5 ms·

The thing is (especially where I live) I'd still need a gas furnace. We regularly see -20F to -40F in the winter. While the 95% scenario sounds great, in prac

The thing is (especially where I live) I'd still need a gas furnace. We regularly see -20F to -40F in the winter. While the 95% scenario sounds great, in practice still needing gas means we still need all the gas infrastructure. From my understanding natural gas burns pretty clean. The problem is leaks in infrastructure and drilling, which isn't going away because I buy a heat pump.

GlickWick 3y ago
They make heat pumps with backup gas systems now.
elil17 3y ago
Although natural gas is "clean" compared to, say, coal, the advantage of a heat pump is that it uses less total energy than natural gas. That means it would be more efficient to run a heat pump off a natural gas power plant than to burn natural gas to heat your home directly.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  Where I live, you can bank solar credits. If you cash them out you get the "wholesale" energy price for them (much lower), but if you spend them on electricity then you've avoided paying full price for that electricity. So if your system produces more than you consume, you've got this free energy budget to spend--a budget that applies to heat pumps and not to gas furnaces.
- Alupis 3y ago
  People's AC summertime electric bills regularly get into triple-digits - it's not uncommon to hear someone with a moderately sized home having a $200-400 electric bill in the summertime. However, even in the midst of winter, gas heating bills rarely climb above $100 monthly. What am I missing here? It seems a heatpump, while more efficient, will cost significantly more to operate. Natural Gas is cheap... and clean enough.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    It's actually difficult to say what the cost would be if everyone switched over. The reason is that natural gas is subsidized, both on the production side (at least in the US, which wants energy security) and on the consumption side (because it's politically unpopular to let people freeze to death). Of course, electricity prices are also affected by subsidies. Figuring out the true operating prices would require some research. However, it remains true that, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it is usually preferable to heat a home with a heat pump than by burning gas directly (there exists a temperature below which any given unit will become less efficient than burning gas, but unless you live in a place where this temperature is common then heat pumps will still come out on top (and the fact that residential gas lines are notoriously leaky and basically just venting nonstop into the atmosphere makes the calculation even more favorable)).
    - Alupis 3y ago
      It seems to me, there is no future where a heatpump can be the only source of in-home heating then. 1) Natural Gas is vastly cheaper in most/all of the US. 2) Homes still require an alternative heating source when temperatures drop to low levels (coincidentally when people need heating the most). So, even if a heatpump is technically more efficient in terms of emissions, the technology does not solve all of the problems it's attempting to replace. Additionally, Natural Gas is vastly more clean in terms of emissions than some other alternatives still used around the country. There's no way the average home is going to stomach 2-4x more heating expenses on average without some real tangible benefit (hand-wavy emissions numbers don't factor into the average homeowner's decision making). I must be missing something here...
      - Maxion 3y ago
        > It seems to me, there is no future where a heatpump can be the only source of in-home heating then. > > 1) Natural Gas is vastly cheaper in most/all of the US. > > 2) Homes still require an alternative heating source when temperatures drop to low levels (coincidentally when people need heating the most). > ... > I must be missing something here... Yes you are, your natural gas subsidized, i.e. government handout, i.e. you're not paying the real market cost. Second, heat pumps do not have issues with cold temps, unless you're at like -40c. They're used all over the nordic countries - including above the arctic circle. Your energy grid is shit, which is why your electricity price is so high.
bklyn11201 3y ago
You need a backup heat source, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need full infrastructure of gas lines, ducting, and gas furnace. You could have an electric backup connected to ducted heat pump (e.g., non-efficient, pure electric) or could use electric strip heating, electric portable heaters, wood stoves, etc.
- nightski 3y ago
  We have electric baseboard. It would cost hundreds more per month to utilize something like that instead of gas when it is -30F. In fact if we just leave it on over night a single time we notice it on our bill.
thehoff 3y ago
Replaced our entire system (furnace, a/c) mid last year. Heat pump with backup oil for colder days. We cut the amount of gallons we used by over 50% compared to last year. Sure the oil infrastructure is needed to get it delivered (I wish we didn't need it) but I'm very happy that our heating (oil+electricity) bills are so much lower, even with the increased oil prices. We went with a mid-range system but now I kind of wish we sprung for the "Cadillac" version.
- nightski 3y ago
  I suppose this would be true if gas is expensive where you live. It's really cheap here, our heating bill is like $80/mo in the coldest of months for a 3k sq ft house. A heat pump even with the efficiency gains would be on par with that (unless we jumped into solar, which I have considered).

