23 ms·

For the doubters - I've completely converted my 1962 house to electric over the last few years. Gas furnace > Heat pump. Gas water heater > Heat pump water heat

• endisneigh 5y ago
  I assume your equipment was working - why did you replace? If for environmental reasons I feel like removing working appliances is counterproductive (especially since you have solar and battery storage and so you basically wouldn't use electricity otherwise). If for cost, I'd imagine the renovation break-even point would take years, if not longer.
  • sxates 5y ago
    The main thing I'm looking at is eliminating CO2 emissions as best I can. I'm not in control of them all, but where I am in control I'm working to eliminate. Bottom line is that we need to get emissions to zero as fast as possible. With that in mind, the energy cost of new appliances that are run on renewable energy pays dividends before those appliances are at end of life, and existing working gas appliances fall into a sunk-cost fallacy IMO. It doesn't matter if I have 1 GW of solar and batteries and EVs and the whole grid is converted to renewables and I only eat vegan from my own back yard, etc. If my home furnace runs on gas it's emitting CO2 to run. There was literally an exhaust pipe running out the side of my house for the furnace, water heater, etc. The only way to eliminate those emissions is to eliminate the appliance. I don't know what the break even cost on all this stuff is, because I frankly don't care. I did do the math on the heat pump water heater vs. what we were paying for the gas water heater (there was a time where the water heater was the only gas thing running), and the new water heater saved us about $30/mo in energy costs just comparing gas to electric. And with solar panels the savings over a gas heater are even greater. I figure break even on a very high end water heater is <4 years. [edits because I mixed up answers to another comment]
    • bool3max 5y ago
      Why do you personally care about eliminating CO2 emissions?
      • UncleMeat 5y ago
        • throwawayboise 5y ago
          Granting your premise, it's still not a problem upon which individual actions like this have any impact whatsoever. What OP does with his house, heating it with gas, electric, wood, or coal is not going to matter one bit on a global scale.
          • UncleMeat 5y ago
            There are almost zero people on the entire planet whose personal impact is noticeable at this scale. But so what? We need both individual and policy action. “At scale, nobody notices the harm I’m doing” can be used to justify all manner of antisocial behavior. I don’t buy the argument.
        • refurb 5y ago
          Existential? As in humans go extinct? I’m going to have to ask for a source.
      • ryukafalz 5y ago
        In addition to the obvious point mentioned in a sibling comment (existential threat to humanity)... Switching to zero-emissions alternatives now means less adjustment later when the polluting versions are (hopefully inevitably) banned.
        • tekknik 5y ago
          When they are banned however there will likely be incentives, cheaper prices and better technology. Switching now makes even less sense.
  • CydeWeys 5y ago
    > If for environmental reasons I feel like removing working appliances is counterproductive I don't think this follows. There's not THAT much that goes into making a furnace, but it emits a hell of a lot of emissions every year that it's running. I suspect they paid back the CO2 cost of the new equipment relatively quickly.
  • alostpuppy 5y ago
    Didn’t OP mention this was all tied up in a remodel? If so, makes perfect sense to do this all at once.
• patd 5y ago
  How do you maximise self consumption of the electricity generated by your solar panels ? Or do you not care because you’ve installed massive batteries?
  • sxates 5y ago
    I haven't had the batteries long enough (just a couple months at this point - took more than a year to get them) to work that into our habits in all seasons. I expect for 6+ months of the year the batteries will enable us to run virtually off-grid, with minimal draw from the grid, perhaps with the exception of charging the cars. Power production in those months vastly exceeds our usage. Conversely, this time of year (winter) the way our house is positioned with the sun (on a hill, surrounded by tall trees) we generate a pretty small amount of solar, and are running the heaters a lot, so very grid dependent. The batteries would power the house for maybe 12 hours in an outage. Last summer I'd often charge a car during the day instead of at night because we were generating more than the draw of the EV charger. I have an internal debate about whether this is better, because the power company's time-of-use structure incentivizes me to not do this, but instead export the power to the grid. So I'm not actually sure whether maximizing my energy usage at the time of production is less carbon intensive than exporting it to offset the rest of the community's usage. I guess it all depends on what's generating that grid energy at night. For the most part within the house though, the batteries let you not care too much about what energy you're using when.
