Recent threads have me wondering  which tstats work best with heat pumps

I would like to hear what you all have

Tell us:

what brand and model you have?

how does it control strip heat (electric back up) ie,

              if second stage runs for  xx minutes?

            or      

              if room temp falls xx ° below set point?

does the display tell you if   2nd stage, 3rd stage ( strip heat) are engaged?

Honeywell VisionPro IAQ Water Furnace 5-ton Envision dual stage, 20kW heat strip. Electric backup turned off for Aux use, Emergency only. Display tells me Aux, or Emergency is on, but does not tell me 2nd stage.

How often do you have to turn your aux. on (at what temp. outside) and what area of the US or Canada do you live in

I'm in Ottawa, and the last 24hours it has been below 5 F, and while the furnace has run almost continuously, the 2nd stage has only come on about 30% of the time. I don't know if I will ever need my Aux heater. Prior to fixing the 2nd stage of my compressor, I need to use the AUX, but now that 2nd stage is functioning properly, who knows.

We live close to Newmarket so temps here are probably a little bit warmer than there.
We are wondering if our 2nd stage is actually working. How do you know when 2nd stage has kicked in. What had to be done to get it working? Possibly an adjustment on the thermostat?

We live close to Newmarket so temps here are probably a little bit warmer than there.
We are wondering if our 2nd stage is actually working. How do you know when 2nd stage has kicked in. What had to be done to get it working? Possibly an adjustment on the thermostat?

What kind of heat pump do you have and what kind of thermostat?

What brand of furnace and thermostat do you have? The simplest, is measuring the return (Tr) and supply Ts) temps of the furnace and using the formula: 1.08*fan speed (cfm)*(Ts-Tr) and comparing. Dean, we must have been typing at the same time :)

We have a Tranquility 27 furnace and a Climatemaster thermostat with no instructions because the installer is not too organized..Right now the TStat is set on Permanent Hold. Just not sure whether we are possibly running on 2nd stage at any time....How do you know?

I'm not too sure how you measure the temp in and out?

Usually 2nd stage kicks on when either one of two things happen:

1) the room temp is more that 2° below the thermostat setting

or

2) 1st stage has run for xx minutes and not reached the set point of the thermostat where xx minutes is set on the thermostat by the user.

Looks like it.  :)

You can drill a small hole in the return and supply ducts and insert a thermometer that will measure between 65F to 100F. When you're done, put a piece of real duct tape, or a plastic plug in the hole.

or a simpler first test. In 1st stage, the fan will be at medium speed. In 2nd stage, the fan will be in high speed. and you should be able to feel and /or hear the difference. Is your furnace going into high speed fan? If it is, you could pick a duct and measure the temp of the air, in what may be (med speed) 1st stage and what may be 2nd stage (high speed). If the temp is the same or higher in 2nd stage, then it is probably working, if not, you need to do some calculations, and/ or more measurements.

I thought you were tallking about water temp........We are not hearing any difference in the fan so maybe we have to let it get colder before the 2nd stage comes in.....we are 2 degrees colder than the stat right now ......we'll see what happens......I guess I would feel more comfort if the guy that installed it was more responsive.....

Project_X did you get your rebate yet.......if so how long does it take

We are using Honeywell Vision Pro 8321 U 1006 thermostats. They allow outside sensors, but we don't need them at this time (until we deal with humidifiers).
 
As many apparently realize, there seems to be no way on the thermostat to tell when 2nd stage is running, but it does tell when AUX strips are on (instead of "Heat on" it says "Aux Heat on"). Our electric heat strips are also staged at the airhandlers in two stages (so says the installer.... but I doubt we will see Aux anyway at this point). < We were told that in Aux mode, a 10KW strip stages itself in 5K increments, and that in emergency mode, the 10KW strip entirely turns on.... Sound correct? >

If anyone finds data on how the VisionPro tstats can be configured for the 1st/2nd/aux stages, We'd love to read it. The install guides do not share this information. (Although, it seems totally smart-enough at this point, and probably shouldn't be messed with).

I have played around and it does look like a 2-degree separation throws stage 2 immediately (just raise temp 2 deg). If I set the temp at a larger 5-10 deg up, Aux will immediately come on, So I assume that there must be some "degrees-behind" calculation going on....

We just turned the temp up and the 2nd stage is definetly on......Thanks for the idea......Now we know it works and hopefully that is good enough to not have aux. come on....we are sruggling with the electrical consumption because all the installers are consistent in saying it will cost $100.00 per month more in electricity bills.......It must be an average they are talking about because the meter in the winter does not indicate that

My earth loops aren't even in the ground yet (contractor won't drill when it's below 10 above unless a customer is totally without heat) but I'll have a Waterfurnace Envision dual stage ND049 and a Honeywell 8000 tstat.

Hopefully soon...

Anybody know how much more electricity is used in 2nd stage?