Hallowell Acadia update

OK I have not posted on my blog for a while, but I figured I'd share the results of the Hallowell heat pumps.

For the 2 month period 05-Jan-2010 to 02-Mar-2010, I used a total of 6465 killowatts, for which NYSEG charged me $746.67. So that is 373.33, for the 2 coldest months of the year.

That covers all of my electric usage - lights, appliances, plasma tv, etc, an 80 gallon electric water heater, and the Hallowell system. I keep the temperature set at 68 all day, and 65 at night (1 am to 9 am).

I am extremely happy with that. I would estimate that my electric water heater accounts for about $80 per month. The lights, appliances, plasma tv, etc I am guessing to be $100-$120. Which would leave my Hallowell heating cost at around $183 per month for Jan and Feb.

If I had been heating my house with oil (natural gas not available here), I would have to believe I would have gone through a 275 gallon tank in 3 weeks or less. Thats how much usage I had at 2 prior houses, which were half the size of the new one, but less well insulated. So lets say 13 gallons of oil, for 57 days is 746 gallons. At a price of $2.40 a gallon, that would have cost me $1792 (or $896) for the same time period.

That sounds shocking to me? Anything wrong with my math? $183 for Hallowell, $896 for oil?

Here are my actual bills:

January Bill

February Bill


UPDATE: PLEASE READ MY OTHER POSTS ABOUT THE HALLOWELL ACADIA. I'm having compressor problems like many other Hallowell Acadia Owners...

Also if you deal/install/own a Hallowell Acadia, please join the Hallowell Acadia Google Group.
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Hallowell Arcadia - cold weather heat pump

OK so I've been researching like crazy, trying to find the best way to heat my dream house. This is probably my biggest worry in this whole project. Oil heat is just going to be too expensive. I've been thinking that geothermal is my only reasonable long-term option. So I e-mailed a whole bunch of geothermal installers in my area, and one of them came back to me with a much cheaper, but almost as efficient system: the Hallowell Acadia cold weather heat pump.

I sort of ignored this suggestion, but then a week later I Google'd the thing. Well I almost crapped myself. It seems to good to be true, and you know what they say about things like that. The cost would be less than the combined cost of a Hydro-Air cooling system plus an oil burner heating system.

Does anybody know if this is real, or just a scam/scheme??? Please, pass along any information you have about this system.

And I'm going to collect links about this system. I'm sure you could find these same links yourself with a Google search...

The company website:
http://www.gotohallowell.com/

Some dudes named Kevin and John seem to have installed Hallowell Acadias in their own homes:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?forumID=50&threadID=301971&start=30&tag=forum-w;forums06
You can also find other references to the Hallowell Arcadia if you search the CNET forums.

A story with a video of the Acadia system:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/Acadia-heating-beats-the-cost-of-oil-/1216432211.html

McGuire Air Force Base, Fort Dix and Marlboro NJ residents Phyllis and Seymour Garr install Acadias:
http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2008/0724/front_page/003.html

WCVB TV Boston (ABC channel 5) runs a story on the Acadia:
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/asseenon5/16831616/detail.html

Architect Ed Nilsson of Marblehead MA, installs an Acadia:
http://www.dailynewstribune.com/state/x1542098757/Home-features-two-energy-saving-systems

Yup, even on Bob Villa's website:
http://www.bobvila.com/OnTheLevel/Big-Energy-Savings-for-the-DoD-2982.html

CNET green news article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9859871-54.html?tag=cd.blog

An article in the Architectural Record:
http://archrecord.construction.com/resources/conteduc/archives/0603edit-1.asp

An article from the Reuters newswire:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS127072+10-Mar-2008+PRN20080310

Not sure who the lazy environmentalist is:
http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com/pages/2008/01/efficiency_and.php

Last but not least, a thread I started on heatinghelp.com:
http://forums.invision.net/Index.cfm?CFApp=2&Message_ID=412460