GlickWick 3y ago

They make heat pumps with backup gas systems now.

elil17 3y ago

Although natural gas is "clean" compared to, say, coal, the advantage of a heat pump is that it uses less total energy than natural gas. That means it would be more efficient to run a heat pump off a natural gas power plant than to burn natural gas to heat your home directly.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
Where I live, you can bank solar credits. If you cash them out you get the "wholesale" energy price for them (much lower), but if you spend them on electricity then you've avoided paying full price for that electricity. So if your system produces more than you consume, you've got this free energy budget to spend--a budget that applies to heat pumps and not to gas furnaces.
Alupis 3y ago
People's AC summertime electric bills regularly get into triple-digits - it's not uncommon to hear someone with a moderately sized home having a $200-400 electric bill in the summertime. However, even in the midst of winter, gas heating bills rarely climb above $100 monthly. What am I missing here? It seems a heatpump, while more efficient, will cost significantly more to operate. Natural Gas is cheap... and clean enough.
- kibwen 3y ago
  It's actually difficult to say what the cost would be if everyone switched over. The reason is that natural gas is subsidized, both on the production side (at least in the US, which wants energy security) and on the consumption side (because it's politically unpopular to let people freeze to death). Of course, electricity prices are also affected by subsidies. Figuring out the true operating prices would require some research. However, it remains true that, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it is usually preferable to heat a home with a heat pump than by burning gas directly (there exists a temperature below which any given unit will become less efficient than burning gas, but unless you live in a place where this temperature is common then heat pumps will still come out on top (and the fact that residential gas lines are notoriously leaky and basically just venting nonstop into the atmosphere makes the calculation even more favorable)).
  - Alupis 3y ago
    It seems to me, there is no future where a heatpump can be the only source of in-home heating then. 1) Natural Gas is vastly cheaper in most/all of the US. 2) Homes still require an alternative heating source when temperatures drop to low levels (coincidentally when people need heating the most). So, even if a heatpump is technically more efficient in terms of emissions, the technology does not solve all of the problems it's attempting to replace. Additionally, Natural Gas is vastly more clean in terms of emissions than some other alternatives still used around the country. There's no way the average home is going to stomach 2-4x more heating expenses on average without some real tangible benefit (hand-wavy emissions numbers don't factor into the average homeowner's decision making). I must be missing something here...
    - Maxion 3y ago
      > It seems to me, there is no future where a heatpump can be the only source of in-home heating then. > > 1) Natural Gas is vastly cheaper in most/all of the US. > > 2) Homes still require an alternative heating source when temperatures drop to low levels (coincidentally when people need heating the most). > ... > I must be missing something here... Yes you are, your natural gas subsidized, i.e. government handout, i.e. you're not paying the real market cost. Second, heat pumps do not have issues with cold temps, unless you're at like -40c. They're used all over the nordic countries - including above the arctic circle. Your energy grid is shit, which is why your electricity price is so high.

bklyn11201 3y ago

You need a backup heat source, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need full infrastructure of gas lines, ducting, and gas furnace. You could have an electric backup connected to ducted heat pump (e.g., non-efficient, pure electric) or could use electric strip heating, electric portable heaters, wood stoves, etc.

nightski 3y ago
We have electric baseboard. It would cost hundreds more per month to utilize something like that instead of gas when it is -30F. In fact if we just leave it on over night a single time we notice it on our bill.

thehoff 3y ago

Replaced our entire system (furnace, a/c) mid last year. Heat pump with backup oil for colder days. We cut the amount of gallons we used by over 50% compared to last year. Sure the oil infrastructure is needed to get it delivered (I wish we didn't need it) but I'm very happy that our heating (oil+electricity) bills are so much lower, even with the increased oil prices. We went with a mid-range system but now I kind of wish we sprung for the "Cadillac" version.

nightski 3y ago
I suppose this would be true if gas is expensive where you live. It's really cheap here, our heating bill is like $80/mo in the coldest of months for a 3k sq ft house. A heat pump even with the efficiency gains would be on par with that (unless we jumped into solar, which I have considered).