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Another way to interpret these changes is to expect housing to become more expensive as heat pumps are more expensive than using (existing) gas infrastructure.

Another way to interpret these changes is to expect housing to become more expensive as heat pumps are more expensive than using (existing) gas infrastructure. Random anecdote: in New Jersey installing a Mitsubishi hyper-heat heat-pump in a 8 room house (4 bedroom + 2 bathroom + living room + kitchen) is much more expensive than running hot water baseboard in all rooms. And with most heat pumps you can usually only zone 4-6 heads per compressor, so you'd need two compressors. A single compressor is probably pulling 50 amps alone, so you'd need 100 amps available usually for your breakers. For reference, a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house, not just HVAC. Drastic upgrades in electric infrastructure will be required. Heat pumps heat more efficiently than gas, but I wouldn't be surprised to see in the near future some sort of rolling blackout and thousands of people freezing to death because we went all-in on electric. Will these buildings also have generators to combat this potential problem? Ideally we could just use existing gas lines and another, man-made produced gas through the same lines that's carbon neutral or negative. I'm excited to see the development of heat pumps, though. I'm not a huge fan of the forced-air heat pumps. I hope something like a radiator-heat-pump can be made soon.

Spooky23 5y ago
Agreed. I live in the northeast and just looked into retrofit heating systems. For a house with radiators, the heat pump solution is a 4x capital expense, or 2-3x more if you put ugly/noisy split systems everywhere. I’m all for accelerating innovation, but these stupid bans need to be paired with meaningful incentives.
esaym 5y ago
My 4 ton heat pump draws 11.5 amps. Not sure where you get 50. And a heat pump is just a regular a/c unit, only it has a reversing valve. At the bottom end, you are looking at an extra $500-$1000 for a heat pump vs regular a/c. Adding a gas furnace adds at least $2000.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  You can get 4 heads installed and a condenser for $1000 vs regular AC? The Mitsubishi hyper heat 36K BTU draws 50 amps.
sxates 5y ago
My house used to have a gas furnace, gas water heater, and gas cooking. When our power was out, none of those appliances worked. Gas doesn't save you in a power outage, unless you have some kind of gas fireplace, but even then a widespread long-term outage is likely to affect the gas infrastructure as well.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  You can actually use a gas furnace, water heater and cook without electricity. You just have to manually light the pilot. For obvious reasons this isn't recommended as you're dealing with combustibles, but if the alternative is freezing to death, well...
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Most (all?) powered-vent systems will refuse to work without electricity to keep the gas valve open. But the gas cooktop should work without problem if you light it with a match/lighter.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      You're right in that they generally don't with electricity, but again if you have the know-how you can manually keep it open and light the pilot. Again, definitely don't do this, but in a scenario where the alternative is that you freeze to death, it's possible to do so safely. With modern combi boilers (tankless hot water + boiler) I believe your point stands. edit: I mention this mainly because in Texas last winter some people froze to death during their electricity crisis.
      - grayfaced 5y ago
        And carbon monoxide poisoning was common in Texas too. I'm not sure city-wide having novices tinker with gas equipment would save more lives.
        5y ago
Scoundreller 5y ago
Part of it comes down to an air conditioner just being a heat pump that works one way only, so there’s fairly easy opportunity to build in some efficient heating capacity going forward without much incremental cost by installing reversible systems. The other thing is that a heat pump can be so efficient, that it’s net beneficial to burn nat gas at a power plant and use that electricity to run a heat pump. But this all falls apart near and below freezing temperatures. NYC will still want to have direct-burn natural gas heating for cold days because that’ll be more efficient than resorting to resistive heating.
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  TIL - I always thought that heat pump and air conditioning were just different ways of saying the same thing - here in NZ, I don't think I've ever seen a heat-only heat pump.
  - NoahKAndrews 5y ago
    We don't have heat-only heat pumps, we have cooling-only air conditioning.
  - rkowalick 5y ago
    To clarify, in the US, there are two commonly used HVAC heat pumps: - A/C units, which can only cool a room but can’t heat it up - Heat Pumps, which typically do both.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      What’s particularly frustrating is that the only thing that separates one from the other is the inclusion of a $20 reversing valve[1], and some software that can use it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversing_valve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversing_valve
      - mlyle 5y ago
        Well, that and you tend to split heat pump systems instead of pumping around warm air to pick up efficiency. And the design of the condensers, etc, is a little different for efficiency and to cope with e.g. condensation outside.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
In Australia Gas is so expensive, we found it was cheaper to just put an electric heater in every room we wanted to heat. The only thing we on gas now is the cook top, so we plant to replace that as well.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Heat pump or resistive? Not familiar with Australia, is the electricity sourced from gas or coal, or something else?
  - fmakunbound 5y ago
    Resistive
    - jay_kyburz 5y ago
      I bought 4 Nobos. They are clean, quiet, fast enough, and best of all have a "lifetime warranty" that I plan to make use of when they die. https://www.nobo.com.au/en-au https://www.nobo.com.au/en-au
      - sgerenser 5y ago
        What am I missing? These things just look like fancy resistance heaters, exactly the same efficiency as a $15 space heater (significantly less efficient than a heat pump).
        jay_kyburz 5y ago
