How well does a Daikin Fit heat pump work? A look at energy use data

[@dalejohnsen1469]

Thanks for the video Nate. The 48 watt draw you are seeing is likely the crankcase heater. It is used to keep the oil warm so the refrigerant doesn’t condense and mix with the it in the crankcase.

[@sprockkets]

Not at 55 degrees.

[@dalejohnsen1469]

@@sprockkets Yes at 55 degrees.

[@chuongng]

Also looking forward to hearing your feedback on the system now that you have it over a year. Thanks

[@DaveDugdaleColorado]

Interesting. I was about to get the Bosch but now I’m thinking about the Daikin Fit inverter system.

[@DaveDugdaleColorado]

Please do an update video after using it for a while.

[@victorsr6708]

The daikin fit is my favorite unit on the market! I install Fit’s on a daily basis hands down the best on the market. You get high end technology and components for middle of the road price, did I mention we can’t have issues with them and they come with a 12 year warranty.

[@RB-hl3ux]

I had a DaiKin fit 3 ton air conditioner unit system installed in my house three years ago. The house is 2400 ft.² one story. I’m here in Texas and this summer it got up to 106° outside and we keep our thermostat on 74 and the Daikin kept it at 74 for the entire time. Only problem last November the outdoor unit plastic fan became loose on the motor mount and I had to have it replaced, the warranty cover the parts but not the labor which was over $400. Because it was one piece they had to replace the motor and the fan. But other than that we love the Daikin Fit if it keeps the house at a more consistent temperature and it’s very quiet.

[@albertlevet119]

Does your Daikin Fit require much electricity or is it as efficient as advertised?

[@cindystokes8347]

I would love to see the stats for summer in Texas

[@hvac2.038]

That's a great reason to get a monitor on your current HVAC to learn how it runs. Your answer largely depends on how tight and well insulated your home is. This is a pretty mild climate. -Nate

[@cindystokes8347]

@@hvac2.038 I’m in the unenviable position of having only a short time in a rental while I build a house nearby. I plan to build it with zip R and liquid flashing and spray foam under the roof deck. But I have to do a lot of guessing as I plan. So videos like this are super helpful as I have dubious electricians believing I may not be planning enough solar power for central air.

[@Edward3D]

I have the LG 14k window unit (AC only) with the inverter. It runs pretty much all summer to cool 770 sq ft., but usually with the compressor at the lowest speed as far as I can tell, around 250 watts total. During the afternoon it’ll slowly ramp up to around 450 watts, maybe up to 600 on a really hot day. It only ever needs to run at maximum compressor speed (around 1,200 watts) after being shut off and then turned on again.

[@GlenS123]

Very cool data, great long run times. Wonder if there are adjustable settings to be more consistant at long run cycles, or better yet not shutting off at all?

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

It probably has to learn the house. Even right sized variable speed equipment seldom runs more than 50% of the year. This is quite good.

[@davidhiles8823]

I recently got a Daikin FIT 2 ton to replace an old ArcoAire single speed heat pump. What a difference! Quiet and comfy. I got bids for numerous systems from Carrier, Lennox, Trane, and Mitsubishi. FIT has a good price point for getting these installed for more budget conscious home owners. The labor and parts warranty is superior. The equipment is great too. Excellent cold climate performance, and variable speed communicating air handler. I'm in the DC area and didn't install a pan heater. I sent a request to Daikin HQ asking them to update their software to enable electric pre-heat for dehumidification. They have it in their commercial systems. No response yet. Questions: 1) which model has the improved cold climate performance? Are you talking about max COP at 17 and 5? My outdoor unit is a DZ17VSA241BA, made in 2021.5. 2) what are you doing with your heat strips? I''m running emporia vue and get similar results. Let me know if you want access to my data stream. Also, you can download info in CSV format if you want to capture it before it goes away. Can also be useful for creating totals across various circuits.

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

Great comment! Electric reheat would make this system very near perfect. I don't care that much about COP, I care about output at various temps. It's nice to have higher COPs, but if I can run a heat pump and still carry the load at low temps vs using resistance, I'm happy. This unit is supposed to have full output at 5F, although it is not yet in the documentation. I have a 5 kw heat strip as backup.

