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The problem with my experience in the Midwest (Michigan in particular) is that their power grid is so bad that I would lose electricity for an average of 1 week

The problem with my experience in the Midwest (Michigan in particular) is that their power grid is so bad that I would lose electricity for an average of 1 week each year (the problem is so widespread that Michigan has laws in place to protect utility companies against customer claims for interruptions less than 5 days[^1]). If you get a nasty February ice storm that cuts a power line, you can be without electric power in 0F weather for up to 5 days. I guess people can install natural gas generators for that occurrence, but that seems to be a little bit counterintuitive (also, would a gas company provide emergency-only service?). I am not sure if heat pumps can work off regular gas powered portable generators that people usually use for emergency power. [1]: https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/mpsc/consumer/info/tips/mpsc-ca_electricoutageservicecredits.pdf?rev=39395f88253e49a98813c442d75bdb48 https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/mpsc/consu...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Kalium 4y ago
To add to this, there was a major storm last week that knocked out power for significant chunk of the Detroit area for up to three days. That's in August, mostly from wind.
- generallee5686 4y ago
  My neighbor was out from Monday until Friday evening. I think it was actually up to _6_ days...
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  These kinds of storms happen rarely if ever happen in the winter and they typically happen in the spring and summer so I’m not sure how this presents much of an issue for heating. They seem to impact rural areas much worse though.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    In the northeast all my worst power outages happened during the winter. Usually from ice storms or even just an overabundance of wet snow causing tons of tree limbs to come down at once.
    - alphabettsy 4y ago
      We were talking about Michigan though. Also, power lines can be constructed or maintained in a way that trees and ice aren’t an issue.
      - Kalium 4y ago
        They can be, but in large parts of Michigan they haven't been - a quick check says 15% of power lines are buried. So any weather event that risks damage to tree limbs also risks power outages.
        taylodl 4y ago
        Burying power lines is extremely expensive - and the utilities aren't going to eat that cost, it's going to be passed right on to you! Moreover, when there are problems with underground power lines, which ironically tends to also happen in the winter due to the salt used on roadways, it's very time-consuming to resolve issues. The utilities would need 5x the crews they currently have in order to restore power in as timely a manner as they do now. How do I know this? I work for a major utility serving the midwest. Winters are no joke in these parts. As others have noted, heat pumps are only good down to 20F. If it gets colder than that, which it frequently does, you're going to want a natural gas furnace because electric furnaces are stupid expensive to operate! This coming from a guy who works for the power company! There's not going to be any phase-out of natural gas for decades - which is the amount of time we need to build all the nuclear generation we need to make power as cheap and abundant as we need. We can't heat our homes and power our cars with wishes and desires - we need a hard-nosed energy policy and plan of execution.
        4y ago
hwillis 4y ago
> If you get a nasty February ice storm that cuts a power line, you can be without electric power in 0F weather for up to 5 days. I guess people can install natural gas generators for that occurrence Why would they? They already have one. They don't have to rip it out just because they get a heat pump. Heat pumps don't go where the furnace is. > I am not sure if heat pumps can work off regular gas powered portable generators that people usually use for emergency power. Depends on the generator, although some heat pumps run on 120 V. More often they're like central air conditioners, washing machines, and stoves, and run on split-phase 240 [1]. 240 V generators are not as common as 120 V, but they are still very easy to find: https://www.homedepot.com/p/318061554 https://www.homedepot.com/p/318061554 [1]: your house gets 2 "hot" (one positive voltage, one negative) wires and 1 neutral, with most things connected between neutral and a hot wire, with a ground to check for shorts. High power (anything over 1.4 kW) appliances get a NEMA connector between the two hot wires, and a ground to check for shorts.
- thinkcontext 4y ago
  > Heat pumps don't go where the furnace is. They certainly can. Are you thinking heat pumps only come as mini-splits? Drop-in replacement of the furnace is likely the cheaper option when replacing an existing gas furnace over a multi-head system.
  - hwillis 4y ago
    Okay? They virtually always are outside, because it's far more difficult to put a unit in a basement. Heat pumps need outside air and a furnace typically has a single 2" PVC pipe to the outside. That's very far from sufficient. If you have a furnace it's trivial to have it left in place.
    - thinkcontext 4y ago
      I don't think you understand what a heat pump is or how they work. Its an air conditioner that can run in reverse. So in the centralized case like we are discussing, the outside part is the compressor, the inside part does a heat exchange between the refrigerant and the air handling system and then on to the duct work. Air is not moved from outside to inside via PVC or other method. Refrigerant (freon in older systems, more obscure names now) moves from outside to inside via a small copper pipe.
prirun 4y ago
> If you get a nasty February ice storm that cuts a power line, you can be without electric power in 0F weather for up to 5 days I live in Indiana and we've had power outages like this during both winter and summer. What sucks is that newer (last 25 years) gas furnaces have fancy-dancy blower motors (power vent) and if I lose electricity, I also can't run the furnace because the power vent won't work. My gas water heater was the same way. Last time it failed (they only last 10 years these days), I switched to electric because the power vent on the gas water heater was so noisy you could hear it throughout the entire house. My house is somewhat livable in the summer heat with a power outage because I have a basement, but in winter, forget it. Having said that, I'm not so keen on spending $10-15K to convert two gas furnaces to heat pumps.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Kalium 4y ago