        No they are not efficient, but my power is almost free, and renewable. Heat pump hardware is very expensive and not as flexible.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Lots of Australian electricity comes from coal (about 60%).
audunw 5y ago
Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. I can't remember experiencing a blackout in like 15 years or so. As with many things, Norway may be special in many ways, but I can't help but think if you start building everything in society around electricity (and free up some of the money needed to maintain gas and other parallel energy distribution infrastructures), you'll make really damn sure that it works 100% of the time. I've heard that some keep propane heaters for backup/emergency. I have used one at a cabin and it's damn effective. Your example sounds really inefficient.. modern houses should have balanced ventilation, and you should only need one compressor and 2-3 heads. I installed a small balanced ventilation unit (TwinFresh) in a bedroom, and that helps keep the room warm by pulling in warm air from the hallway which is connected to the living room with the heat pump head. We also have some electrical heaters in the other bedrooms just to make sure it can't get too cold there. Though maybe my perspective is a bit warped: everyone I know likes to sleeping in a cold room.
- seneca 5y ago
  > Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. According to a quick Google search: "The current population of Norway is 5,483,767 as of Friday, December 24, 2021" and NY state is estimated at 20.2 million as of April 2020, and New York City at 8.8 million. It seems you appreciate that Norway is a special scenario. It seems silly to assume something that works there would work in a country that has single cities with larger populations, and states with around four times the population of your entire country.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. New York City could for example use a relatively shallow bore hole to gather geothermal energy and get “low grade” heat (50-100C) for district heating where such systems don’t really work for single family homes.
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      > Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. This may be so, but New York also has one of the oldest electrical grids on the planet. Upgrading it to support larger and larger populations is a challenge, not just to manage it overloading with the density, but also in terms of logistics. You can't just tear up a major street in New York and upgrade the electrical for a block, without causing massive logistics problems for the city. Upgrading New York's grid is going to be a huge challenge
aunty_helen 5y ago
I think you’re a factor of 5-10 out on your calculations. 2 outdoor units running 110V x 50amps is 11.0kW which using a base efficiency you can expect from a heat pump of 4:1 input electricity to heat results in 44kW of heating / cooling. If your 4 bedroom house needs 44kW of heating I would be looking at other winter warmers first, like buying glass for your windows. For comparison a reasonably large heat pump would have a heating cooling rating of 12kW
- endisneigh 5y ago
  My calculations were not talking about the usage of electricity, but the breakers the panels require. Hyper-heat models require 50 amp breakers and are 230V. Peak load usually only happens when the compressors cycle. The actual non-peak usage isn't that high as you've stated. Regardless the breakers must accommodate peak-load.
  - drusenko 5y ago
    Yes, electrifying everything will result in more peak demand which will require upgrading many house’s main panels. It’s not an insurmountable challenge though, especially relative to dealing with the effects of 2+ degrees of warming.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      You're missing my point - in the context of the article the issue is not upgrading the panels, it would be replacing the entire current electrical infrastructure. I'm not claiming it's insurmountable. The point is that these changes will increase the cost of housing, which will make people sprawl, the very same sprawl that will decrease the efficiency of the very same things we're talking about. There's a political, economic and cultural balance to be struck here, technology changes notwithstanding.
      - drusenko 5y ago
        A fully electrified home actually reduces overall system cost through 1- higher efficiency of electric appliances and heat pumps than their gas counterparts, and 2- a significantly reduced infrastructure cost to no longer having to maintain gas infrastructure, the totality of which (scouting, mining, transportation, last mile) is incredibly expensive. In fact, for new construction, it is often cheaper out the gate to go all electric and the efficiency savings in terms of lower electric+gas bills are significant and pure upside. Moving on to electric retrofits, they are expensive but not crazy expensive. On the order of $2500-7500 per SFH to wire 220/30-50 amp circuits to the right places (HVAC, stove, water heater, clothes dryer, EV charger) and maybe upgrade the main panel - a far cry from redoing the entire wiring. It’s not an insane proposition to think we could retrofit all existing housing stock in a 15 year period if we wanted to take it seriously. We are going to need more electricians though. Do you know what is actually really expensive? Billions or trillions of dollars in climate disaster losses and mitigation which we are seeing ramp up very quickly. If we continue burning fossil fuels even remotely like we are now, in 20 years time the losses we say today will look like peanuts in comparison. Buildings make up a very significant amount of the CO2e emissions (depending on the location, often tied #1 with transportation) so doing nothing here is not really an option.
gameswithgo 5y ago
It seems a general pattern that any suggested positive change in the world is resisted by assertions that “the infrastructure isn’t ready”. Of course it isn’t, nor was it ready when the city was first built using gas heating. We built it. We will build it again.
seattle_spring 5y ago
> a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house Is this true on the east coast only, or have I been really lucky my whole life? I currently live in a little cabin in the woods built in the 70s and it has 200amp service, as have all other homes I've lived in the past 15 years.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  depends more on the age of the house than anything - for a new house 200amps really doesn't cost much more than 100
