My Experience With a 12k Minisplit Heat Pump in Negative Degree Weather

[alcook62]

I ordered and installed a Pioneer 12k Diamante Inverter + in July of '23 and have been very pleased with it. Summertime performance was great, especially compared to the 12k window shaker it replaced.
What has absolutely amazed me, however, is the cold weather performance. Right now Wyoming is under the effects of a stunner of a cold front that had overnight temps hit -33 in my area last night. Currently, at 2:00 pm, Alexa tells me the current temp is -12. I am running my mini split in heat mode and according to my infrared thermometer, this thing is putting out 102.7 degrees of heat!
I don't know if this is a particularly good temperature or not, but it's pretty cool to me. The manufacturer said it would heat down to -15, which is one of the reasons I purchased this model. I hope to offset my winter propane bill and since I'm totally off the grid I power it for free.
Anyways, for anyone looking for a viable secondary source of heat, I can recommend the new mini split heat pumps.

 

[Brucey]

I ordered and installed a Pioneer 12k Diamante Inverter + in July of '23 and have been very pleased with it. Summertime performance was great, especially compared to the 12k window shaker it replaced.
What has absolutely amazed me, however, is the cold weather performance. Right now Wyoming is under the effects of a stunner of a cold front that had overnight temps hit -33 in my area last night. Currently, at 2:00 pm, Alexa tells me the current temp is -12. I am running my mini split in heat mode and according to my infrared thermometer, this thing is putting out 102.7 degrees of heat!
I don't know if this is a particularly good temperature or not, but it's pretty cool to me. The manufacturer said it would heat down to -15, which is one of the reasons I purchased this model. I hope to offset my winter propane bill and since I'm totally off the grid I power it for free.
Anyways, for anyone looking for a viable secondary source of heat, I can recommend the new mini split heat pumps.

What kind of power is it pulling? How often is it running a defrost cycle (my understanding is that's a fairly heavy power hit when it gets really cold).

 

[alcook62]

What kind of power is it pulling? How often is it running a defrost cycle (my understanding is that's a fairly heavy power hit when it gets really cold).

You're understanding regarding power during extreme cold weather is correct. At the time it was pulling ~1300 watts according to my Kill-a-Watt meter. The defrost cycling is a bit harder to pin down. I've seen it defrost a few times (the first time I thought it had caught fire!) but it doesn't do it enough to be noticeable. I would say it probably happens about once an hour?

 

[Quattrohead]

Yes please try and capture it's load in watts or amps when it's doing a defrost.

 

[alcook62]

Yes please try and capture it's load in watts or amps when it's doing a defrost.

I'll try that as soon as my house batts are topped off. I'll hope and catch it during a defrost cycle but I haven't really had it long enough to reliably predict those.

 

[alcook62]

Yes please try and capture it's load in watts or amps when it's doing a defrost.

OK - Took a bit to see that happen. I did catch it during a defrost and it was pulling ~1225 watts during the roughly 2-minute defrost. It ramped down from 950 watts during the heating cycle to ~215 watts for a few seconds and then the heating kicked in and it rapidly went up again around 1225 for a couple minutes. Neat to verify how this works. Thanks for the homework!