To add to this, there was a major storm last week that knocked out power for significant chunk of the Detroit area for up to three days. That's in August, mostly from wind.

generallee5686 4y ago
My neighbor was out from Monday until Friday evening. I think it was actually up to _6_ days...
alphabettsy 4y ago
These kinds of storms happen rarely if ever happen in the winter and they typically happen in the spring and summer so I’m not sure how this presents much of an issue for heating. They seem to impact rural areas much worse though.
- ridgered4 4y ago
  In the northeast all my worst power outages happened during the winter. Usually from ice storms or even just an overabundance of wet snow causing tons of tree limbs to come down at once.
  - alphabettsy 4y ago
    We were talking about Michigan though. Also, power lines can be constructed or maintained in a way that trees and ice aren’t an issue.
    - Kalium 4y ago
      They can be, but in large parts of Michigan they haven't been - a quick check says 15% of power lines are buried. So any weather event that risks damage to tree limbs also risks power outages.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        Burying power lines is extremely expensive - and the utilities aren't going to eat that cost, it's going to be passed right on to you! Moreover, when there are problems with underground power lines, which ironically tends to also happen in the winter due to the salt used on roadways, it's very time-consuming to resolve issues. The utilities would need 5x the crews they currently have in order to restore power in as timely a manner as they do now. How do I know this? I work for a major utility serving the midwest. Winters are no joke in these parts. As others have noted, heat pumps are only good down to 20F. If it gets colder than that, which it frequently does, you're going to want a natural gas furnace because electric furnaces are stupid expensive to operate! This coming from a guy who works for the power company! There's not going to be any phase-out of natural gas for decades - which is the amount of time we need to build all the nuclear generation we need to make power as cheap and abundant as we need. We can't heat our homes and power our cars with wishes and desires - we need a hard-nosed energy policy and plan of execution.
        4y ago

hwillis 4y ago

> If you get a nasty February ice storm that cuts a power line, you can be without electric power in 0F weather for up to 5 days. I guess people can install natural gas generators for that occurrence Why would they? They already have one. They don't have to rip it out just because they get a heat pump. Heat pumps don't go where the furnace is. > I am not sure if heat pumps can work off regular gas powered portable generators that people usually use for emergency power. Depends on the generator, although some heat pumps run on 120 V. More often they're like central air conditioners, washing machines, and stoves, and run on split-phase 240 [1]. 240 V generators are not as common as 120 V, but they are still very easy to find: https://www.homedepot.com/p/318061554 https://www.homedepot.com/p/318061554 [1]: your house gets 2 "hot" (one positive voltage, one negative) wires and 1 neutral, with most things connected between neutral and a hot wire, with a ground to check for shorts. High power (anything over 1.4 kW) appliances get a NEMA connector between the two hot wires, and a ground to check for shorts.

thinkcontext 4y ago
> Heat pumps don't go where the furnace is. They certainly can. Are you thinking heat pumps only come as mini-splits? Drop-in replacement of the furnace is likely the cheaper option when replacing an existing gas furnace over a multi-head system.
- hwillis 4y ago
  Okay? They virtually always are outside, because it's far more difficult to put a unit in a basement. Heat pumps need outside air and a furnace typically has a single 2" PVC pipe to the outside. That's very far from sufficient. If you have a furnace it's trivial to have it left in place.
  - thinkcontext 4y ago
    I don't think you understand what a heat pump is or how they work. Its an air conditioner that can run in reverse. So in the centralized case like we are discussing, the outside part is the compressor, the inside part does a heat exchange between the refrigerant and the air handling system and then on to the duct work. Air is not moved from outside to inside via PVC or other method. Refrigerant (freon in older systems, more obscure names now) moves from outside to inside via a small copper pipe.

prirun 4y ago

> If you get a nasty February ice storm that cuts a power line, you can be without electric power in 0F weather for up to 5 days I live in Indiana and we've had power outages like this during both winter and summer. What sucks is that newer (last 25 years) gas furnaces have fancy-dancy blower motors (power vent) and if I lose electricity, I also can't run the furnace because the power vent won't work. My gas water heater was the same way. Last time it failed (they only last 10 years these days), I switched to electric because the power vent on the gas water heater was so noisy you could hear it throughout the entire house. My house is somewhat livable in the summer heat with a power outage because I have a basement, but in winter, forget it. Having said that, I'm not so keen on spending $10-15K to convert two gas furnaces to heat pumps.