. Common sense tells you, that if you leave an appliance running the whole day, you can expect your power bill to rise. Clever use of a heat pump is using it as required. If you are not at home during the day, there is no need to run your heat pump during the day. In this situation, and with good insulation, a couple of hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening should suffice.
For example, when running a 3.5kW heat pump for a couple of hours in the morning and four hours in the evening you could expect to rack up around $40.50 (including GST) in power usage per month. Compare this to running a similar wattage bar heater for the same period of time, which would cost you a whopping $141.75 per month!
Yes. Most heat pumps will have a 24 hour timer which allows you to program your heat pumps operation for the day. Mitsubishi Electric offers a 7 Day Controller which allows up to four settings per day. This means that you can plan your heat pump’s operation for an entire week! Ensuring you stay comfortable in your home without wasting both time and money.
A heat pump should not be operated like a radiant heater. Cranking your heat pump up to 27°C is not going to make the room warm any faster. In fact, it will use a lot more energy as the heat pump struggles to calculate how many defrost cycles and how much energy is required to get to this temperature.
By setting the temperature to what is actually required, say 18-22°C in heating mode (a comfortable temperature during winter), the heat pump will respond in the most efficient way and will reach this quickly and continue to maintain it – without further adjustment. Using a timer to activate this temperature half an hour before you arrive home will mean you return to warm, cosy comfort.
All heat pumps are required to enter a “defrost” mode, when temperatures plummet. Defrost mode occurs when your heat pump is warming up the outdoor unit and so either stops heating or pumps out cool air. Some heat pumps spend longer in defrost than others and because of this, can stop providing the heat you require and can cool a room down. That is part of what makes Mitsubishi Electric HyperCore® technology so unique. Due to their design, HyperCore® heat pumps have fewer defrost cycles, so you are always getting the heat that you are paying for, not wasting energy while your heat pump struggles to warm up.
Less defrost cycles mean less overall power usage and higher, real energy efficiency.
Installing a heat pump is a complex process and if it is not installed by a qualified installer, it will most often not be covered under warranty. All Mitsubishi Electric Heat Pumps must be installed by an authorised dealer to qualify for warranty. It is important that you protect yourself by getting your heat pump installed by a professional. Your Mitsubishi Electric authorised installer will ensure you get; the correct heat pump and sizing for your geographical location and space, ensure optimal position of the heat pump, educate you on correct operation and provide a warranty for the system installed.
Every home is as individual as its owner in its requirements, choosing the wrong size for the room you need to heat can leave you cold and cost you more in power consumption.
Insulation and building orientation are important considerations when it comes to potential heat loss. For example; an older home with less insulation will lose indoor heat far quicker than a modern well insulated home that faces north. A bigger heat pump system would therefore be needed to overcome this heat loss.
In winter, when outdoor temperatures drops, the amount of heat a heat pump can produce lowers. Areas of New Zealand that experience sub zero temperatures will require a larger capacity heat pump (compared to a similar sized room in moderate climate) or an upgrade to a high performance heat pump like those in our Mitsubishi Electric HyperCore® Series.
Because of the technical nature of correct sizing, we strongly recommend that anyone in the market for a heat pump arrange an in-home consultation and quote, and ensure this is carried out by an authorised professional.
To get an idea of the size you will need for your home, click here to access our Heat Pump Selection Tool.
Not necessarily. Mitsubishi Electric offer multi-room systems (sometimes called multi-split systems). To achieve a warm home, you will often require more than one heat pump to effectively heat your whole home. A multi-room solution gives you the freedom to choose the most suitable heat pump for each room, i.e. super quiet heat pumps for bedrooms and larger capacity units for living areas. The great thing about multi-room, is that up to four indoor units can be connected to a single outdoor unit. So, you are not disturbing the outdoor aesthetics of your home. Correctly selected and installed multi-room systems can save you power and reduce extraneous noise.
Heat pumps not only provide heating and cooling to your home, they also have dehumidifying benefits. In cooling mode, the room is automatically dehumidified as a function of the heat pump. In heating mode, the unit does not need to dehumidify as the warm air being circulated removes moisture in the room.
Mitsubishi Electric Dry Mode operates by cooling the indoor unit to gather moisture, then warming it to ensure the room temperature stays comfortable. In winter months, use “Dry Mode” once you have heated the room. The room will be kept with approx 2°C of the initial room temperature, ensuring a warm, dry home!
Replacing heat pump units used to mean replacing all the piping as well. But now, Mitsubishi Electric has developed a remarkable refrigerant oil that cleans out leftover mineral oil from the old type refrigerant in the existing heat pump piping, allowing the piping to be re-used.
This pipe reuse technology will save you both money and time when looking to upgrade. Added to this, it prevents waste and reduces the need for copper. Upgrading your old heat pump unit to a more energy efficient model makes more sense now than ever before.