• CodeWriter23 5y ago
  Imagine dividing your solar capacity among several hundred dwelling units in an NYC apartment complex and then you might be close to an apples-to-apples comparison to what this regulation means.
  • sxates 5y ago
    The benefits of electrification are not limited to those with local solar production. But obviously if you are generating your own power, running everything on that same fuel type has big benefits.
  • rsstack 5y ago
    Solar in NYC is complicated. In my condo building, there are 500 apartments and the roof area is about 10k sqft, and it's shadowed by our neighboring building about a third of the day. However, there are some fascinating cases that work: https://www.stuytown.com/sustainability/solar https://www.stuytown.com/sustainability/solar This project is almost complete and seems to be working really well.
  • photochemsyn 5y ago
    Well, in that case you'd also want to add in things like offshore wind capacity and large remote solar array capacity and remote energy storage capacity. A NYC apartment complex can no more be expected to be energy-independent any more than it can be food-independent. Cities will always require the import of significant materials, food, and energy from surrounding areas, and electricity is actually a more efficient means of importing energy than natural gas is. Replacing all the diesel trucks and buses with electrical versions, that's equally desirable. Cities will become much cleaner places, which is to everyone's benefit.
• Xavdidtheshadow 5y ago
  > it requires some adjustments, but really not much can you be more specific here? What sort of things would other readers interested in electrifying a house not be considering?
  • endisneigh 5y ago
    - Does your house have the proper infrastructure (e.g. 200amp+ panel) - Is your house wired for the load? (e.g. you need bigger wires to handle the higher amperage. Walls might need to be taken down in order to rewire the appliances) Those are the two biggest issues. Depending on your house layout, you might basically need to gut your entire house just to rewire a single appliance. I'm obviously throwing out a catastrophic example here, but it can happen. This sort of thing is best done if you're doing major renovations anyway.
    • vegetablepotpie 5y ago
      Not the op, but I recently added a 50amp circuit for an oven to my ‘50s era house (currently gas). There was a crawl space behind the kitchen, which was not insulated. The hardest part was getting the conduit measured, bent and attached to the house to go from the electrical panel to the attic. Then I drilled holes in the studs for the wire and fished it through and insulated the wall. Worst case, you have an insulated wall that you need to tear apart. For pre ‘78 houses, do a lead and asbestos inspection before starting work. You would have to tear down drywall/rocklath, tear out insulation, cut holes in the studs for wires, put up new insulation, new drywall, and mud/paint the walls. You could do that in a weekend assuming you have the materials and tools starting Saturday morning. Looking forward to a reply by op because I suspect their house is above 200amps because of the appliances and cars they have.
      • sxates 5y ago
        OP here - we upgraded to 400 amp service, but 200 would still be sufficient for us. I just have a hard time saying no when 'overkill' costs only 10% more.
    • 5y ago
• nashashmi 5y ago
  What is the cost to 'upgrade' to pure electric supply / generation household? Say per SF? And why would you remove gas connections when they could be used as backup? Plus why is this what future holds should look like?
  • sxates 5y ago
    The cost is enormous for older houses. It's prohibitive for most people, thus my advocacy for incentives. We did a lot of the work as part of larger renovations, but I'd expect for most homes the cost to convert all the gas appliances to electric and bring everything up to code is at least $30-40k. If you're adding solar and home batteries to that, then even more. We're probably in >$100k gross, though we've taken advantage of probably $30k in incentives for solar and batteries. The batteries are the backup. Keeping gas service "just in case" comes with it's own risks in terms of leaks, and where I live, with major earthquakes. Disconnecting it means I don't have to worry about that, or pay the $4/mo minimum to keep it active. I believe this is the future we need if we're serious about eliminating CO2 emissions. It's not just power plants and cars - my house put out just as many emissions in the winter as my car did. Probably more. In a world where we're getting CO2 to zero there's no place for gas appliances. We need everyone to accept that, and it's going to take a while.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• lbotos 5y ago
  What batteries did you go with? Are you concerned about the fire risk? I'm in the process of electrifying in Brooklyn (Unrelated to this rule) and these common battery systems are terrifying if they catch fire.
