10 ms·

SF may soon ban natural gas in homes and businesses undergoing major renovations

• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• tlogan 1y ago
  This is an excellent way to solve the housing crisis in San Francisco: sarcasm fully intended. Stories like this just reinforce the obvious: the housing crisis is a problem of our own making. Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live. The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations. This should not be a political issue. Whether on the left or the right, rich people will always find a reason (legal, aesthetic, environmental, religious, etc.) to avoid fixing the housing problem. The excuses vary, but the outcome is the same.
  • dehrmann 1y ago
    I won't go that far, but it's a distraction from larger problems, and it makes housing more expensive. These are the same cities charging $0.10 for paper bags at grocery stores because marginal environmental benefit?
  • cocoa19 1y ago
    > The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations Reminds me of prop 13. If you challenge grandma having a $3M house paying peanuts for property taxes you are a monster. If you defend young people that are ready to start a family, "they can kick rocks and move to Bumfuck, Middle-Of-Nowhere, no one is entitled to live in the Bay Area".
    • linotype 1y ago
      Both are unfortunate situations. Neither should be priced out.
      • seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        Everyone one who wants to live in SF should be allowed to live in SF regardless of their means. I don’t know how this could work in practice, however.
    • burnt-resistor 1y ago
      CA Prop 13 was an unfortunate, short-term bandaid in 1978 that didn't address excessive property taxes for elderly, disabled, and poor people who came after them. It truly was another boomer selfishness moment. The solution is to expand Prop 13 to all who meet low income requirements to make property taxes progressive rather than unreasonable "flat" taxes that punish the poor far more than the rich and moderately rich. PS: I grew up in south San Jose, graduated from Leland, but can't afford a home anywhere near where I grew up because rich people from all over the world gentrified the Bay Area and boomers went full NIMBY on new developments.
      • dnissley 1y ago
        boomers were just coming of age politically when prop 13 passed in 1978. the main culprits were actually the silent generation and older greatest gen homeowners—think postwar suburbanites who had bought in cheap and were now watching their property taxes spike in a period of wild inflation + ballooning home values. boomers were still mostly renters or too young to own, especially in california’s pricey metros.
        • burnt-resistor 1y ago
          Incorrect. They were buying homes like my parents (born in 47 and 48) did in San Jose, who benefitted greatly from Prop 13. It was the grandparents of boomers (Jarvis and the older bits of the Greatest Gen) who were initially impacted by rapidly rising property values and property taxes who pushed for it.
          • dnissley 1y ago
            Older boomers benefited but were not the culprits as you say, so I don't think you can call it a "boomer selfishness moment" is all.
  • StopDisinfo910 1y ago
    How exactly is forcing owners to actually improve their house supposed to make the housing problem worse? You think it’s going to put house outside of the market at their current price? It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > How exactly is forcing owners to actually improve their house supposed to make the housing problem worse? This law makes renovations more expensive. That means use conversions, expansions and safety improvements all happen less frequently. > It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin Limited supply means suppliers own the cards. There is zero chance these costs are born by landlords.
      • StopDisinfo910 1y ago
        > Limited supply means suppliers own the cards. There is zero chance these costs are born by landlords. Landlords are already pricing their rentals as high as they can so who else would bear the costs? If they could extract more, they would already do.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > Landlords are already pricing their rentals as high as they can Reducing supply increases the price they can charge because prospective renters have fewer alternatives.
    • tlogan 1y ago
      Let me give you a concrete example. In Sunset (San Francisco), most houses still have 100–150 amp electrical panels. To support full electrification these panels typically need to be upgraded to 200 or maybe 300 amps. That upgrade alone costs around $10,000, including labor, permitting (which is surprisingly expensive), and inspections. If rewiring the house is also required (which is often the case) that can push the total to $30,000. But it doesn’t stop there. PG&E’s infrastructure in many areas like Sunset is already maxed out. If your upgrade triggers a red flag, PG&E may require additional capacity upgrades. However, they won’t pay for them (they’ll just refuse the work until you do). These utility-related infrastructure upgrades can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000, and yes, those costs fall on the homeowner. So in total, you could be looking at $60,000 or more for this.
  • adrianwaj 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • danans 1y ago
    > This is an excellent way to solve the housing crisis in San Francisco: sarcasm fully intended. At least for new dwellings, building without gas piping is _cheaper_ than building with it. It's very cheap to run additional 240V/60A lines from the load center to the kitchen and laundry/utility room. Depending on the renovation, it can be even cheaper to go all-electric, for example, if the kitchen/laundry/heating is being moved. However, renovations don't have much effect either way on the housing affordability crisis in San Francisco, because renovations don't generally increase housing capacity. Most renovations in SF are done for the purpose of converting existing lower end homes into higher end homes.
  • seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    This doesn’t have much to do with the cost of building housing. If it did, the south east where natural gas is non existent through out much of it wouldn’t have such cheap housing. Yes, they have propane (king of the hill style), but this wouldn’t get rid of propane cooking outside either.
• sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago
  They could easily get more public support if they pushed this as a seismic retrofit initiative rather than continue to gaslight the public and doubling down on their environmental foolishness. A direct-vent natural gas-fired water heater is probably the simplest, most reliable appliance you could own. It requires no electricity. And now bureaucrats (not plumbers) made them illegal. SF is probably the only place in the country where this makes sense, solely because of the earthquake problem. (Do you know how to shut off your gas meter in an emergency? Probably not.) Yet same people who insist hopscotching amongst piles of human feces is part and parcel to living in the city, not the public health hazard it is, want you to believe your gas stove is killing you. As a wok owner, I'll take that chance.
  • tlogan 1y ago
    I’m not sure where you live, but in my case, I wasn’t even able to get home insurance without an automatic gas shutoff valve. Our policy also required an automatic shutoff for water. So in that sense, earthquake safety is already being addressed through insurance requirements. Ultimately, mandates like this just make housing even more expensive. Which, frankly, seems to be the real goal. God forbid home prices actually decline or even stop rising.
    • pengaru 1y ago
      That's not really sufficient for seismically active regions like the SF bay area. The mains are more likely to develop leaks from the frequent tremors and no amount of at-home shutoff valves will change that. If you allow new construction dependent on existing natural gas distribution lines, they increase the pressure to accommodate the increased demand. This makes explosions from pipes leaking/catastrophically failing more likely. I thought it was obvious the long-term goal was to reduce if not completely eliminate the need for natural gas distribution _especially_ in these regions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
  • mcswell 1y ago
    "A direct-vent natural gas-fired water heater is probably the simplest, most reliable appliance you could own. It requires no electricity." I won't address the legality issue, but: First, I'm not sure about the no electricity; if the heater has a pilot light, then I suppose no, but otherwise it requires electricity at least for the igniter. Second, you're missing another reason for getting a heat pump water heater. We just last week replaced our 13 year old (and therefore on its end of life) gas heater with a heat pump water heater. It requires no gas :). One reason for doing that is that using electricity to run a small heat pump is far cheaper where we live than gas. (We have solar panels, which makes it still cheaper--in fact, free.) The only things remaining in our house that use gas are the stove and a gas log fireplace. We've used the latter twice during the 13 years we've lived in the house. If we replace the stove (which we'll need to do some day, it's almost 25 years old) with an electric one, then I'd be easily persuaded to turn off the gas fireplace, and end the delivery charge on gas. As an electric appliance owner, I'll take that chance.
• ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  Totally sensible policy that the average American thinks is crazy because their overton window is so skewed. In Australia they're looking to identify larger areas to remove from the gas grid at the same time. Otherwise the few remaining on gas bear the entire cost of upkeep of the grid.
  • _tbl6 1y ago
    To be fair in houses it's relatively easy to run a gas cooker on bottles of propane, mains gas isn't necessary for this.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • fundad 1y ago
      Exactly I was just thinking people can take responsibility for gas delivery themselves like any luxury. BTW I went all electric because plumbing costs more than wiring.
  • tlogan 1y ago
    The very big issue in San Francisco is the severe lack of affordable housing. When renovations become significantly more expensive, those costs inevitably get passed on to renters: making the crisis even worse. If regulations like these are necessary, they should be applied in areas without a housing affordability crisis. But somehow, it’s always the high-cost cities that get hit with even more burdens.
    • wyre 1y ago
      Yes, it is an issue that SF doesn't have affordable housing. Any price increase by requiring induction stovetops is a rounding error compared to inflation, or is an excuse for greedy landlords to increase rents heavily. Also, any desirable part of the country with jobs is facing a housing affordability crisis. High rents are caused by greedy landlords and the protections given to them by the government, not because of regulation requiring them to spend a little bit more on an electric range.
• whateveracct 1y ago
  I'm in another state with a liberal, climate-oriented govt, and I just got a fresh gas range and new gas car. Felt like my last chance to do so given how long I hold onto such things. Carpe diem.
  • burnt-resistor 1y ago
    Given that (the better) EVs are cheaper to operate, cheaper to maintain, accelerate faster than ICEVs, and don't create as much net pollution, these should be the preferred option rather than using the sky as a sewer. The problem right now is most of America is fixated upon ancient and harmful technologies and isn't do enough to incentivize buying EVs. And it's actually limiting consumer choice by slapping giant tariffs on international EV options that are surpassing the capabilities of domestic ones. EVs should be (re)incentivized such that they are significantly cheaper to buy than ICEVs.
