Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Told by another installer to have heat pump removed

I would like some advice please. We had a heat pump installed in our home in August. Now that it's cooler we started using the heating and i've found the far end of our home quite cold compared to the rest of the home. We have a call in to the original installer to discuss this. In the meantime, through chance, another installer from another company (friend of a friend)dropped by to see the installationand said the installation job we got was very poor, our pump too small and the ducts used inadequate. The thermostat was also installed right below a vent. In a nutshell, he said the whole thing was terrible. He said the best move we could make would be to have the whole thing removed and get our money back. Has anyone ever come across this before? We have a 1500 sq foot rancher, they used 4 inch ducting and sold us a 2 ton 10seer heat pump. We also have a wood furnace and they used our existing motor (1.5 hp)(sorry, when i first posted i used the word existing pump and not motor) and existing ducting as well as the addition of the 4 inch ducting. Was also told the filter used in not adequate and plugs up so fast that it greatly reduces the air flow. Sorry for the long email, we worked so hard to save up for this, to be told it's not proper is quite distressing.
Any comments, advice, suggestions greatly appreciated. And no, we didn't get estimates as the salesman was someone my husband worked with on another job and we believed he would provide us with the best advice.
Thank you

It's terrible when you have faith in someone and later you find out they don't know what the heck they are doing. Every trade and profession has these kinds of folks in them. Why not go ahead with the estimating process. Invite several companies to your home and see what they say. In the meantime, don't go by just feelings about any one of the companies that come out. Thoroughly check them out by way of reccomendations by others and trade organizations. Load calculations are a must, to provide the installer with the information needed to heat and cool every room in your home adequately.
By the sound of your installation. The operational costs will be high and the comfort levels low. It may be in your best interest to borrow the money to have it done right rather than put up with it. Take advantage of sites like this to educate yourself thoroughly of what a quality installation will consist of before signing on any companies dotted line. Be sure to check out http://www.acca.org/consumer/quality.php for help on finding a qualified company to deal with.
Take care,

Yes we have bad apples in all the trades. I see no other bids . You know that here we all say get about 3 bids for the job. Also it like what every the guy is selling that has been around there a long time is the brand to buy.

We have a 1500 sq foot rancher, they used 4 inch ducting and sold us a 2 ton 10seer heat pump. We also have a wood furnace and they used our existing pump (1.5 hp) and existing ducting as well as the addition of the 4 inch ducting. Was also told the filter used in not adequate
Looking at this Id say get him BACK for sure. You had a1.5
he adds a 2 ton more. Thats 3.5 ton and he puts it on the same duct you had for the 1.5 you just cant do that. Then 4 " pipe?????? :eek:

Did he take out a permit for this job what does code say??
Id tell him to take it out and try and get my money back

My .02 cents sorry I cant say are do more to help

ED :eek:

karma66,

There is the possibility that there is something wrong with the installation but you must certainly have the original installer come back to hear your concerns.

As Ed says there are unreputable trades people out there.
One thing I can also say is that for the second opinionated tradesman to come in and trash someone elses work in what I consider an unprofessional manner would cause me to maybe look at his motives.
Even for him to say it in a manner that is upsetting to you is an unprofessional thing to do.

Maybe there is a problem but the original installer needs the opportunity to address it and if he is unable to satisfy you another opinion is needed.

And my advice is don't invite the second fellow back for being such a jerk.

So, the original installer came back and looked around and said he would come back on Saturday and change the vent that was blowing directly on the thermostat and change the pulley on the motor 1.5hp that we have now to make it blow harder so we get more air at the other end of the house. (of course they will have to saw off the plastic drain pipe coming out because they glued it in and it blocking access to the motor) I had to call him last night because the house was not getting any warmer, it went all night (right through to morning) and finally hit 70degrees around 7am. He said don't worry, it will take a while to heat up(i called him after it had been running for 3 hours)and our home would heat up at 1 degree per hour. uh huh. After i got off the phone i read the manual that came with the thermostat. Read that a flashing flame icon means it is kicking in to auxiliary heat. uh huh. We don't have it hooked up to an auxliliary source of heat,we had it hooked up to our wood furnace so that we could use the existing ducting and made it very clear that we didn't want to use the wood furnace anymore except in an emergency. I called him today to see if i understood the flashing icon correctly? he said yes, it means it's looking for heat from an auxiliary source, i told him that we don't have one and he said (i love this part)"yes, i noticed that right away when i was there). Yeah, but he didn't comment on it either. ARGH. :mad:
Thank you everyone for listening and for your comments. I think i just found out what an add on heat pump is. :( ...and it's not even pretty! ha, at least i have a bit of a sense of humour! want to see pictures? i can email you a great picture of some wiring covered in black tape that i had to ask them to do instead of leaving exposed so my little boys (3 years and 16 months) wouldn't get curious and give it a yank

You dont say where you are. But 2 ton for a 1500sq ft home sounds to small. Then a 1.5 blower motor is to large for a 2 ton heat pump and for 4" duct. More speed on the blower wont help the heat pick up here for sure . Heatpumps are slow on pick up if the electric heat cant kick in.

ED ;)

we live around the Vancouver BC area. He's told us now that's he's coming in this week and will be taking out our wood furnace and adding an electric air handler...whatever that is. He said that would be the auxiliary source of heat that the heat pump would be looking for. I told him i wouldn't pay any more money, (we've already paid $5300cdn), he asked me to pay $500 for the labour and he would pay for the air handler thingy majigy, and told me his cost was $1300 plus taxes. Told him no go, he could come and rip out the whole thing before i would pay him any more money. So now he has said he is going to come in and do it at no charge. What a freakin' mess :(
So, hopefully what we end up with is somewhat what we should have.
Hey, remind me next time, estimates estimates estimates!!!

Thank you for your time! :)

If the wood furnace and chimney are in useable condition you would be loosing something people spend big money to install.
Even if you have no immediate plans to use it, someday you might.

If you have a digital camera and have a photo host we could take a look at what you have.

I have links below to pics of the unit that was intalled next to our woodfurnace. Did i mention that they also blocked access to the chimney where we would clean out the bottom after we had it cleaned? :eek: yep yep yep!

http://img12.exs.cx/img12/7150/IMG_4306.jpg
http://img12.exs.cx/img12/2853/IMG_4308.jpg