3 ms·

> And of course resistive heating doesn't stop working. Well except… > Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable power grid Okay, yeah. That wou

> And of course resistive heating doesn't stop working. Well except… > Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable power grid Okay, yeah. That would pretty much be my concern. Having been without power for over two weeks in the past 12 months the propane tanks and propane stove / furnace / water heater have been a lifesaver. Powering the control boards / fans with a generator (or even UPS in a pinch) is a lot simpler proposition than trying to generate enough power to heat my house, water, and food with resistive heating.

UncleMeat 4y ago
Gas furnaces don't work without power by default. The fan that pushes the hot air through your house won't work. Many gas furnaces have electrically powered safety features that won't allow the furnace to function if the power is out.
- nucleardog 3y ago
  Covered that already: > Powering the control boards / fans with a generator (or even UPS in a pinch) is a lot simpler proposition than trying to generate enough power to heat my house, water, and food with resistive heating. My furnace runs on 120V power pulling ~8A when running. That's ~1kW. Comparable sized resistive heating would use about 9kW. 1kW for a few hours a day is easy to provide through a cheap generator, a couple small solar panels and a single marine battery, or apparently a ~$220 wind turbine I can order on Amazon that can output up to 1200W. 9kW is a whole different ball game. And that's just heating. My stove uses in the order of single-digit watts for seconds at a time. It can also just be lit with a match without power. My water heater does run a small exhaust fan while it's heating, but again... we're talking hundreds of watts instead of kilowatts. Yes, all these options pretty much still need power, but the smaller power requirements are a hell of a lot easier to provide than the power needed for resistive electric heating. I could run my water heater off of a desktop UPS.

UncleMeat 4y ago

Gas furnaces don't work without power by default. The fan that pushes the hot air through your house won't work. Many gas furnaces have electrically powered safety features that won't allow the furnace to function if the power is out.

nucleardog 3y ago
Covered that already: > Powering the control boards / fans with a generator (or even UPS in a pinch) is a lot simpler proposition than trying to generate enough power to heat my house, water, and food with resistive heating. My furnace runs on 120V power pulling ~8A when running. That's ~1kW. Comparable sized resistive heating would use about 9kW. 1kW for a few hours a day is easy to provide through a cheap generator, a couple small solar panels and a single marine battery, or apparently a ~$220 wind turbine I can order on Amazon that can output up to 1200W. 9kW is a whole different ball game. And that's just heating. My stove uses in the order of single-digit watts for seconds at a time. It can also just be lit with a match without power. My water heater does run a small exhaust fan while it's heating, but again... we're talking hundreds of watts instead of kilowatts. Yes, all these options pretty much still need power, but the smaller power requirements are a hell of a lot easier to provide than the power needed for resistive electric heating. I could run my water heater off of a desktop UPS.