- rascul 5y ago
  I'm in a double wide mobile home in southern Mississippi from 1991. It has 200 amp service. I have no clue if that's original or if it was upgraded at some point. There is a detached garage, also.
gnopgnip 5y ago
>is to expect housing to become more expensive as heat pumps are more expensive than using (existing) gas infrastructure Only if you ignore the externalities
- ch4s3 5y ago
  It’s still more expensive at the point of purchase, or renting in this case which matters a lot to people who often pay 30+% of their income in rent.
viraptor 5y ago
> For reference, a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house, not just HVAC. Yes, that was pre-this-regulation though. Since the ban applies to the new buildings, they will not be getting 100 amps wiring.
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
Living in the southwest, I’ve experienced perceptible changes in weather patterns. Winters are now mild, summers have grown more intense. My heating bills have dropped to zero. My cooling bills have jumped, and climbs every year. Switching to heat pumps will be a minor expense compared to the effects of climate change we’ll have to pay for in the next few decades.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> heat pumps are more expensive Even when you account for the actual cost of heating, not just initial investment?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  it's really tricky to calculate. heat pumps generally require more skilled labor to install compared to gas heat. maintenance for heat pumps is also more expensive as more electrical parts are necessary. however actually running pump given a certain amount of BTUs in an insulated space is much cheaper than using gas. given a cheap electricity source and increasing gas prices I'd say in the long term a heat pump is cheaper.
jabart 5y ago
1. Muti-zone heating does cost more than central hvac. Central heat pumps are like $5k more and you won't need gas installed or pay the plumber to run lines. 2. 200amps is common now and $200 more than 100 amp. Ovens and heat pump waters heaters need the 200amp panel. Plus size, more breakers than older homes for dedicated appliances. 3. Rated breaker is sized for 80% max load, 2 50 amp breakers != 100 amps. Stoves are an exception for NEC reasons. 4 What homes are built with a gas only, no electricity needed heating? We had a 2 week electricity outage in our area and some water heaters need a fan for the vent pipe. 5. Electricity usage has dropped so we are consuming less KwH and high efficiency hvac systems also use less. If you are worked about power outages, a <$1,000 gasoline generator would power essentials for one room.
- briHass 5y ago
  Heat pump water heaters (most of them) take the same 30A @ 240V circuit that a standard electric resistance water heater uses, though running in HP mode, they draw far less than that. They typically have the standard 2 electric element setup as a backup/supplement to the HP, if you have high water demands.
pkulak 5y ago
I don't even know where to start on this. Even running a gas line from the street is a couple grand. My heat pump also cools my house and was 5 grand installed. Whatever that difference is, it's a rounding error in the price of a home. Not to mention the cost savings over the life of the system, or you know, if AC holds any value at all. Rolling blackouts and people freezing to death? Because new housing uses 200 more kWh per month? Are you really serious? Man-made gas through existing lines? Where exactly is that happening? Where is it close to happening? Where are people even talking about thinking about making it happen? How about any form of energy that has ever, or will ever exist through existing lines? That's what electricity is. I just... I'm so confused right now.
- 8ytecoder 5y ago
  I agree with everything you’re saying. Not sure about NYC but where I live I could use solar entirely if my heat was electric. (But I do hate electric stoves and ovens. Gas ones heat much faster and much more easier to control the flame)
api 5y ago
Makes me wonder if we should go the other direction entirely in very cold climates. Why isn’t home cogeneration a thing? Run a natural gas ICE engine or fuel cell and heat with the waste heat, dumping the surplus power into the grid after powering the home. This would avoid wasting the useful work potential of the gas while probably being no more expensive than heat pumps and avoiding the blackout issues you cite.
- glogla 5y ago
  Cogeneration is a thing in colder climates in Europe, but the other way around - most cities have district heating getting the heat from power plants, incinerators, etc.
  - api 5y ago
    Sure. I was just wondering why we don’t try flipping it around in lower density housing by doing distributed cogeneration.
lh7777 5y ago
> I hope something like a radiator-heat-pump can be made soon. These exist, but are quite rare in the U.S. Check out air-to-water heat pumps from Sanden[1] and Chiltrix[2]. I seriously considered this for my new house (still in planning stages), but at double the cost of an air-to-water heat pump system it didn't make the cut. If they were more common, the cost would come down, but I think it's a chicken/egg thing at this point. Of course, water-to-water (geothermal) heat pumps have been in the States for decades, and if I recall there are still federal tax credits available for them, but they're even more expensive and probably only make sense in very cold climates. [1] https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/sanco2-for-combi-systems https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/sanco2-for-combi-systems [2] https://www.chiltrix.com/air-to-water/ https://www.chiltrix.com/air-to-water/
- jabl 5y ago
  Over here air-water heat pumps have become quite popular for replacing old oil boilers, as you can keep using the existing water pipes and radiators. I don't think they're that common in new construction. My father recently did exactly that, installing a unit by Mitsubishi. IIRC it has a COP of 2 at -15C, finally switching to resistive heating at -25C or so (which is somewhat unusual, maybe a few days or a week per year over here). He also has his old wood boiler as backup that he uses when it gets cold (it was a dual oil/wood boiler, though the oil burner and oil tank was ripped out as part of the retrofit).
rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