  • sponaugle 5y ago
    While not the person you were asking the question of - I recently installed 40kwh of batteries to complement my 20kw of solar. I'm using Enphase for both the solar micro-inverters as well as the batteries. The batteries are LiFePo, so fire risk is very very low. The cars in my garages with gasoline represent a much greater risk. I ended up with Enphase instead of Tesla Powerwalls primarily because the Enphase system supports direct generator integration, which allows smart generator use to offset the battery/solar system in a grid-off situation. The combo of batteries and genset makes for a very reliable scalable solution.
    • throwawaysea 5y ago
      > The batteries are LiFePo, so fire risk is very very low. The cars in my garages with gasoline represent a much greater risk. Is this really true, and do you have a source on this? Gas vehicles are extensively tested to ensure the integrity and safety of their gas tanks, even in extreme crashes, so I feel like the danger is actually very low. I’m also curious what batteries you specifically used and how they are doing in terms of holding capacity after hundreds of cycles. Also, do you live in a cold location?
      • ikiris 5y ago
        Your feelings are ignoring basic physics of the materials which is well known.
        • ehnto 5y ago
          Danger is contextual though. My LiPo burning down in the middle of a concrete patch is no risk to anyone, but having it burn down in a backpack in my cupboard will probably burn the house down. Petrol inside a petrol tank inside a modern car is not the same risk as petrol sitting in a jerry can by the stove for another example.
• AmericanChopper 5y ago
  Replacing natural gas for heating is something I could get behind. Replacing it for cooking is an adjustment I would never make. Cooking represents a minuscule portion of natural gas consumption, prohibiting it will have basically no impact on emissions. However it would mean that many of the things I routinely cook, I would no longer be able to cook. Induction is great, I have an induction cooktop, but there’s simply things you cannot cook on it. I wouldn’t give up stir fry cooking for some tiny and irrelevant impact on emissions.
  • seattle_spring 5y ago
    I make stir fry on an electric cooktop all of the time, and it's not even induction. Have I just been dreaming?
    • AmericanChopper 5y ago
      The traditional method for cooking a stir fry is in a wok and at a very high temperature. Induction doesn’t get hot enough, and it’s not possible to heat a wok on one anyway. You can make a stir fry in a pan, and at a lower temperature, but it’s going to taste completely different.
      • doikor 5y ago
        > Induction doesn’t get hot enough, and it’s not possible to heat a wok on one anyway. You can make a stir fry in a pan This is not true at all. I have been cooking with my wok for years using induction. Only real requirement is that your wok has a flat bottom which while not 100% traditional works just fine.
        • AmericanChopper 5y ago
          If your wok has a flat bottom, then it’s not a wok. The circular shape of a wok diffuses heat up the sides, which a flat bottom pan doesn’t do. A flat bottom pan also doesn’t allow you to toss whatever it is you’re frying properly. If an induction cooktop was capable of providing the appropriate amount of heat, this would simple end up burning some of the food. However, it most certainly is not. An induction cooktop _might_ be capable of heating a pan up to the appropriate temperature (I’m skeptical about that), but it can’t keep it there. That temperature will drop the moment you put anything in it, and if you want to properly stir fry something, you need your wok to keep that scalding temperature the whole time you’re cooking. You can cook food in a flat bottom frying pan on an induction cooktop, but you can’t do anything close to a traditional stir fry technique.
• kyruzic 5y ago
  Houses will never be heated by electricity in the north. Its currently -30 degrees celsius in the Calgary where I live. Its going to be -35 tomorrow. People would literally die if you got your wish.
  • scojomodena 5y ago
    I'm in Minnesota. True air source heat pumps aren't great at such temps, but ground source heat pumps it doesn't matter at all. Lot higher install cost though.
