As long as you keep the heating strips from turning on in the heat pump, it is the most cost effective. Usually, there is a little indicator on the thermostat to tell you when the heat strips turn on. The only way to keep them off on some units is to keep the inside temp setting low enough to keep the chill off in really cold conditions.
Heat pump, it’s an air conditioner that will take heat from the outside air and when the outside gets cold enough will automatically switch to electric resistance heat.
This assumes properly sized and operating equipment.
Put some socks and another shirt on.
I also live in Florida. Shorts and a t-shirt aren’t meant to be worn ALL the time ya know.
Once temperatures start to go below about 27 degrees heat pumps are no more efficient than resistance heat (your electric units).
The heat pump is, by far, the most efficient. Electricity runs the compressor but extra heat is achieved by changing a gas to a liquid, and vice versa at the expansion valve. It turns your house into a giant refrigerator, giving you the ability to reverse the location of the condenser and the evaporator, depending upon the season. Fireplaces, especially those that don’t use outside air for combustion, will actually cool your home except for the area right in front of the flame.
We have a wood stove and a electric central heating and air conditioning system, plus some little electric space heaters (some ceramic), and one big electric fake “fireplace”. The electric fake “fireplace” had to be abandoned because it just ate electricity prohibitively. It’s cute, but not practical. - We close the doors to the upstairs rooms, leaving them cracked just enough in the bathroom at the head of the stairs especially to keep the pipes from freezing. We use the woodstove as an adjunct to the central system, which we keep set on about 66 with the woodstove running on slow burning wood most of the time. Along with the central system set at 66, it never gets really cold in the house - AND the woodstove keeps the floor above it warm and toasty in that bedroom where husband does some limited work. The little space heaters we use in a very limited way, exercising safety precautions with them; the wood stove, too, being careful to use soot removing logs and sweeping the pipes with a wire chimney sweeper. Even if we have to buy a bit of firewood one day, it’s still good auxiliary heat and dependable if we should have a power outage (which we have had lasting days in the past). - We also wear enough clothes in the house that we don’t feel like we have to jack the temp setting up to try to be like Florida in order to be comfortable. I think we sleep better at night if it is not ramped up on high heat or the woodstove ripping and tearing. - Getting up and keeping the circulation working in the body is also a good thing. Our electric bill, including everything else, has always been very reasonable.
The heat pump, being a reverse refrigeration cycle, is more efficient in normal temperatures.
Problem is that a heat pump doesn’t work well (if at all) in extremely cold weather. At low temperatures, the heat is supplied by an electric resistance strip.
Amazing....
You’re better off keeping the lower floors warmer imo as heat rises and will eventually make its way upstairs. I would suggest keeping the T-stats low but not off, keep them at 60F if need be but if you go from freezing to 72F you’re just defeating any savings.
If you have electric hot water don’t forget to turn down both elements (if you have two) to about 130F - they run 24 x 7 and can really eat into your bill. Shower with a friend.
If your COP Coefficient of Performance is 10 it means that the heat pump puts out 10 Kw for each Kw put in. Check out the specs of your heat pump first. If is is an old unit it may be much less.
The heat pump has to be cheaper. It will extract heat from the outside air and place it in your house. Also the electricity used by the heat pump unit will be converted to heat as it runs the compressor and that too will brought inside and result in heating. Only during the coldest nights would the electric resistance heating the air handler have to come on, and I’ll bet that is very rare in Florida. (I assume you’re in Florida.)
The least expensive option is a sweater and mittens. Just keep the house warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Presuming you live where it gets below freezing, right?
I can remember, and if the economy doesn’t get any better I may have to do again, nailing up blankets over the windows to keep the cold out and the heat in. May not look pretty on the inside but keeps it warmer! Good luck.
Something else you can do is go to Lowes or Home Depot and get a can of Great Stuff for about $5-$6 and go around to all your outside walls, remove the electric wall plates and seal around the electrical boxes.
As an aside to your question you can if you haven’t done so already do some things to help reduce the load on your heat pump/strip heaters. Caulking is cheap and isn’t that hard to apply around doors, windows, eaves, pipes, etc. to help stop air infiltration. Also look at your door/window seals and replace if worn or not stopping air movement. Depending upon your attic insulation you may look at adding some as a do it yourself project.
Heat pumps will be cheaper to operate than strip heat although at some point they will need their auxillary strips to kick in to help. Good luck.
I’m not a HVAC tech, nor do I play one on TV. I can only speak from experience in Phoenix.
Heat pump I’ve had for years is good for raising the outside temperature in the ‘30’s to 75 degrees inside, but more importantly, reduces 120 outside to 75 degrees inside.
Works well for those cases.
“Electric fireplace”... Huh?
If it’s 1500 Watts, that’s the same as a blow dryer. Sounds like a toy rather than a heating device.