You can pair a "traditional north American" type of air handler with the condenser. No need for one head per room if you have the ductwork. (1) I can't compare from experience on baseboard heating. I'd say that with the hyper heat and appropriate wind baffles, you can remove the resistive aux heat in most of the lower 48. Consult your ASHRAE design conditions for specifics. (2) I share your concerns however, about not having anything but electric heat. I think of the water pipes in Texas houses bursting as the electric grid failed and the temperature dropped to the kind of conditions seen in a fairly normal northeast winter. (1) https://mylinkdrive.com/USA/M_Series/R410A_Systems-1/Multi_Position_Air_Handler-2 https://mylinkdrive.com/USA/M_Series/R410A_Systems-1/Multi_P... (2) ashrae-meteo.info/
legutierr 5y ago
> Will these buildings also have generators to combat this potential problem? For what it’s worth, much of Manhattan is heated by means of centralized steam, which tends to be more energy efficient than all of the different heating systems you mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system?wpr... In much of Manhattan natural gas is only used for cooking.
m0llusk 5y ago
Heating small apartments in large buildings is very different from heating ample single family houses in New Jersey. Electrical power outages in New York City also have much more extreme consequences for example with subways and busy intersections needing lighting and traffic lights and as such there is more motivation to keep the power on at a whole community scale.
deleted 5y ago
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insaneirish 5y ago
> Random anecdote: in New Jersey installing a Mitsubishi hyper-heat heat-pump in a 8 room house (4 bedroom + 2 bathroom + living room + kitchen) is much more expensive than running hot water baseboard in all rooms. And with most heat pumps you can usually only zone 4-6 heads per compressor, so you'd need two compressors. A single compressor is probably pulling 50 amps alone, so you'd need 100 amps available usually for your breakers. For reference, a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house, not just HVAC. Drastic upgrades in electric infrastructure will be required. No, no, and no. First of all, you would never put a head in each of these rooms. The minimum head sizes of Mitsubishi (and all other) mini splits is well beyond the heating or cooling loads of an individual room. Anyone who tries to sell a head per room is a charlatan and has never run a Manual J load calculation in their life. Furthermore, if your four bedroom house requires 100 amps to heat it with a heat pump, you should have put money into air sealing and insulating it, rather than installing heat pumps. This would impute a 160,000 Btu/h heat load, which is astronomical in New Jersey. (I know this because I live here, and design these systems.)
- endisneigh 5y ago
  I'm not sure how you can say that without knowing the heat loss for every room. With a wall mounted unit and closed doors there's not really any alternative. My entire example is meant to just be an example. In reality you'd use a ducted split system, not 8 heads. Anyway, are you claiming installing a split system is cheaper than installing a Burnham boiler? The point of the post is to say that boilers/furnaces are much cheaper to install in order to heat your entire house.
  - insaneirish 5y ago
    > I'm not sure how you can say that without knowing the heat loss for every room. I can say it because houses are fairly typical and if the heat loss for a room is greater than the minimum head size for a minisplit, the room probably needs some work before you should be putting a minisplit in it. This is all just math, and 6,000 Btu/h (the minimum head size) happens to actually be a lot of heating for any normal room.
14u2c 5y ago
So much bad info in this thread. Almost all new construction already uses forced air heat pump systems for energy cost reasons. Supplemental gas (or electric) heat is only turned on by the unit when it's too cold for the heat pump to function well. All this change means is that units with supplemental electric heat will be chosen over those with gas supplemental heat. Additionally the compressors in these systems use far less than 50 amps, typically typically around 12 for a 3 ton unit. The type of system you described is generally used for old construction where adding ducts is impractical. Because it's used for a special situation it will of course be more costly.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > Almost all new construction already uses forced air heat pump systems for energy cost reasons. Here, natural gas is typically $2 a therm. Efficient furnaces are better than 90%, so $2 for 90,000 BTUs into the house or $1 buys 45,000 BTUs into the house. Electricity is about 30 cents a kilowatt hour. Good air source heat pumps have a COP in mild weather of about 4-- much worse when cold. This is about 45,000 BTUs/$ best case. So here, heat pumps are about breakeven vs. natural gas or slightly worse in energy costs... And they're more expensive in capital costs.
nucleardog 5y ago
> Heat pumps heat more efficiently than gas, but I wouldn't be surprised to see in the near future some sort of rolling blackout and thousands of people freezing to death because we went all-in on electric. Will these buildings also have generators to combat this potential problem? Everywhere I've ever lived if the power was out there was no way to burn the natural gas for heat. Forced air furnace needs power for the ignition, control circuitry, and the fan that actually circulates the heat through the house. I don't think it's a bad problem to solve, but it's not one that natural gas heating solves.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I'm just learning about a heat pump now from this thread and then reading about them. Do we not already have a way to convert radiator/boilers to electricity? It's just boiling water right. My condo is in a 110 year old building. I love my radiators even if they don't work that great ;) and really would hate those electric baseboard radiators We probably will have to replace our boiler within the next few years due to issues (neighbors are too cheap to go all electric/vehicle chargers with me so no proactive changes). I just assumed we could get an electric version? I would hope smaller and not a giant cast iron thing sunk under the house. Would that not also work for new construction?
citrusx 5y ago
Keep in mind that a lot of NYC's heat is provided by a steam system managed by Con Ed. I don't know if anyone is building new construction that leverages it, but it's there as an option.

