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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
by 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 agoYou 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 agoMost (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 agoYou'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 agoAnd carbon monoxide poisoning was common in Texas too. I'm not sure city-wide having novices tinker with gas equipment would save more lives.
- endisneigh 5y agooh, agreed. however a cheap 1kwh battery could power a normal houses gas appliances very easily without any trickery needed.
- rtlfe 5y agoHow do you do that for furnace? I assume you have to bypass the thermostat somehow.
- endisneigh 5y agoIt depends on the furnace specifically, but yes, exactly. Again, don't do this, but it's possible.
- trimbo 5y agoThis would work for a passive gas furnace like an old gravity furnace. Modern high efficiency gas furnaces require electricity for the blower.
- endisneigh 5y agoYeah, unfortunately. Though I suppose if this were really an issue you could keep a battery around as they don't really use that much electricity.
- nostrademons 5y agoYeah PowerWall or generator is really the solution for this. They're surprisingly big electric hogs though - our furnace is 500W and is our biggest power draw during the winter. A PowerWall will only power this for about a day of continuous usage (realistically heater use won't be continuous because of thermostats and insulation, but it can be appreciable in cold climates).
- morpheos137 5y agoReally people in winter clothes or blankets can tolerate very cold temperatures for a very long time, especially indoors out of the wind. Healthy people with adequate clothing in NYC could easily survive in -10C temperatures for a week or more. The more pressing need at that point would be access to water (assuming it needs electricity for distribution).
- JshWright 5y agoIt's very rare to have a gas hot water heater that requires electricity. Similarly with gas ranges, you may need to manually light it, but the valves are usually manual (the oven is a different story).
- heffer 5y agoAny power vented gas water heater will require electricity to function correctly. More modern gas ranges will too, if they support child safety features, such as range lock-out, which may be required in some locales. Same goes for gas fireplaces that do not have a standing pilot and electrically actuated valves, which many newer appliances have.
- phil21 5y ago> It's very rare to have a gas hot water heater that requires electricity. It's not all that rare these days in cheap condo units (heck, even SFH...) in large cities to require power vent water heaters due to simply horrible architecture imo. Chimneys may not be a thing in some buildings, and locations of utility closets seem not optimized for venting at all. A surprising number of gas appliances are slowly requiring electricity to run. I wonder if it's even possible to buy a gas clothes dryer these days without electronic controls without going through hoops? Certainly a fraction of the market. Modern safety standards also drive "cop out" solutions to them like electronic interlocks with stovetops. I wonder how many modern gas stoves actually function without the A/C plugged in? Think I'll actually test this with my two units tonight!
- lh7777 5y agoYou can power all those gas appliances with a reasonably-sized generator, though. It's also possible to run a heat pump on a generator, but you'd need a much bigger generator and a soft-start for the heat pump to limit starting current.
- endisneigh 5y agoYou wouldn't even need that. The electricity usage of gas appliance is miniscule as it's usually just to automatically light the pilot or vent. An 100Wh battery could probably power everything for a week or longer.
- lh7777 5y agoGood point, although ideally the house would be wired to make it easy to connect that battery to just the gas appliances so that other stuff (lights, fans, refrigerator, etc.) wouldn't drain it much sooner. Personally, I'd rather have the generator if I had the space, but this would be a good option for people in townhouses and condos.
- danachow 5y agoWhy didn’t the gas stove work?? I mean I have a newer model with electronic ignition, but you can just use a lighter. I’ve never seen a gas stove that wouldn’t work without electricity - and it seems fool hardy to buy one. Gas hot water heaters without power vents are still readily available so its not hard to avoid this problem. If you really must have power venting the power requirements are low and can be powered by minimal backup generation or batteries. Gas infrastructure is surprisingly resilient to widespread outages. That’s just a fact - how often are there widespread outages? It’s minuscule compared to electricity.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago> Gas infrastructure is surprisingly resilient to widespread outages. Except freezing, as Texas showed.
- ericmay 5y agoWell I think I that was unexpected freezing that was the issue.
- newaccount2021 5y ago
- joemaller1 5y agoI’ve been through a few significant power outages in NYC. The gas worked fine, we just lit the stove with a match. For hurricane Sandy, I made a huge pot of soup with most of what would spoil in the refrigerator, then boiled it every couple hours for the next several days. Family was fed, food wasn’t wasted. A bigger problem in NYC is electric water pumps: When the power goes out, the water stops when the water tower on the roof empties. This is mostly for buildings over 5-6 stories, older buildings were somewhat height-capped by municipal water pressure. No water means no toilets. Again, people don’t seem to know that toilets use gravity, a bucket will flush them. Big storm coming? Fill the bathtubs with water.
- kibwen 5y agoNatural gas utilities rely on electricity to power their delivery infrastructure (compressors, pressure sensors, etc). If only your building is out of power, your gas will likely still work. If there's a regional power outage, then you will be in the same situation with gas as with the water issue that you mention.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nostrademons 5y agoDon't they have auxiliary power backups? I'd think that critical utilities like gas and water would invest in a few generators so that they're independent of outages in other critical utilities like electricity. Most supermarkets and offices do, and they operate on a much smaller scale. Only time I've had the water go out during a power outage was when I was in a house on well water. Otherwise, the pipes still have pressure. Gas furnaces won't work because of the blower, but the gas itself should still flow.
- heavyset_go 5y agoGas stove should still work if you have a lighter or some matches.
- ridgeguy 5y agoDepends on how old your installation is. Our prior home had pilot lights for the gas furnace, stove/ovens, and water heater. No electric igniters. All the items were pretty dated. But when the grid went down, they kept working.
- H1Supreme 5y agoThe water heater and stove should work in a power outage. Gas water heaters shouldn't use any electric, and stoves are easily lit with a match or lighter.
- don-code 5y agoMy parents thought this as well, but it turns out their new gas stove has a safety feature which prevents this. If there's no electricity, a solenoid doesn't engage when you turn the knob, which in turn doesn't allow any gas through to the range. I'm assuming any modern gas water heater is in a similar boat, with an electric starter instead of a pilot light - and it's much more difficult/annoying to light a water heater than a stove with a match.
- quesera 5y agoGas water heaters do not require electric power. There are no wires to connect. The spark to light the pilot is a piezoelectric thing, manually operated. Newer models (less than ~15 years?) have a control board which is probably mostly mechanical, but does have a flashing LED. I assume that whatever drives the electronics is charged/powered by something that works off the differential of temperature in the chamber vs outside.
- jerrysievert 5y agoI'm kind of surprised about the gas cooking not working. while a gas range is usually started with a spark from electric sparkers, they can also be started with a match or lighter.