    • yxhuvud 5y ago
      Thankfully most of the cost is in drilling the hole, not in parts that may need to be replaced.
  • kibwen 5y ago
    This resource suggests that the frost line in Calgary is about nine feet underground: http://www.urecon.com/applications/municipal_ambient_below.html http://www.urecon.com/applications/municipal_ambient_below.h... . That's the depth at which the ground temperature is above freezing for the whole year. That means that a heat pump can exchange heat via pipes buried nine feet under your property. Technologically, it's extremely feasible. Whether or not it makes sense for you will depend on economic factors, of course.
    • kyruzic 5y ago
      No it is not feasible. You are not digging up ground under then tens of thousands of houses that already exist in the city in any economically feasibly way.
      • wmd_ 5y ago
        Community "large loop" heat pumps should help with the economics, but there are still lots of details to fill in.
• devb 5y ago
  Can I ask what state/country/region you're in? What's the typical low temperature for winter in your area?
  • sxates 5y ago
    Bay Area California. December has been highs in the 40s-50s, lows 30s-40s (Fahrenheit). I definitely benefit from living in a place that's not extremely cold or hot, which reduces our energy needs.
    • nucleardog 5y ago
      Reduces your energy needs and makes a heat pump a complete solution. Most sources I've looked at say heat pumps lose efficiency below 40F outdoor temperature and only work down to around -5F. If I were to convert to only using heat pumps, I'd have extremely inefficient or straight up intermittent heat and hot water for about a third of the year. Falling back on resistive electric heating drives your heat bill through the roof. I'd definitely love to get a heat pump for the other 8 months of the year, but the cost is hard to justify when I still need to maintain some other form of heat anyway.
• ch4s3 5y ago
  That sounds great to me, but I don’t see apartment buildings here in NYC being built with induction cook tops. The ones with electric ranges have the crappy ones under glass the switch on and off instead of having variable heat. They’re useless to cook on. This seem like another law written by people who own brownstones that will make life shittier for people who rent.
  • Reichhardt 5y ago
    Buy an electric pressure cooker. You can cook 100% of your meals using one. I don't even use my oven or stovetop any more.
    • BoorishBears 5y ago
      You can cook 100% of your meals in one. That sounds like some sort of ironic punishment I'd receive in the afterlife for a grave misdeed.
      • selimthegrim 5y ago
        I don’t understand it. James Coco went mad in 15 minutes!
    • kyruzic 5y ago
      You can cook all your meals using a microwave too. But no one would seriously recommend that to anyone.
    • Auracle 5y ago
      Mm, I love me some pressure cooker hamburgers.
      • Reichhardt 5y ago
        You can use the saute mode in the place of a stovetop pan.
        • 5y ago
• slackfan 5y ago
  So what are your plans for when your batteries go kaput in 15-20 years, or are you planning to sell before then?
  • sxates 5y ago
    Who knows what things will look like in 15 years. 15 years prior to now such a thing was not feasible, or would have cost 10x as much. I expect in 15 years the cost of home batteries will be much much lower, and replacement costs will be affordable. We're still in the very early stages of these products development and scale.
    • slackfan 5y ago
      It's definitely going to be interesting to see, considering the replacement cycles of 15-20 for the batteries, and 20-30 for the solar array what the scaling, the costs, and what the net environmental impact is going to be.
  • mdoms 5y ago
    Replace them...?
  • xxs 5y ago
    Should be able to replace them easily - no idea how they are build, but one would expect a modular design.
• HideousKojima 5y ago
  How much did all the upgrades cost (both before and after tax credits) and how much lower is your typical utility bill per month?