Spooky23 5y ago

Agreed. I live in the northeast and just looked into retrofit heating systems. For a house with radiators, the heat pump solution is a 4x capital expense, or 2-3x more if you put ugly/noisy split systems everywhere. I’m all for accelerating innovation, but these stupid bans need to be paired with meaningful incentives.

esaym 5y ago

My 4 ton heat pump draws 11.5 amps. Not sure where you get 50. And a heat pump is just a regular a/c unit, only it has a reversing valve. At the bottom end, you are looking at an extra $500-$1000 for a heat pump vs regular a/c. Adding a gas furnace adds at least $2000.

endisneigh 5y ago
You can get 4 heads installed and a condenser for $1000 vs regular AC? The Mitsubishi hyper heat 36K BTU draws 50 amps.

sxates 5y ago

My house used to have a gas furnace, gas water heater, and gas cooking. When our power was out, none of those appliances worked. Gas doesn't save you in a power outage, unless you have some kind of gas fireplace, but even then a widespread long-term outage is likely to affect the gas infrastructure as well.

endisneigh 5y ago
You can actually use a gas furnace, water heater and cook without electricity. You just have to manually light the pilot. For obvious reasons this isn't recommended as you're dealing with combustibles, but if the alternative is freezing to death, well...
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Most (all?) powered-vent systems will refuse to work without electricity to keep the gas valve open. But the gas cooktop should work without problem if you light it with a match/lighter.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    You're right in that they generally don't with electricity, but again if you have the know-how you can manually keep it open and light the pilot. Again, definitely don't do this, but in a scenario where the alternative is that you freeze to death, it's possible to do so safely. With modern combi boilers (tankless hot water + boiler) I believe your point stands. edit: I mention this mainly because in Texas last winter some people froze to death during their electricity crisis.
    - grayfaced 5y ago
      And carbon monoxide poisoning was common in Texas too. I'm not sure city-wide having novices tinker with gas equipment would save more lives.
      - 5y ago

Scoundreller 5y ago

Part of it comes down to an air conditioner just being a heat pump that works one way only, so there’s fairly easy opportunity to build in some efficient heating capacity going forward without much incremental cost by installing reversible systems. The other thing is that a heat pump can be so efficient, that it’s net beneficial to burn nat gas at a power plant and use that electricity to run a heat pump. But this all falls apart near and below freezing temperatures. NYC will still want to have direct-burn natural gas heating for cold days because that’ll be more efficient than resorting to resistive heating.

InvertedRhodium 5y ago
TIL - I always thought that heat pump and air conditioning were just different ways of saying the same thing - here in NZ, I don't think I've ever seen a heat-only heat pump.
- NoahKAndrews 5y ago
  We don't have heat-only heat pumps, we have cooling-only air conditioning.
- rkowalick 5y ago
  To clarify, in the US, there are two commonly used HVAC heat pumps: - A/C units, which can only cool a room but can’t heat it up - Heat Pumps, which typically do both.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    What’s particularly frustrating is that the only thing that separates one from the other is the inclusion of a $20 reversing valve[1], and some software that can use it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversing_valve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversing_valve
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Well, that and you tend to split heat pump systems instead of pumping around warm air to pick up efficiency. And the design of the condensers, etc, is a little different for efficiency and to cope with e.g. condensation outside.

jay_kyburz 5y ago

In Australia Gas is so expensive, we found it was cheaper to just put an electric heater in every room we wanted to heat. The only thing we on gas now is the cook top, so we plant to replace that as well.

endisneigh 5y ago
Heat pump or resistive? Not familiar with Australia, is the electricity sourced from gas or coal, or something else?
- fmakunbound 5y ago
  Resistive
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    I bought 4 Nobos. They are clean, quiet, fast enough, and best of all have a "lifetime warranty" that I plan to make use of when they die. https://www.nobo.com.au/en-au https://www.nobo.com.au/en-au
    - sgerenser 5y ago
      What am I missing? These things just look like fancy resistance heaters, exactly the same efficiency as a $15 space heater (significantly less efficient than a heat pump).
      - jay_kyburz 5y ago
        No they are not efficient, but my power is almost free, and renewable. Heat pump hardware is very expensive and not as flexible.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Lots of Australian electricity comes from coal (about 60%).

