4 ms·

> The likely long term effect will be an acceleration of replacing gas with other things. That was already happening anyway. Higher prices will make it happen f

by elric 5y ago

> The likely long term effect will be an acceleration of replacing gas with other things. That was already happening anyway. Higher prices will make it happen faster. I'm still waiting for a practical alternative to natural gas for small housing units (apartments, or just small houses without gardens). Heating water with heat pumps is impractical unless you have a lot of space. My combined hot water/central heating heater is the size of a large microwave oven. If I can replace it with something similarly sized, I will. Until that's possible, I'm afraid I'm stuck with gas.

rekoil 5y ago
You don't do centrally heated water in apartments over there? I don't think I've seen anything else here in Sweden. We actually buy heated water from the grid in my housing cooperative, but a lot of them have "downhole heat exchangers"* installed and produce their own centrally heated water circuit, which is also common for villas over here. *: called bergvärme in Swedish, I just looked up the Swedish wikipedia article and clicked English so I don't know if this is the right term
- phicoh 5y ago
  In The Netherlands, more than 90% of all homes is heated using natural gas. Part of that is historical, but also cooking on natural gas was for a long time the best solution. So if you run natural gas to every home anyhow, there is little reason to have a separate hot water distribution system.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  Of course, in Germany most houses have central heating and central hot water production in a room in the basement. A lot of them even have large oil tanks which could be removed for additional space. There are a few old Buildings from the 50ies, which still have gas heating in the appartments, but they are relatively rare.
- elric 5y ago
  We don't, no. Some older (and often very large) buildings here in Belgium do, but most apartments have individual gas heaters. Some very new constructions rely on district heating, but that's only feasible if there's a source of waste heat nearby (some kind of factory, usually). I doubt we have more than 50 such constructions in the entire country.

by elric 5y ago

rekoil 5y ago

You don't do centrally heated water in apartments over there? I don't think I've seen anything else here in Sweden. We actually buy heated water from the grid in my housing cooperative, but a lot of them have "downhole heat exchangers"* installed and produce their own centrally heated water circuit, which is also common for villas over here. *: called bergvärme in Swedish, I just looked up the Swedish wikipedia article and clicked English so I don't know if this is the right term

phicoh 5y ago
In The Netherlands, more than 90% of all homes is heated using natural gas. Part of that is historical, but also cooking on natural gas was for a long time the best solution. So if you run natural gas to every home anyhow, there is little reason to have a separate hot water distribution system.
_ph_ 5y ago
Of course, in Germany most houses have central heating and central hot water production in a room in the basement. A lot of them even have large oil tanks which could be removed for additional space. There are a few old Buildings from the 50ies, which still have gas heating in the appartments, but they are relatively rare.
elric 5y ago
We don't, no. Some older (and often very large) buildings here in Belgium do, but most apartments have individual gas heaters. Some very new constructions rely on district heating, but that's only feasible if there's a source of waste heat nearby (some kind of factory, usually). I doubt we have more than 50 such constructions in the entire country.