My house: heating question

[AZRedhawk44]

I've got two heat/cooling units.

#1 - back of the house (master br/bath, hall, hall bath, 1br... 800+sq ft).  This is a heat pump.  Works fine.  Heats and cools.

#2 - front of the house (living room, kitchen, 1br... 1200+sq ft).  Air conditioner only.  Air handler is in a closet.  Cools only.  Trane air handler model TWE042C140B1, made in 1994.  Does not have heating coil installed.

This week actually made me dig out a space heater and run it in my living room.  Even with this 1500w space heater going and a ceiling fan dispersing the localized heat effect, the front of the house barely keeps up to 68 degrees when it's 30 degrees outside.  I've even tried locating the floor space heater right in front of the intake vents of the front of the house air handler, and turning on the fan.  House stays at 68 degrees.

I'd like to buy and install the optional electric heater for my air handler.  I looked inside... it's not installed and the cover of the air handler says it is field installable and was never factory installed.

I'm having trouble finding an online vendor that will sell the electric coils that go in the top of the air handler.  Given my house's rather temperate clime, I figure that a 5000w set of coils would be ample to heat my house... I don't need the beefier options available for users in colder regions.

Is this a project suitable for an end-user to accomplish?  I imagine it's a function of:

1. Installing the coils and plugging them into the controller board for the air handler (with 60amp breaker turned OFF!).
2. Configuring the thermostat controller to know that the unit is now available to both heat and cool rather than only cool.

Or do I call a home heating guy to come and do it?

[Harold Tuttle]

part might be kinda dear for a 1994 unit

what about a propane fireplace/heater?

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www.fireplacesnow.com/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=29340

[AZRedhawk44]

http://americanhvacparts.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=ehtra

Can't find one for my particular air handler model #.

Do these guys appear to have good prices, or are they off base?  Seems a bit steep for some glorified resistive coils, IMO.

[mtnbkr]

I wouldn't put any money into a 17yo unit, but have it replaced with a newer, more efficient unit with heat.  It's more expense, but at that age, it might last another 5 years or die next week.

Chris

[AZRedhawk44]

I wouldn't put any money into a 17yo unit, but have it replaced with a newer, more efficient unit with heat.  It's more expense, but at that age, it might last another 5 years or die next week.

Chris

I have a home warranty that will take care of that, if it dies... and I have redundancy in the sense that if one unit fails, my house won't get totally unbearable as the other unit does its job until service can be obtained.  A controlled replacement of one unit is planned at some point, but not this year.

But it won't take care of adding new functionality to an existing installation.

[Jim147]

I'm at the wrong computer but I'll see what I can find here.

jim

Can't find a heater kit right know, but that restring kit they have listed at the top I can beat by $30.00

[Gowen]

My gas heater went out the first of Dec, we have an electric heater heating the house right now.  It's one of those blow dryer type heaters.  I can say that my house is as warm as when the gas heater was working and my power bill, which included the gas bill, was $80 less than last year, same month.  We are using more electricity, but next to no gas, only the hot water heater, so the bill was less.  Look on ebay for Dr. Heater, we got it for under $200 shipped. It will pay for it self in on winter.  I have a 500 sq ft room that is unheated from the rest of the house, we had bought one of these to heat that room.  When the heater went out in the main house, we didn't have the money to replace the heater, we just bought one of these.

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/amish-miracle-heater.php

[Desertdog]

I reccomennd checking on installing a propane heater.  They now have as much as 97% effiency, which compared to electric,will pay for itself in a very short time.

[Grandpa Shooter]

Red,

Is your place on a load controller?  If you add a heat coil onto the front unit you would want to be able to stagger their run times so you don't draw a ton of juice.

Is there even natural gas out where you are?  Home delivery of propane can get down right pricey in the Valley of Sin.

[never_retreat]

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/amish-miracle-heater.php

Does not matter how you do it or what it looks like. Your only ever going to get about 3 btu's per watt of electricity.
Thats why every small electric heater you see is 1500 watts and about 5000 btu's.

IMO the best are the oil filled radiator style ones. Just like having old cast iron radiators they have thermal density and keep the heat more consistent. I keep one in the bedroom for the nights and let the heat in the rest of the house drop to about 60.
They make no noise and don't get hot enough to set fire to stuff.

[never_retreat]

Or you could get one of these.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/portable-electric-heaters/heating-equipment/hvacr/ecatalog/N-8zvZ1z0mi53Z1z0qw0n

[Jim147]

PM incoming about your unit.

jim

[RaspberrySurprise]

Something looks very photo shopped about those pictures.