audunw 5y ago

Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. I can't remember experiencing a blackout in like 15 years or so. As with many things, Norway may be special in many ways, but I can't help but think if you start building everything in society around electricity (and free up some of the money needed to maintain gas and other parallel energy distribution infrastructures), you'll make really damn sure that it works 100% of the time. I've heard that some keep propane heaters for backup/emergency. I have used one at a cabin and it's damn effective. Your example sounds really inefficient.. modern houses should have balanced ventilation, and you should only need one compressor and 2-3 heads. I installed a small balanced ventilation unit (TwinFresh) in a bedroom, and that helps keep the room warm by pulling in warm air from the hallway which is connected to the living room with the heat pump head. We also have some electrical heaters in the other bedrooms just to make sure it can't get too cold there. Though maybe my perspective is a bit warped: everyone I know likes to sleeping in a cold room.

seneca 5y ago
> Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. According to a quick Google search: "The current population of Norway is 5,483,767 as of Friday, December 24, 2021" and NY state is estimated at 20.2 million as of April 2020, and New York City at 8.8 million. It seems you appreciate that Norway is a special scenario. It seems silly to assume something that works there would work in a country that has single cities with larger populations, and states with around four times the population of your entire country.
- Retric 5y ago
  Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. New York City could for example use a relatively shallow bore hole to gather geothermal energy and get “low grade” heat (50-100C) for district heating where such systems don’t really work for single family homes.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    > Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. This may be so, but New York also has one of the oldest electrical grids on the planet. Upgrading it to support larger and larger populations is a challenge, not just to manage it overloading with the density, but also in terms of logistics. You can't just tear up a major street in New York and upgrade the electrical for a block, without causing massive logistics problems for the city. Upgrading New York's grid is going to be a huge challenge

aunty_helen 5y ago

I think you’re a factor of 5-10 out on your calculations. 2 outdoor units running 110V x 50amps is 11.0kW which using a base efficiency you can expect from a heat pump of 4:1 input electricity to heat results in 44kW of heating / cooling. If your 4 bedroom house needs 44kW of heating I would be looking at other winter warmers first, like buying glass for your windows. For comparison a reasonably large heat pump would have a heating cooling rating of 12kW

endisneigh 5y ago
My calculations were not talking about the usage of electricity, but the breakers the panels require. Hyper-heat models require 50 amp breakers and are 230V. Peak load usually only happens when the compressors cycle. The actual non-peak usage isn't that high as you've stated. Regardless the breakers must accommodate peak-load.
- drusenko 5y ago
  Yes, electrifying everything will result in more peak demand which will require upgrading many house’s main panels. It’s not an insurmountable challenge though, especially relative to dealing with the effects of 2+ degrees of warming.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    You're missing my point - in the context of the article the issue is not upgrading the panels, it would be replacing the entire current electrical infrastructure. I'm not claiming it's insurmountable. The point is that these changes will increase the cost of housing, which will make people sprawl, the very same sprawl that will decrease the efficiency of the very same things we're talking about. There's a political, economic and cultural balance to be struck here, technology changes notwithstanding.
    - drusenko 5y ago
      A fully electrified home actually reduces overall system cost through 1- higher efficiency of electric appliances and heat pumps than their gas counterparts, and 2- a significantly reduced infrastructure cost to no longer having to maintain gas infrastructure, the totality of which (scouting, mining, transportation, last mile) is incredibly expensive. In fact, for new construction, it is often cheaper out the gate to go all electric and the efficiency savings in terms of lower electric+gas bills are significant and pure upside. Moving on to electric retrofits, they are expensive but not crazy expensive. On the order of $2500-7500 per SFH to wire 220/30-50 amp circuits to the right places (HVAC, stove, water heater, clothes dryer, EV charger) and maybe upgrade the main panel - a far cry from redoing the entire wiring. It’s not an insane proposition to think we could retrofit all existing housing stock in a 15 year period if we wanted to take it seriously. We are going to need more electricians though. Do you know what is actually really expensive? Billions or trillions of dollars in climate disaster losses and mitigation which we are seeing ramp up very quickly. If we continue burning fossil fuels even remotely like we are now, in 20 years time the losses we say today will look like peanuts in comparison. Buildings make up a very significant amount of the CO2e emissions (depending on the location, often tied #1 with transportation) so doing nothing here is not really an option.

gameswithgo 5y ago

It seems a general pattern that any suggested positive change in the world is resisted by assertions that “the infrastructure isn’t ready”. Of course it isn’t, nor was it ready when the city was first built using gas heating. We built it. We will build it again.

seattle_spring 5y ago

> a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house Is this true on the east coast only, or have I been really lucky my whole life? I currently live in a little cabin in the woods built in the 70s and it has 200amp service, as have all other homes I've lived in the past 15 years.

endisneigh 5y ago
depends more on the age of the house than anything - for a new house 200amps really doesn't cost much more than 100
rascul 5y ago
I'm in a double wide mobile home in southern Mississippi from 1991. It has 200 amp service. I have no clue if that's original or if it was upgraded at some point. There is a detached garage, also.

gnopgnip 5y ago

>is to expect housing to become more expensive as heat pumps are more expensive than using (existing) gas infrastructure Only if you ignore the externalities

ch4s3 5y ago
It’s still more expensive at the point of purchase, or renting in this case which matters a lot to people who often pay 30+% of their income in rent.