[@afrocraft1]

If you don't mind: Who did your install? I'm in the DC area as well, and looking for a good HVAC expert who knows FIT well. Any other tips on what I should focus on in our area would be appreciated. Thanks!

[@davidhiles8823]

@@afrocraft1 Dyad Mechanical. Most houses in DC don’t need natural gas furnaces if they get modern Japanese inverter heat pumps. Electricity will get cleaner. Natural gas can’t get cleaner, and fracked gas creates a lot of bad methane greenhouse gas leaks. Much worse than traditional gas.

[@afrocraft1]

@@davidhiles8823 Thanks--I'll check them out!

[@I_have_Aquestion]

​@NatetheHouseWhisperer The Daikin FiT does not have full capacity heat output at low temps. It is the Daikin Life VRV/VRT system that has that feature. I am a Daikin dealer, and we have installed hundreds of these systems. Great units! You are doing a great deep dive here, but be mindfull that these inverter driven communicating systems have a mind of their own so to speak. The software is quite complex and it take a great deal of real time data collection (that you won't have without specialized tools) to know exactly what it is doing and any given time at any given condition. There are oil return modes and defrost cycles, etc that change how it operates but you won't know what it is "thinking" while it does these things. I like the data driven approach though.👍

[@chuongng]

Great video. I'm looking at this Daikin Fit to replace my home AC and subsidizing heat for my furnace to certain tempurature in the winter time here in Canada. Just wondering how did you get these detail info in term of power usage by the Daikin? Thanks

[@TedKidd]

Still learning the house? Doesn't the Carrier take a while to figure out a house? Maybe this does too...

[@DaveDugdaleColorado]

If I get a 4 ton Daikin Fit do you think just multiply your results by 2.7 would get me close to what my system wattage would be?

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

It’s typically close to 1000 watts per ton. So a 4 ton should pull 4000 watts or so. In boost mode that may go to 6000 or 7000 to maintain full output to 5F.

[@winly7450]

I just replaced an old 13 SEER single stage unit with furnace with a 17SEER Daikin Fit Heat pump. I ran into two problems. 1) Surprisingly, there was absolutely no energy savings on my summer power bill. 2) It produces a loud buzzing noise in the wall in the winter. No real good reasons given for why the Daikin Fit wasn't more energy efficient. The manufacturer says the Daikin line sets run at higher pressures in general and especially in the winter. And this likely causes this buzzing in the walls. They suggest running the line set up the wall externally to remove the buzzing noise. Are you getting the buzzing noise in the wall or as much power savings as expected? Any feed back would be helpful. THANKS!!

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

Do you have ducts that run outside the heated/cooled space in your home?

[@winly7450]

@@NatetheHouseWhisperer The ducts are in the attic, as well as the blower unit. The ducts run through the attic and open into vents in the ceiling of each room. I assume the ducts are well insulated. But even if they aren't, I expected that with keeping the old ducts and replacing the HVAC, there should be some relative improvement with obvious savings in power bill. However, that said my current biggest concern is the loud buzzing coming from the line set. Will running them up the outside wall of house then into the attic help to remove the buzzing noise (they currently run up the inside of the wall into the attic. Loud buzzing at base of wall where the line set is). And will it have any noticeable loss on the energy efficiency? THANKS in advance!

[@Yovanny276]

Getting this system. Is this system good for ny suburban weather? I’m a bit nervous for I’ve had oil all my life.

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

As long as it’s sized pretty well and you have a bit of resistance backup it should be fine! How many gallons of oil do you usually use per year?

[@ABC-wz2db]

Do I remember you saying it doesn’t dehumidify very well? Will you install a dehumidifier? Can this unit reheat? Thx

[@hvac2.038]

The Daikin Fit does a pretty good job at dehumidification, I noticed that if the daytime high hit 75F our two houses would stay pretty dry, in the 45-55% RH range or so. Once highs went below that we need a dehumidifier because it doesn't have reheat dehumidification. The Bosch on our house is horrific at dehumidification.

[@angelh7880]

Hi Nate. We are thinking of getting the Fit 2T installed replacing the 30y oil furnace. What is the coldest temperature this unit will work? We get cold snaps in Canada that can drop to -30 Celsius. Also do you know the average kw per hour usage? We have solar panels on the roof & we will need to add more with the new heat pump to avoid electric bill. Hope this makes sense. What ap are you using to monitor the usage of your heat pump?

