4 ms·

There is a push to move to electric heat generation in homes in some areas. If electricity goes out you loose heat. In many areas you can have weeks (even month

by mfer 4y ago

There is a push to move to electric heat generation in homes in some areas. If electricity goes out you loose heat. In many areas you can have weeks (even months) where the temperature is below freezing. Loose heat to your home and your pipes can freeze. When this happens they burst causing damage to the home.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
Pipes don't freeze immediately. A semi-decently insulated house will loose less than 10 degrees per day, so it would take a few days before pipes start freezing.
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
  Cool! Most of the houses in areas of the US where pipes freeze are quite old, many have effectively no insulation (the one I currently rent has no insulation at all). If heat goes out, it'll reach outside temperature within a day. People here in Buffalo recently died because a blizzard took out electricity, homes lost heat, and they froze (mostly when they tried to get to the "warming shelter" locations and were trapped, but trapped in a car without heat vs trapped in a house without heat is freezing all the same).
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    yeah, but those houses aren't the ones that are getting electric heat. that's almost all only new construction. (and if you are in a house like this you'll gain a lot more by replacing the windows than the heat)
bluGill 4y ago
There are very few houses that have a heating system that works without electric. There are blowers/fans that turn on when when the furnace turns on. Most of the time the thermostat itself needs mains power to function (the thermostat gets power from the furnace, but ultimate it comes from the mains feed). It isn't even possible to have a modern 90+ efficiency furnace without mains as the exhaust is not hot enough to let convection take care of the exhaust. A gas furnace doesn't need much power though. A heat pump needs a lot of power, and resistance heating is worse.
cinntaile 4y ago
Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? Wouldn't houses at risk have some sort of contingency measures in place such as insulated pipes, alternative heat sources,..?
- vel0city 4y ago
  > Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? From my personal experiences, yes. Gas pipelines are practically always buried, electricity lines are often overhead and subject to storm damage. There have been dozens of times in my life where electricity is out but natural gas infrastructure is still available.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    I wonder what causes this, the gas infrastructure needs electricity for the compressors too but maybe they have auxiliary power at each pump station? Some pressure reduction is probably acceptable too so there might be "automatic" redundancy.
- mfer 4y ago
  > Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? In many places electricity is transitioned via above ground lines. Natural gas is via buried pipes. The above ground lines have far more issues due to natural events (like storms or tree branches falling). In addition to this, electricity already hit peak loads in some areas due to other things drawing on it. Electricity is more likely to have outages than natural gas.

by mfer 4y ago

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

Pipes don't freeze immediately. A semi-decently insulated house will loose less than 10 degrees per day, so it would take a few days before pipes start freezing.

SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
Cool! Most of the houses in areas of the US where pipes freeze are quite old, many have effectively no insulation (the one I currently rent has no insulation at all). If heat goes out, it'll reach outside temperature within a day. People here in Buffalo recently died because a blizzard took out electricity, homes lost heat, and they froze (mostly when they tried to get to the "warming shelter" locations and were trapped, but trapped in a car without heat vs trapped in a house without heat is freezing all the same).
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  yeah, but those houses aren't the ones that are getting electric heat. that's almost all only new construction. (and if you are in a house like this you'll gain a lot more by replacing the windows than the heat)

bluGill 4y ago

There are very few houses that have a heating system that works without electric. There are blowers/fans that turn on when when the furnace turns on. Most of the time the thermostat itself needs mains power to function (the thermostat gets power from the furnace, but ultimate it comes from the mains feed). It isn't even possible to have a modern 90+ efficiency furnace without mains as the exhaust is not hot enough to let convection take care of the exhaust. A gas furnace doesn't need much power though. A heat pump needs a lot of power, and resistance heating is worse.

cinntaile 4y ago

Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? Wouldn't houses at risk have some sort of contingency measures in place such as insulated pipes, alternative heat sources,..?

vel0city 4y ago
> Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? From my personal experiences, yes. Gas pipelines are practically always buried, electricity lines are often overhead and subject to storm damage. There have been dozens of times in my life where electricity is out but natural gas infrastructure is still available.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  I wonder what causes this, the gas infrastructure needs electricity for the compressors too but maybe they have auxiliary power at each pump station? Some pressure reduction is probably acceptable too so there might be "automatic" redundancy.
mfer 4y ago
> Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? In many places electricity is transitioned via above ground lines. Natural gas is via buried pipes. The above ground lines have far more issues due to natural events (like storms or tree branches falling). In addition to this, electricity already hit peak loads in some areas due to other things drawing on it. Electricity is more likely to have outages than natural gas.