viraptor 5y ago

> For reference, a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house, not just HVAC. Yes, that was pre-this-regulation though. Since the ban applies to the new buildings, they will not be getting 100 amps wiring.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago

Living in the southwest, I’ve experienced perceptible changes in weather patterns. Winters are now mild, summers have grown more intense. My heating bills have dropped to zero. My cooling bills have jumped, and climbs every year. Switching to heat pumps will be a minor expense compared to the effects of climate change we’ll have to pay for in the next few decades.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

> heat pumps are more expensive Even when you account for the actual cost of heating, not just initial investment?

endisneigh 5y ago
it's really tricky to calculate. heat pumps generally require more skilled labor to install compared to gas heat. maintenance for heat pumps is also more expensive as more electrical parts are necessary. however actually running pump given a certain amount of BTUs in an insulated space is much cheaper than using gas. given a cheap electricity source and increasing gas prices I'd say in the long term a heat pump is cheaper.

jabart 5y ago

1. Muti-zone heating does cost more than central hvac. Central heat pumps are like $5k more and you won't need gas installed or pay the plumber to run lines. 2. 200amps is common now and $200 more than 100 amp. Ovens and heat pump waters heaters need the 200amp panel. Plus size, more breakers than older homes for dedicated appliances. 3. Rated breaker is sized for 80% max load, 2 50 amp breakers != 100 amps. Stoves are an exception for NEC reasons. 4 What homes are built with a gas only, no electricity needed heating? We had a 2 week electricity outage in our area and some water heaters need a fan for the vent pipe. 5. Electricity usage has dropped so we are consuming less KwH and high efficiency hvac systems also use less. If you are worked about power outages, a <$1,000 gasoline generator would power essentials for one room.

briHass 5y ago
Heat pump water heaters (most of them) take the same 30A @ 240V circuit that a standard electric resistance water heater uses, though running in HP mode, they draw far less than that. They typically have the standard 2 electric element setup as a backup/supplement to the HP, if you have high water demands.

pkulak 5y ago

I don't even know where to start on this. Even running a gas line from the street is a couple grand. My heat pump also cools my house and was 5 grand installed. Whatever that difference is, it's a rounding error in the price of a home. Not to mention the cost savings over the life of the system, or you know, if AC holds any value at all. Rolling blackouts and people freezing to death? Because new housing uses 200 more kWh per month? Are you really serious? Man-made gas through existing lines? Where exactly is that happening? Where is it close to happening? Where are people even talking about thinking about making it happen? How about any form of energy that has ever, or will ever exist through existing lines? That's what electricity is. I just... I'm so confused right now.

8ytecoder 5y ago
I agree with everything you’re saying. Not sure about NYC but where I live I could use solar entirely if my heat was electric. (But I do hate electric stoves and ovens. Gas ones heat much faster and much more easier to control the flame)

api 5y ago

Makes me wonder if we should go the other direction entirely in very cold climates. Why isn’t home cogeneration a thing? Run a natural gas ICE engine or fuel cell and heat with the waste heat, dumping the surplus power into the grid after powering the home. This would avoid wasting the useful work potential of the gas while probably being no more expensive than heat pumps and avoiding the blackout issues you cite.

glogla 5y ago
Cogeneration is a thing in colder climates in Europe, but the other way around - most cities have district heating getting the heat from power plants, incinerators, etc.
- api 5y ago
  Sure. I was just wondering why we don’t try flipping it around in lower density housing by doing distributed cogeneration.

lh7777 5y ago

> I hope something like a radiator-heat-pump can be made soon. These exist, but are quite rare in the U.S. Check out air-to-water heat pumps from Sanden[1] and Chiltrix[2]. I seriously considered this for my new house (still in planning stages), but at double the cost of an air-to-water heat pump system it didn't make the cut. If they were more common, the cost would come down, but I think it's a chicken/egg thing at this point. Of course, water-to-water (geothermal) heat pumps have been in the States for decades, and if I recall there are still federal tax credits available for them, but they're even more expensive and probably only make sense in very cold climates. [1] https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/sanco2-for-combi-systems https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/sanco2-for-combi-systems [2] https://www.chiltrix.com/air-to-water/ https://www.chiltrix.com/air-to-water/

jabl 5y ago
Over here air-water heat pumps have become quite popular for replacing old oil boilers, as you can keep using the existing water pipes and radiators. I don't think they're that common in new construction. My father recently did exactly that, installing a unit by Mitsubishi. IIRC it has a COP of 2 at -15C, finally switching to resistive heating at -25C or so (which is somewhat unusual, maybe a few days or a week per year over here). He also has his old wood boiler as backup that he uses when it gets cold (it was a dual oil/wood boiler, though the oil burner and oil tank was ripped out as part of the retrofit).

