[ducati1974]

Ohiogirl- I'm not sure what you're saying there- I'm an HVAC contractor and I can tell you all the heat pumps used here in TV are ELECTRIC heat pumps. One company (YORK) experimented with a natural gas fired engine that ran a compressor in a heat pump but discontinued it after a short time. So... if you have a heat pump its electric, if you have natural or LP gas heat its more than likely a forced warm air furnace in Florida. (may be a boiler further north) Too much information?

[Ohiogirl]

Sorry I confused people - I was responding (in my mind) to the person who posted about whether or not you could/should use setback thermostats with electric heat pumps.

I have gas forced air here. That's what they were putting in when we bought (2006). It came with a setback thermostat and we use it. I love it.

Now TV is building exclusively all-electric homes with heat pumps. According to what I heard (and what I was told 30 years ago in Ohio when I had an electric heat pump in an all-electric home for a short time) on the radio yesterday, one should not adjust an electric heat pump thermostat more than 2 degrees at a time as it is inefficient and costs more to do so. i.e., you could use a setback thermostat, but you should only adjust it up or down by no more than 2 degrees at a time.

If you wanted it cooler at night, could adjust it (the thermostat for an electric heat pump) down gradually with maybe 2 hour intervals in between temp changes. I hope this is a clearer explanation of what I was attempting to explain.