  • sxates 5y ago
    Just got my (mostly) December utility bill: $350 for 1971kwh. That will probably be the biggest bill of the year, it's been a very cold December. We're on a 'net metering' plan though, so our electricity is only billed annually - prior to that it's just costs and credits. Our bill in July was -$400, so the summer credits balance out the winter costs. I don't expect we'll owe anything at true-up time. I should also mention that we have a 1BR apartment downstairs that we rent out, so this is usage for 2 households, each with electric kitchens, heat pumps, laundry, etc. Our usage would be lower without a tenant downstairs. As for total costs, it's hard to say because so much of it was part of other major renovations to the house. We redid all the electrical in the house as part of that, which would normally not be necessary just to upgrade a couple of appliances. Things that might be necessary is upgrading your main electric panel to a higher capacity (going from 100a to 200a for example, which would cost around $8-10k). Cost of the appliances themselves are a big variable. Our main heat pump was $15k, but a lower model would have been more like $10k. The water heater was $2k (again, you could get a cheaper one). Solar panels were installed in two systems a few years apart. In 2017 my 6kw system cost $24,000 before any incentives (by SolarCity). In 2020 my 7.8kw system cost $15,000 before any incentives (by Tesla). After tax credits those two probably cost net <$30k. The Tesla Powerwalls are being paid for entirely by the state of California SGIP program (which depending on your situation will cover about 30% or the full cost). Without that program they would have been in the $20k range.
    • alostpuppy 5y ago
      Which water heater did you get?
      • sxates 5y ago
        It’s a Rheem ‘hybrid’ heat pump water heater (80gal). You can get them at Home Depot.
• nilsbunger 5y ago
  Very cool! What region are you in and how do your electric bills compare to previous gas+electric?
  • sxates 5y ago
    I'm in the Bay Area. Net electric bills for the year are $0 or <$0. Hard to compare to 'before' because the EVs were added after solar, but my next door neighbor with a somewhat larger house, no EVs, and both gas and electric has $1200 energy bills in the winter. I don't think ours would have been that high, but at least half that.
    • dehrmann 5y ago
      Don't expect net metering to exist forever. As more and more people install solar, I'm expecting utilities to switch to the cost of a hookup plus net metering.
• vl 5y ago
  Great! How do you heat your house when power goes out for three days straight in the winter?
  • sxates 5y ago
    I don't! But that was also true when we had gas.
    • DebtDeflation 5y ago
      Was it? I’ve lived in the Northeast for over 40 years. Multiple power outages per year, including some that have lasted several days. NEVER had the natural gas go out. The gas distribution lines run compressors on gas itself, no dependency on the grid.
      • sxates 5y ago
        In our house we have central heat which requires a fan to blow the warm air to all the vents. No power = no heat, regardless of the fuel source. We also don't have prolonged winter outages here since there's no snow (coastal california). If that was a common problem I might strategize a little differently or have gas as an emergency backup.
        • throwawayboise 5y ago
          Homes in the Northeast will often have radiator heat, hot water which circulates by convection. A modern boiler might need electricity for the computer controls, but an old one won't.
      • josephcsible 5y ago
        Modern heating systems need electricity to work even if they generate their heat from gas.
        • astura 5y ago
          Yep, I have oil heat and our boiler needs electricity (I think for the ignition - maybe something else). Definitely doesn't work when the power goes out.
• kblev 5y ago
  Heat pumps are rather inefficient according to this video [1]. Are you not bothered by all the noise it generates? Why not just use electric heater instead of a heat pump? 1 - https://youtu.be/GhAKMAcmJFg https://youtu.be/GhAKMAcmJFg
  • insaneirish 5y ago
    > Heat pumps are rather inefficient according to this video Despite the many faults with this video, the person actually mentions the efficiency of heat pumps, which are WAY higher than the efficiency of fuel burners. > Are you not bothered by all the noise it generates? Modern inverter based heat pumps are incredibly quiet. > Why not just use electric heater instead of a heat pump? Because 100% efficiency is way worse than 300-500% efficiency (i.e. the coefficient of performance of an air source heat pump). This video is mostly talking about "air to water" heat pumps, in other words, replacing a traditional fuel fired hydronic system with a heat pump. This is not an ideal use for heat pumps. Typical hydronic systems are designed for high water temps, which means replacing directly with heat pumps will not work. This person's argument is summed up as "we have horribly built houses and we should never improve them, so let's just overheat them so they feel comfortable". Oh and "there's a conspiracy to artificially raise the price of gas to trick us into buying heat pumps". I've had this video on in the background. It's some amazing fear mongering.
