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Along these lines, as someone in the demographic you mention, I was just thinking about this the other day, about whether replacing my HVAC system, which is on

Along these lines, as someone in the demographic you mention, I was just thinking about this the other day, about whether replacing my HVAC system, which is on its last legs, with a heat pump system would be good for the environment, even if the payback is not really there. But given where I live, I wasn't actually sure if it is net good for the environment. But resources are kind of hard to find. Is there a good list of things you could consider that would be environmentally helpful upgrades to your home? Heat pump, solar, electric car, native plant garden, the latest and greatest in insulation, that sort of thing?

turtlebits 5y ago
I "augmented" my HVAC system by putting a heat pump (mini split) in my living room. Mainly because with heat wave in Seattle, I wanted cooling, also it was relatively inexpensive. (The unit was ~$850 USD, it heats and cools, is more efficient. I installed it myself with $150 in tools).
stormbrew 5y ago
I don't really consider myself an expert, honestly. Part of my frustration with the bent of this kind of conversation is how hard it makes it to really suss out answers to these kinds of questions honestly. That said, I live in an area where most home heating is done by natural gas delivered to homes and installed a heat pump last year. I had a lot of trouble finding an hvac company that would do it because it's still quite uncommon where I live, and even they had a lot of misinformation about it. I had a lot of reasons for doing this both related and unrelated to climate change: - The heat dome demonstrated that our house, which is relatively new and built to modern standards so is designed to soak up heat like a sponge, could not be comfortable without AC in a summer like that, of which I expect many more in the future. - If I was getting an AC anyways, there's literally no reason not to have a heat pump and use it for heating in the milder months and reduce my direct use of gas to only when it's absolutely necessary (ie. the last few weeks where we've had a shockingly long cold snap). - And if I was going to run AC I should absolutely have solar as well so I'm not using grid energy to power it (where I live grid energy is very much dominated by coal and natural gas, though coal is thankfully reducing quickly). - Even though the energy mix is mostly GHG-emitting where I live, down to some specific temperature (probably around -10 to -15C with the expensive heat pump I got), a heat pump simply uses far less electric energy than an equivalent amount of gas burned in the house. It's quite a big difference. It doesn't look like it because electricity is priced much higher per kWh-equivalent than gas. But I think there's a lot of more complicated things people 'should' do as well? Since my house is new, the trees on the lot are quite small so provide very little shade in summer. Hopefully this improves as they grow, and maybe we'll plant some more. We're also probably going to install awnings on the windows that are more or less positioned to block direct sunlight in the summer and let it through in the winter. Generally finding ways to passively heat and cool your house is the best thing you can possibly do and even though I'm doing the above as part of electrifying, I plan to do a lot more of the other sorts of things as well.

turtlebits 5y ago

I "augmented" my HVAC system by putting a heat pump (mini split) in my living room. Mainly because with heat wave in Seattle, I wanted cooling, also it was relatively inexpensive. (The unit was ~$850 USD, it heats and cools, is more efficient. I installed it myself with $150 in tools).

stormbrew 5y ago

I don't really consider myself an expert, honestly. Part of my frustration with the bent of this kind of conversation is how hard it makes it to really suss out answers to these kinds of questions honestly. That said, I live in an area where most home heating is done by natural gas delivered to homes and installed a heat pump last year. I had a lot of trouble finding an hvac company that would do it because it's still quite uncommon where I live, and even they had a lot of misinformation about it. I had a lot of reasons for doing this both related and unrelated to climate change: - The heat dome demonstrated that our house, which is relatively new and built to modern standards so is designed to soak up heat like a sponge, could not be comfortable without AC in a summer like that, of which I expect many more in the future. - If I was getting an AC anyways, there's literally no reason not to have a heat pump and use it for heating in the milder months and reduce my direct use of gas to only when it's absolutely necessary (ie. the last few weeks where we've had a shockingly long cold snap). - And if I was going to run AC I should absolutely have solar as well so I'm not using grid energy to power it (where I live grid energy is very much dominated by coal and natural gas, though coal is thankfully reducing quickly). - Even though the energy mix is mostly GHG-emitting where I live, down to some specific temperature (probably around -10 to -15C with the expensive heat pump I got), a heat pump simply uses far less electric energy than an equivalent amount of gas burned in the house. It's quite a big difference. It doesn't look like it because electricity is priced much higher per kWh-equivalent than gas. But I think there's a lot of more complicated things people 'should' do as well? Since my house is new, the trees on the lot are quite small so provide very little shade in summer. Hopefully this improves as they grow, and maybe we'll plant some more. We're also probably going to install awnings on the windows that are more or less positioned to block direct sunlight in the summer and let it through in the winter. Generally finding ways to passively heat and cool your house is the best thing you can possibly do and even though I'm doing the above as part of electrifying, I plan to do a lot more of the other sorts of things as well.