[@tekjunkie28]

How critical is it to size these units properly? My heat load is supposedly around 28-30kBTUs and my cooling is around 1.9 tons. Duct work is in the attic with 1158 sqft brick home from 1972. I’m replacing a 3 ton HP and removing 1 single flex run to the basement. I was thinking of going with a 2.5 ton (27.4K BTUs for the fit 2.5) but I was worried it would be oversized in cooling.

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

There are a lot of considerations there. Generally we size between heating and cooling and make up with strip heat, then have some sort of dehumidifier in addition to that for shoulder seasons. I'd want to see more about how the load was arrived at. If you want a more definitive answer, you might buy an hour: www.natethehousewhisperer.com/contact.html

[@tekjunkie28]

@@NatetheHouseWhisperer I talked with my company that done the energy audit. They are a well respected and certified company so I feel their thought are good. They agreed that with my loads that a Daikin fit would work. They were worried about being oversized in the summer and my loads vary quite a bit with kids and people in and out all summer long. I know it’s not in manualJ but we have a lot of people over during the summer so I’m over 2 tones more often then not.

[@victorsr6708]

Did you get the duct tested for leaks? Most homes ducting leak about 35% so regardless of the efficiency of the unit they system will NOT be efficient. How about your return grills, are they sized properly?? You need 200 sq” per ton of open grill space. I find most homes have an undersized return as well as leaky ducting, both are a major contributing factor to comfort and energy savings

[@tekjunkie28]

@@victorsr6708 I sealed my own ducts but I’ve had modifications done so I’m sure I need to fix some things. I have 2 20x25 return grilles with merv 13. My static pressure tested at 0.25 with merv 11 filters at install. My fit is extremely efficient but my duct system is still crap. I have weird issues like the units runs but the bedrooms maintain temp but the living room gets too cold. Then during the day is the opposite. Living room feels warm and bedrooms are at setpoint

[@diannebeech4405]

I just got this same system install in my house. I haven’t received my first electric bill yet since it was installed. With the system running constantly, 50 minutes out of a hour I’m freaking out my electric bill will be sky high! Help me understand how this is good.

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

What's the usage? If it's running at low output almost all the time, that's typically more efficient - better coefficient of performance and less power for the fan. You can predict your electric bill, what does it say?

[@tekjunkie28]

Did you get your electric bills yet? How were they? I’m thinking about getting this installed in my house

[@diannebeech4405]

Yes I have two bills since installing and they are very low. One thing I will say is this system runs A LOT. It is designed to do that which I have learned from my HVAC team. It really worried me until I got my first bill but they assured me it’s not pulling the amps that would make the bill high. I have 1300 square foot house and my system is gas. My electric bill was $148 the first month with my thermostat set at 67 degrees ( I like it cool). We had maybe 4 days in single digits the rest of the month(Nov) was 30-40. The this second month was $168.

[@diannebeech4405]

Yes I have two bills since installing and they are very low. One thing I will say is this system runs A LOT. It is designed to do that which I have learned from my HVAC team. It really worried me until I got my first bill but they assured me it’s not pulling the amps that would make the bill high. I have 1300 square foot house and my system is gas. My electric bill was $148 the first month with my thermostat set at 67 degrees ( I like it cool). We had maybe 4 days in single digits the rest of the month(Nov) was 30-40. The this second month was $168.

[@diannebeech4405]

Yes I have two bills since installing and they are very low. One thing I will say is this system runs A LOT. It is designed to do that which I have learned from my HVAC team. It really worried me until I got my first bill but they assured me it’s not pulling the amps that would make the bill high. I have 1300 square foot house and my system is gas. My electric bill was $148 the first month with my thermostat set at 67 degrees ( I like it cool). We had maybe 4 days in single digits the rest of the month(Nov) was 30-40. The this second month was $168.

[@buddy7485]

So do u save alot of energy or not

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

Depends on how you define a lot. What does that mean to you?

[@zalmaiaiamodin6831]

Hello what app is this you are using to track the electrical costs?

[@NatetheHouseWhisperer]

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