    • whateveracct 1y ago
      But I like driving ICEVs! Always have, and they're still more fun to drive and deal with. Figured I'd get one last hurrah. Mileage is good and this car will probably last me the next 10-15y. Zoom zoom til 2040, buddy :)
      • pshirshov 1y ago
        > they're still more fun to drive and deal with Exemplary reasoning of a grown-up member of the society.
        • olelele 1y ago
          Same reasoning is used by a lot of German car owners. ”I like my combustion engine too much!”
          • whateveracct 1y ago
            If you act like that's not a real thing, you're probably just an out of touch HNer who doesn't like cars (very uncool)
• thehappypm 1y ago
  How do San Francisco homes get heat? As I understand it, it gets cool enough in SF to require heating a lot of the time. If gas is banned, a lot of people switch from gas to electric heat? Straining an already strained grid?
  • duskwuff 1y ago
    > As I understand it, it gets cool enough in SF to require heating a lot of the time. Definitely not "a lot of the time". The coldest it gets is maybe 40°F on a particularly chilly winter night - with a well-insulated house you hardly even need central heat.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • balfirevic 1y ago
      1. Are houses in SF well insulated? 2. 40°F is 4°C. That's cold. What do you expect the indoor temperature to be in those conditions, without heating?
      • ben_w 1y ago
        While I suspect 1. to resolve false, I wish to offer anecdote about what's possible: I'm currently living in a well insulated German new build, and over this last winter was wearing a T-shirt inside while it was actively snowing outside. The average combined power consumption of all things in this property is about 500 watts. It would be lower, but we didn't know how to correctly configure some of it in the first 6 months.
  • bradlys 1y ago
    Heat pumps are very efficient form of heating. The nice part is that you can use them to cool the home too.
  • burnt-resistor 1y ago
    While SF has microclimates, the weather goes from barely cold to barely warm. It doesn't really need heating or A/C very much. The thing though is that PG&E's (traditionally) lower costs for natural gas than electricity incentivize(d) the consumption and use of gas water heaters, clothes dryers, and stoves. If the city-county of SF or state wanted to address this as a policy level, they could slap a tax on natural gas. The thing though is they should help people afford the change to electric and on-going higher costs of electricity because people on fixed incomes cannot afford any changes.
• SilverElfin 1y ago
  Gas cooking is still much better. I have both. Induction just isn’t as enjoyable and you can’t do things like move your pan and have it keep heating like with a flame. Not to mention, induction is rough on pans. Banning things is aggressive and uncalled for.
  • archagon 1y ago
    FWIW, most high-end restaurants rely on induction these days. (Sometimes, though not always, exclusively.)
    • latchkey 1y ago
      Oh, that sounds interesting, source?
      • archagon 1y ago
        I don't really have a source, but here's a bit about it: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2022-1-spring/notes-here-there/chefs-turn-gas-and-light-induction-cooktops https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2022-1-spring/notes-here-t... I've seen it first-hand, too. Pastry chefs in particular seem to appreciate the stability and evenness of low heat that high-end induction brings to the table. You can often see Cedric Grolet use an induction burner on his channel, for example: https://www.instagram.com/cedricgrolet/ https://www.instagram.com/cedricgrolet/
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
    • _heimdall 1y ago
      Thanks, this was going to be my main question here. I haven't been in a commercial kitchen in years, at that time everything was gas. It was obvious that chefs preferred gas over electric, but at that time induction was still too new for commercial use.
  • bradlys 1y ago
• archagon 1y ago
  When I was looking for an apartment in SF, it seemed like half the places we viewed smelled a bit like gas in the kitchen. And then the apartment we ended up renting turned out to have leaking gas pipes basically throughout the entire plumbing run. (Fortunately, the landlord was able to coordinate a brand new gas line installation in a matter of days.) I think a lot of people live with gas leaks without even knowing, especially in older buildings. This is a good change from a public health and safety perspective.
  • burnt-resistor 1y ago
    And that's why dozens of homes go boom every year. My dumbass aunt nearly blew up her 100+ year old house because of 60+ year old under-maintained gas lines that caused a minor fire.
• neonate 1y ago
  https://archive.md/jqYs7 https://archive.md/jqYs7
• xcxhjjg 1y ago
  [dead]
• johnnienaked 1y ago
  Natural gas is burned to generate electricity in the peaker plants near Reno that supply SF with their power needs. That's hundreds of miles of power lines running through Northern California forest to get power to SF because of state regulations. Downed power lines are directly responsible for a pretty large % of wildfires. Same thing in LA, where a significant amount of power is sent from peaker plants near Las Vegas. These regulations can't do anything to lower demand, they'll only serve to make things even more expensive.
  • EdSchouten 1y ago
    Those plants likely have a higher efficiency than a gas powered stove, so may be worth it regardless?
    • johnnienaked 1y ago
      The point is that the laws are not about efficiency. They merely serve to send California pollution to the poor parts of Nevada and charge a premium for it.