Quilt update: three months of heat pump living
Air conditioning is amazing; fancy mood lighting on an HVAC unit is awesome; it’s not great to need the Internet to turn on the air conditioning, and other assorted experiences.
It's been hard to think about what to say after three months of having my Quilt heat pump system (read about the installation process here, if you missed the first installment!), other than: holy bananas, I have air-conditioning now and my entire life is different and my home is livable in a way that it profoundly was not before.
So I'll start by saying that if you only get a heat pump installed for air-conditioning, that all by itself will be a game changer. Hallelujah. Everything hallelujah!
But let me attempt a more thorough evaluation, because I do, in fact, have thoughts and recommendations.
General heat pump thoughts
My first recommendation for those of you getting a heat pump installed is to spend a good amount of time asking what the final installation will look like.
How big will the units be?
What will the electrical and conduits look like?
What will the impact be on your outdoor space in terms of sight and sound?
In an ideal scenario, the pumps and pipes and such would go somewhere unobtrusive like the side of the house or under some stairs or the back of a yard or similar. But not everyone has that kind of setup — I, for one, do not. So this installation is now a very visible part of my house and my backyard.
The placement of the units was dictated by the fact that outdoor condensers have to be within100 feet of the indoor units, I believe. But had I known more, I might have asked a few more questions about how to minimize their presence and all the wiring. This is, I think, definitely dependent on your installer, and to be honest, I feel like my team did a really nice job hiding the wiring, the conduit covers generally match the house, like it’s not appalling or anything, it’s just … quite noticeable.
On the plus side, the Quilt heat pumps are not loud, especially not compared to the heat pump I use to heat my swimming pool. They do blow either cold or hot air, depending on whether they’re cooling or heating (cooling produces hot air, and heating produces cold air), but I haven’t found it too disruptive to outdoor activities.
The big caveat there, of course, is that I live in Northern California, so uh, they’re hardly ever on.
Thoughts on Quilt
Ok, so let’s talk Quilt specifically. The big benefits of this product are the looks, the room-by-room control, and the smartness of the system.
After three months, here’s my verdict:
Looks: A
As I mentioned, the outdoor units look good compared to other heat pumps. They’re not entirely unobtrusive (I do sort of wish they were white, or that there was an option), but they’re good-looking hardware.
However, the indoor mini-splits are unobtrusive and even downright attractive. My absolute favorite feature, actually, is the lighting built in to each split. I haven’t had a party yet, but when I do, I will absolutely be activating the lighting effects for added sparkle, and lighting up the art that’s underneath the bedroom units. I programmed the light in the living room to come on every night from 10 pm to 5 am at a nice, sepia, half-brightness so that it serves as a nightlight in case someone needs a midnight snack or the dogs are feeling scared of the dark. I absolutely adore it.
In terms of controls, I mostly leave the downstairs units off entirely, and it makes me feel delighted and smug when the heat or cooling has turned on upstairs and I know that I'm not wasting any energy on the basement office or my son's room, when he’s away at school.
I set each unit up in heat/cool mode, and programmed it to turn the heat on below 62°, and turn the air conditioning on above 71 or 72. As I mentioned, I live in Northern California, and so the outcome of these parameters is that the system almost never comes on. I know. I hate me, too.
But what I have noticed quite distinctly is that the temperature sensing from the unit is completely different room to room. I'm actually considering buying some external thermostats just to test this, but I will notice for example that the air-conditioning will turn on in the living room, but it's not on in my bedroom, even though my bedroom is noticeably and significantly warmer than the front room. I'm assuming this is because the units themselves must have built-in temperature sensors, and so for example, the sun directly hits the wall where the living room unit lives, so maybe it is thinking it's hotter inside than it is.
As a result, I have had to tweak my formula for each room a little more often than I was expecting. I was hoping for more of a “set it and forget it” situation, but I do end up fussing with the temperature settings quite a bit.
In fact, I’d say that while the actual heating and cool are profoundly and almost infinitely more pleasant, quiet, and enjoyable than my big dumb loud gas heater, the thing I actually miss is my Nest thermostat. I wish the Quilt system had a little more learning built in, like presence sensing, so that it might start cooling when I’m in the room. I was also wishing it had auto-away, but as I was writing this, I double-checked the settings and found that there is an option to enable auto-away, which I turned on so that it can automatically put itself in standby when there’s no motion in the room. (I'm not sure if I missed that at first or if it was added later, most likely I missed it.)
The other reason I miss the Nest is that the actual physical thermostats, which Quilt called Dials, are a bit of a pain to use. I haven't figured out how to set a default room, and it's not extremely intuitive to figure out how to swipe between the rooms — it actually took me a week or two to figure out that if I swipe side to side, I can rotate through all four rooms. But I haven't figured out how to control the lights or change any of the temperature settings using the thermostats, so you definitely spend a lot of time in the app.
That's not a terribly big deal, and the app is very good, but my one big disappointment was that I have yet to figure out how to successfully “share the house” with my son. It's an option in the app, and I thought it was super cool that when he got home for the summer, I'd be able to just send him this little link, he could install the app and then be up and running and controlling the unit in his bedroom or anywhere else. But it didn't work that way at all, the app wanted him to fully configure a whole new house by scanning all the QR codes on all the units.
As a late-stage teenager, he couldn't be bothered with more experimentation, he just moved the Dial into his room. But as a result, I think he's less impressed with the system than I am. Although obviously, like me, he is really enjoying having air-conditioning.
And finally, I encountered one extremely large drawback to a smart HVAC system when, one warm day just as I was about to turn on the AC, my internet went out. Not the power, just the internet connection. It was down for a few hours, during which I couldn’t do anything but sweat. Even the Dials were cute little hockey puck bricks. I poked around to see if I could find any physical controls on the units themselves, but there aren’t any. That … was a bummer.
The Quilt FAQ notes the following regarding ongoing usage of a Quilt system: “A software update rolling out soon will allow the Dial Thermostat to communicate directly with your indoor unit over your home Wi-Fi network — no internet connection required. So even if your internet goes down, you stay in control as long as your Wi-Fi is running.”
So I’ll be staying tuned for that; the same FAQ answer also notes that the mini splits have IR receivers built in, in case of some future where the company itself doesn't exist. I might actually consider ordering a couple of inexpensive IR remotes just for my own personal prepper peace of mind.
On a side note, this occurrence also made me think that it would be really cool if these mini-splits or pumps had batteries built in, in case of complete power outage, which also happens here a lot. A note for the future!
On the positive side of the smart-home column, I did get an over-the-air update to my Quilt system recently that added a “drying” setting, for dehumidification, which was an immediate demonstration of how cool it is to be able to add features to a software-connected system. I haven’t had cause to use it yet (see above re: Northern California), but that seems real nice to have in other parts of the country.
Ok, now, as for cost comparison, I’m saving that until I have a little more cool weather data. I suspect that my summertime rate won't change very much or might even be a tiny bit more than previous summers, because previously I didn't have air conditioning. I did have fans and standalone air, conditioners, and things like that, so perhaps it's comparable, but I'd like to have a solid data set to play with before I pronounce anything in the savings department.
Oh, and in case you don’t want to read all that, here it is in video form! Oh, too late, you already read it. Fooled you! And one final editors note before we go: Quilt provided me with the condensers and mini-splits free of charge, and I paid for installation. As part of our review agreement, they have agreed to an unbiased review and I have not cleared any of my thoughts or statements with them in advance, or asked for any support outside normal channels (or even through normal channels, at least so far!).