You have an electric (resistive) furnace? That is the issue.

Any need for Air Conditioning?

What does "furnace no heat pump" mean? If you're all electric and your heat is NOT a heat pump, then it must be resistance heat, which is the most expensive.

Where are you located?

Wish I had said that!

"When the furnace is on, you can look down this vent and see directly into the furnace coils-orange glowing!!"

Sounds like an electric furnace.

16' ceilings doubles (essentially) the square footage (doubles the volume that needs to be heated. 24' triples it. The rules of thumb that goes by square footage assumes 8' ceilings.

7308 KWH's Seems high? LOL. That has to be the understatement of the year so far.

That said given your climate, all electric home, using resistive heat... I would look to see how many heat strips you have.

Nebraska is pretty cold climate... so with electric strip heat you're gonna pay. It's expensive no way around that other than to minimize it... installing a heat pump is a good way to do that.

There could be a short on one or more of the resistance strips. In some cases a short will keep the strips energized / pulling power when they should be off. This happens when a short doesn't result in tripping the breaker. Instead it energizes the "load" when it should otherwise be off.

Because the "load" no longer shuts off it runs all the time, thus increasing electricity consumption.

It may be how you're using it and what you've grown accustomed to in a previous gas heated home. As gas generates a lot of heat for much less cost. You can't run electric strip heat like that and not pay for it.

Best place to start is to make sure that when loads are off, they are truly off and not somehow shorted to keep running. Beyond that if no shorts are found you modify your behavior in how you run it / set points and so on.

Start investigating heat pump options, or cost to run gas to the home. Natural gas is really the cheapest form of heat there is. Heat pumps can work, but if it were me for your climate I would look to high efficiency gas.

Heat pumps work by pulling heat from the air outside... the colder it gets, the harder this is too do. In some cases you may not have a choice or you may be forced to use propane which has a list of pros and cons as well.

If I was forced to use heat pump for your climate I would look to inverter based heat pumps. I think those offer the best performance for colder climates.

I service the Katy, Texas area.

When I last looked, electric resistance heat is the most expensive, closely followed by propane. NG and oil are farther down the cost ladder and wood is the cheapest. The absolute cheapest is probably putting in more insulation and being satisfied with a lower indoor temperature.

HVAC guy is suggesting 2 options
1-remove the a/c and install a 14 seer heat pump compatible with our air handler 5 yr warranty
2- change the whole system to a RUUD brand heat pump and air handler 10 yr warranty

our current furnace model WAXL604A
VOLTS 208/230
3/4 MOTOR HP
DATE OF MANUFACTURE NOV 17

What do you all suggest we go with, is one over the other going to save us more $ in the long haul? And I'm worried with the orange coils that keeping the current air handler is not a good option??
Thank You for all your time in looking at this and your answers!

5 Ton EcoTemp ECM Motor TXV Air Handler WAXL604A

Is the system we have, no heat pump currently, that is what our HVAC guy is proposing though.

1-remove the a/c and install a 14 seer heat pump compatible with our air handler 5 yr warranty
2- change the whole system to a RUUD brand heat pump and air handler 10 yr warranty

Re you able to do the math?

if not, ask the HVAC guy.

You're right, Stax, I forgot about heat pumps. (relatively) cheap to run, but expensive to purchase and install. But I do plan to get one this summer.

Your HVAC guy needs to provide what brand and model number he is proposing. The heat pump will also work as an AC in the summer. If you size the equipment for winter heating, it will likely over size it for cooling in the summer.

The heat pump, if it is sized and installed properly, should cut your heating bill my at least half, and mostly likely down to a third compared to what you currently are paying. Post your electric rate and a cost savings can be calculated. It will be interesting to see how short the pay back period could be.

7308 KWH cost us $408.20

It may be an expensive winter for you.

LOL thanks Jim!

I'm waiting on our electric company to give me the previous owners usage for last winter and then he can work me up the savings. Currently he estimated and with that it says we'll recover our initial cost in 5years and 7months. I'll know more tomorrow! Thanks!

Your electric rate is $.056per KWh? Where I live the rate is triple what you pay. I understand why homes in your area have electric furnaces.

"WannaBeARapper: 7308 KWH cost us $408.20"

It'd be $964.88 here per the rate on my latest bill, assuming there's no rate-break at high usage points.