  • sxates 5y ago
    I've run into this guys videos before, and I find them a bit conspiratorial, and certainly not academically honest. What you describe is not my experience with heat pumps at all. Sibling comment says it best.
• zbrozek 5y ago
  I grew up in homes built in 1975 and 1995, both of which have no gas hookups. They're great homes. But now that I'm living in California, electricity is so expensive and time-of-use so annoying that I can't imagine electrification unless I'm off-grid. Where are you and how does the running cost compare? I'm burning 5 therms a day to keep my interior at 16 C averaged over the last four weeks. Having intact exterior walls would probably help, but after two years I'm still waiting on local planners to give me permission to ask for permission to build. I'm getting really close to bailing to someplace sensible.
  • gautamcgoel 5y ago
    Why is time-of-use annoying?
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      Presumably: because electric rate charges vary with time of day, while cooking demands are relatively static. In a high-renewables regime, there's the "duck curve" problem where renewable energy, especially solar power, is most abundant during the midday, whilst demand peaks in the early evening as lighting, heating or cooling loads (depending on season), and you guessed it, cooking loads come on-line. If you arrive home at 17:30 and plan on eating within the half hour, you're using the most expensive electricity of the day. That said, total cooking energy use isn't tremendously high (2--3 kW), and most heating tasks consume less than full output for well under an hour. You can operate a cooktop or oven at full heat for an hour for well under $1 unless rates are Texas-level high. That would be seriously atypical usage. https://www.directenergy.com/learning-center/how-much-energy-does-oven-and-electric-stove-use https://www.directenergy.com/learning-center/how-much-energy... Taking advantage of lower midday rates would be possible with a crock-pot, slow-cooker, sous-vide, or similar methods, though that does require advanced planning and doesn't suit all cooking techniques.
      • jlebar 5y ago
        Presumably they're talking about putative electric heating, not cooking.
• jtchang 5y ago
  How is a heatpump more economical than natural gas? I am in bay area and it can cost anywhere from 15-20 cents a kwh for electricity.
  • epistasis 5y ago
    $0.15-$0.20 is extremely cheap for PG&E. Are you grandfathered into a low rate plan? Heat pumps are 3-4 times as energy efficient as a gas furnace. However, PG&E charges 7-8x as much per kWh of energy in electricity form as it does in fossil gas form. When you have your own solar and storage, it can be as cheap as $0.04-$0.07 for the solar. And depending on the storage vendor these days, it can be anywhere $0.05-$0.15 per kWh that gets stored and discharged. At those rates, it can be cheaper than gas.
    • jtchang 5y ago
      Whoops I was off. It's around 32 cents per KWH.
    • nullc 5y ago
      Unfortunately recent California requirements make it a challenging to have more than 20KWH (e.g. two tesla powerwalls are too much). As a result it can be useful to have gas appliances to reduce the amount of energy storage you need.
    • akvadrako 5y ago
      > Heat pumps are 3-4 times as energy efficient as a gas furnace. This depends totally on the outside temperature. Larger, more expensive heat pumps can stay efficient down to lower temps. However, they all have a point where they become less efficient than resistive electric heat.
• sterlind 5y ago
  How many solar panels do I need to get 12kw in winter in the Pacific Northwest? Answer: per this solar axis[0], we average 242Wh/m² in January. Assuming 25% solar panel efficiency, this gives 60.5W/m². To get 12kw would require 200m² of solar panels, or 45"x45". If we covered our entire house with solar panels it'd be 80m²=4.8kW. 0. https://globalsolaratlas.info/detail?c=47.503287,-122.313538,10&m=site&s=47.65227,-122.283554&pv=small,180,35,1 https://globalsolaratlas.info/detail?c=47.503287,-122.313538...
  • throaway46546 5y ago
    So it would take care of over 1/3 of your energy needs with most of the rest coming from (I assume) hydroelectric generation. Doesn't sound that bad to me.