rainbowzootsuit 5y ago

You can pair a "traditional north American" type of air handler with the condenser. No need for one head per room if you have the ductwork. (1) I can't compare from experience on baseboard heating. I'd say that with the hyper heat and appropriate wind baffles, you can remove the resistive aux heat in most of the lower 48. Consult your ASHRAE design conditions for specifics. (2) I share your concerns however, about not having anything but electric heat. I think of the water pipes in Texas houses bursting as the electric grid failed and the temperature dropped to the kind of conditions seen in a fairly normal northeast winter. (1) https://mylinkdrive.com/USA/M_Series/R410A_Systems-1/Multi_Position_Air_Handler-2 https://mylinkdrive.com/USA/M_Series/R410A_Systems-1/Multi_P... (2) ashrae-meteo.info/

legutierr 5y ago

> Will these buildings also have generators to combat this potential problem? For what it’s worth, much of Manhattan is heated by means of centralized steam, which tends to be more energy efficient than all of the different heating systems you mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system?wpr... In much of Manhattan natural gas is only used for cooking.

m0llusk 5y ago

Heating small apartments in large buildings is very different from heating ample single family houses in New Jersey. Electrical power outages in New York City also have much more extreme consequences for example with subways and busy intersections needing lighting and traffic lights and as such there is more motivation to keep the power on at a whole community scale.

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insaneirish 5y ago

> Random anecdote: in New Jersey installing a Mitsubishi hyper-heat heat-pump in a 8 room house (4 bedroom + 2 bathroom + living room + kitchen) is much more expensive than running hot water baseboard in all rooms. And with most heat pumps you can usually only zone 4-6 heads per compressor, so you'd need two compressors. A single compressor is probably pulling 50 amps alone, so you'd need 100 amps available usually for your breakers. For reference, a normal house usually 100 amps dedicated for the entire house, not just HVAC. Drastic upgrades in electric infrastructure will be required. No, no, and no. First of all, you would never put a head in each of these rooms. The minimum head sizes of Mitsubishi (and all other) mini splits is well beyond the heating or cooling loads of an individual room. Anyone who tries to sell a head per room is a charlatan and has never run a Manual J load calculation in their life. Furthermore, if your four bedroom house requires 100 amps to heat it with a heat pump, you should have put money into air sealing and insulating it, rather than installing heat pumps. This would impute a 160,000 Btu/h heat load, which is astronomical in New Jersey. (I know this because I live here, and design these systems.)

endisneigh 5y ago
I'm not sure how you can say that without knowing the heat loss for every room. With a wall mounted unit and closed doors there's not really any alternative. My entire example is meant to just be an example. In reality you'd use a ducted split system, not 8 heads. Anyway, are you claiming installing a split system is cheaper than installing a Burnham boiler? The point of the post is to say that boilers/furnaces are much cheaper to install in order to heat your entire house.
- insaneirish 5y ago
  > I'm not sure how you can say that without knowing the heat loss for every room. I can say it because houses are fairly typical and if the heat loss for a room is greater than the minimum head size for a minisplit, the room probably needs some work before you should be putting a minisplit in it. This is all just math, and 6,000 Btu/h (the minimum head size) happens to actually be a lot of heating for any normal room.

14u2c 5y ago

So much bad info in this thread. Almost all new construction already uses forced air heat pump systems for energy cost reasons. Supplemental gas (or electric) heat is only turned on by the unit when it's too cold for the heat pump to function well. All this change means is that units with supplemental electric heat will be chosen over those with gas supplemental heat. Additionally the compressors in these systems use far less than 50 amps, typically typically around 12 for a 3 ton unit. The type of system you described is generally used for old construction where adding ducts is impractical. Because it's used for a special situation it will of course be more costly.

mlyle 5y ago
> Almost all new construction already uses forced air heat pump systems for energy cost reasons. Here, natural gas is typically $2 a therm. Efficient furnaces are better than 90%, so $2 for 90,000 BTUs into the house or $1 buys 45,000 BTUs into the house. Electricity is about 30 cents a kilowatt hour. Good air source heat pumps have a COP in mild weather of about 4-- much worse when cold. This is about 45,000 BTUs/$ best case. So here, heat pumps are about breakeven vs. natural gas or slightly worse in energy costs... And they're more expensive in capital costs.

nucleardog 5y ago

> Heat pumps heat more efficiently than gas, but I wouldn't be surprised to see in the near future some sort of rolling blackout and thousands of people freezing to death because we went all-in on electric. Will these buildings also have generators to combat this potential problem? Everywhere I've ever lived if the power was out there was no way to burn the natural gas for heat. Forced air furnace needs power for the ignition, control circuitry, and the fan that actually circulates the heat through the house. I don't think it's a bad problem to solve, but it's not one that natural gas heating solves.

dillondoyle 5y ago

I'm just learning about a heat pump now from this thread and then reading about them. Do we not already have a way to convert radiator/boilers to electricity? It's just boiling water right. My condo is in a 110 year old building. I love my radiators even if they don't work that great ;) and really would hate those electric baseboard radiators We probably will have to replace our boiler within the next few years due to issues (neighbors are too cheap to go all electric/vehicle chargers with me so no proactive changes). I just assumed we could get an electric version? I would hope smaller and not a giant cast iron thing sunk under the house. Would that not also work for new construction?

citrusx 5y ago

Keep in mind that a lot of NYC's heat is provided by a steam system managed by Con Ed. I don't know if anyone is building new construction that leverages it, but it's there as an option.