What do you all suggest we go with, is one over the other going to save us more $ in the long haul? And I'm worried with the orange coils that keeping the current air handler is not a good option??
Thank You for all your time in looking at this and your answers!

My opinion is that what your HVAC guy is recommending you are poor choices for your climate.

Most of your winter time is spent below 32F. That is a problem for heat pumps because they frost over. This means that performance drops, emergency back up heat required which in your case is electric strip heat.

a regular on and off heat pump (1 stage on or off) is likely to freeze even in 40F weather. Your climate is also known to snow. If the coils to the outdoor unit get blocked with snow / ice / frost performance drops causing defrost cycles. No heat is produced by heat pump in defrost cycling so this causes electric strip heat to run.

Heat pumps are sized for heating load in your climate. So in summer time they are commonly oversized for cooling, as someone already stated.

Avoid the brand trap. This brand or that brand. You need to pay attention to what the equipment does and how it does it. Inverter is the way to go as performance is much better. Does this mean an inverter will never go into defrost? No, that's not what it means.

But an inverter has the capability to deliver heat at much lower temps than an on or off single stage heat pump. Bosch Inverter is one such brand. There are risks with this brand so you will need to investigate. Here's a recent thread from a couple of years ago...

Another advantage to a Bosch Inverter is that due to it's stepping or ramping nature you won't get any ill effects from it being over sized for heating when running it in cooling mode.

All major brands make Inverter heat pumps. Just realize that the differences between these are in how they are controlled and in some cases the inverter is limited in the number of speeds.

A brand is a brand... there are a myriad of ways to do something. Some ways cost more than others when you are comparing apples to apples. Meaning that you compare the inverter to another inverter.

It's not saying you can't install a regular heat pump and that it won't reduce your bill / usage. It just won't be as good mostly because of your climate situation, the need for defrost which ultimately requires the need for back up heat via your electric resistance heating.

Have you thought about just heating a room or two with room heaters. Dressing accordingly?

Re wood heat being inexpensive, wood heat is not inexpensive if you have to buy the wood, and can be dangerous.

I would spend more money and get more SEER, which usually gets you more HSPF (heat) at a lower power usage. Also, I agree with invertor technology in that they will keep working at lower temperatures, like in the teens.

Also, I agree with invertor technology in that they will keep working at lower temperatures, like in the teens.

According to my literature inverter tech produces heat down to 5F. Where as a single speed heat pump condenser is probably going to have a lot of trouble past 25F.

The key to save money against using heat strips is to get that heat pump to run more. In very cold climate it's a good challenge in most cases.

Another option is duel fuel, like hope for the best plan for the worst type thing. It would complicate things more but if you ever get a bone chiller for any extended time below 5F... well a duel fuel would be a handy set up to have.

The other fuel would likely be propane in this case... as if natural gas was available it makes all this a moot point. Select the highest efficient furnace you can get 96% 97% etc. Convert it to propane, set up heat pump with duel fuel kit.

The heat pump runs as long as outside temp stays up to a determined cut off point. Like maybe 6F or so. Because propane isn't cheap, it's used primarily as a worst case type thing.

Once they get our gas fireplace in, which hopefully is in a few weeks, I'd like to then see how that helps with the electric bill. I was just more concerned about the duct where I could look down into the heart of the furnace-thinking that could not be right! We blocked off some vents to the basement-2 closed off/2 are still open. (unfinished basement-no one currently uses)

Fireplaces rarely produce much usable heat in my experience unless you are sitting by it. They look pretty, romantic and all that... but when it gets cold that romance typically ends along with having to clean them out if you're not using ceramic logs. BUT if you're using ceramic logs... you're burning gas for no real production of heat. Most of it goes right up the flue.

Unless it's a wood stove type appliance then it's not likely to offset much except for the room it's in. The other rooms of the house will remain bone cold. Ultimately it depends on how you plan to use it... using it as a function to heat a home well fireplaces were never intended for that purpose. Why you have an HVAC system that produces heat? (function over form)

So you have gas available... sounds to me like once you figure out the fireplace doesn't produce enough heat you install a gas furnace. Unless of course you live in the room that the fireplace is in... but even then I doubt it will be that comfortable as there is no control to the amount of heat you get out of a fireplace.

Control? = thermostat. Without that? It's either too hot or too cold.