    • sterlind 5y ago
      we're pretty much entirely on hydro here, so you're correct. our house uses mostly electric everything. my comment was more that solar panels don't magically let everyone live off-grid
  • cout 5y ago
    Did you mean 45' (feet) or 45" (inches)?
    • sterlind 5y ago
      oops. feet.
• alostpuppy 5y ago
  We have a house that was built in 1962 in the Pacific Northwest. This was a time when electricity was essentially free and homes were designed accordingly. It came with a 200 amp panel stock which I suspect would be a non-starter for a lot of people. Having grown up with gas, it was not nearly the as tough a transition as I thought it would be. Most of the efficiency upgrades are simple to do or have done over time. Swap out a water heater one year. Replace resistance heat with heat pumps the next. We have been driving two electric cars for several years and our monthly energy bill is 160-400 a month depending on the time of year. I should add we are the benefactor of incredibly low grid rates (.11 per kWh) making the math workout very nicely.
• timbo1642 5y ago
  [dead]
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• midasuni 5y ago
  Air pump heat pump? How many kWh of gas were you using for heating in winter before the switch? How many kWh of electric do you use now?did you have to replace your radiators or add any extra insulation? I’ve got a 1962 house with an oil boiler, currently using about 10 litres a day on heating, tempted to change to an air powered heat pump
• dijonman2 5y ago
  I love gas, I had a propane tank buried and migrated my range and hot water heater to gas. You can’t beat cooking with gas. I’m forced to use gas hot water since my electric service is a little too small to support on demand. Electric is cool but I’m not tribal about it. We should all use what makes sense, in some cases that’s gas.
• danans 5y ago
  I've done mostly the same (heat pumps, all electric), also in the Bay Area. In addition I upgraded the building envelope by air sealing it to high levels (1 ACH50 for building science nerds - close to th the Passive House standard) and installed an always-on heat recovery ventilation system. The net effect is that the house uses 75% fewer total BTUs for heating than it used to when I had a gas fueled furnace. In terms of operational cost, due to the 300%+ efficiency of the heat pump used to generate those BTUs, it results in a heating cost of roughly $100 (for roughly 400kWh) for the entire winter, vs the $500 (for roughly 250 therms) that I would spend on natural gas heat. So on an absolute operational cost basis it's not much savings, since the climate is mild, but it's wildly more comfortable and my indoor allergies are a thing of the past.
  • novaleaf 5y ago
    > The net effect is that the house uses 75% fewer total BTUs for heating than it used to when I had a gas fueled furnace. You do realize that the 75% reduction is from your insulation improvements, not changing your furnace to a heatpump. Given the current construction/remodeling costs it's not very cost effective to insulate. It's financially "better" to just burn more heat. Yes perhaps worse for the environment longer term but most people still make decisions based on direct costs not indirect environment.
    • danans 5y ago
      > You do realize that the 75% reduction is from your insulation improvements, not changing your furnace to a heatpump. Yes I realize that. In fact, I designed it that way to allow me to downsize the heat pump significantly. > Given the current construction/remodeling costs it's not very cost effective to insulate. It's financially "better" to just burn more heat. If you are undertaking a major home remodel that involves removing drywall, then it makes a lot of sense to upgrade the building envelope. Short of that, there are also products like blown in wall insulation and Aerobarrier that can be done without a major renovation. If you are changing the siding on your house, one should consider add a vapor permeable air barrier material to the outside. Air sealing and (re)insulating unconditioned attic floors are another cost effective way to improve the building envelope performance. Also, bear in mind that these sorts of improvements are investments in the longevity of the house, and also can create far greater comfort due to more consistent temperatures. Those things have a value also.
• 8note 5y ago
  What's your plan for an extended power outage like Texas experienced?
  • sxates 5y ago
    Hope that we don’t have one in the middle of winter. Most times of the year the solar + batteries should be able to keep the lights on and at least minimum heat. Any half the year we could comfortably run off grid for long stretches.
• nswest23 5y ago
  heat pump sounds great as long as you don't live in the half of the US where it actually gets cold in the winter.