[HN Gopher] Home Heating Cost Comparison
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Home Heating Cost Comparison
Author : indigodaddy
Score : 15 points
Date : 2022-08-27 21:55 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.efficiencymaine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.efficiencymaine.com)
| cosmotic wrote:
| The electricity costs are pretty high in these estimates, by 3x
| or so.
| bombcar wrote:
| You can adjust them for your region.
| leeter wrote:
| They appear to be localized to Maine. I'm pretty sure mine is
| cheaper for natural gas.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 3x is probably only for Pacific Northwest. I would be curious
| to know where else electricity is $0.08 per kWh.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Wouldn't have expected Wood to be the most cost effective option.
| troon-lover wrote:
| BooneJS wrote:
| I'm in Wisconsin, and we peak in 90's Fahrenheit with humidity in
| the summer and will have a week in February where we'll never get
| above 0F. I know geothermal works up here; we had it in a
| previous house but we paid (in 2012) $9600 just to have the 4 150
| ft wells dug. What would air-source heat pumps look like up here?
| I've seen very few new homes in my area with them.
| leeter wrote:
| The cost is mostly in the installer based on the anecdotes of a
| well known technology youtuber in illinois. They are scared of
| installing heat pumps and carrying them allegedly. You may be
| able to buy compatible hardware on your own and get an
| installer. But aside from that one week you can get ASHPs that
| go down to 5F without losing efficiency. You can even get
| multi-head units that can move heat from where you might not
| need it (near a fireplace or stove) to where you do (bedrooms)
| ditto in reverse for cooling. But I'd suggest doing some
| research.
| BooneJS wrote:
| Thanks. We're considering building our ideal home to live
| part-time and eventually retire to, and we'd like it to be
| free of natural gas. Obviously heating w/ natural gas is the
| norm up here, but induction cooktop, solar water heater, and
| a heat pump can replace that. The heat pump coupling is the
| high order bit I need to research. Ground is the pricy but
| default option.
| leeter wrote:
| Check your prices, that's more likely to be a bigger
| determiner than other things. For me it wouldn't make sense
| just because natural gas is so much cheaper right now. That
| is however subject to change. That said if I was installing
| AC I'd probably still do it just because Natural gas prices
| have been a touch volatile lately.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem is that it can't do it through the whole season, so
| you're playing for a whole second system that you barely use
| for that week-month.
|
| You may have to install your own because the installers won't
| know what to do with one.
| rr808 wrote:
| > What would air-source heat pumps look like up here?
|
| Air heat pumps dont work in 0F, you need an alternative. My
| heat pump has resistive heating coils for when it gets cold.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pump#Efficienc...
| leeter wrote:
| Current models work down to -10F without going linear.
| They'll still technically work beneath that but are basically
| the same as resistive electric at that point.
| windexh8er wrote:
| This isn't true. I live in MN and have a mini-split heat pump
| and a whole home air source heat pump that runs dual duty
| with my natural gas furnace. I currently run the cut off to
| switch at 20F. However both units will heat down to -20F. The
| mini-split struggles at that temp but the large unit still
| kicks out enough heat for the entire home.
|
| I also replaced two natural gas water heaters with one 80
| gallon air source heat pump water heater. It can run fully
| heat pump but also has coils. A "high demand" mode can run
| both simultaneously, but 95% of the year I run it in
| "efficiency" mode which is purely heat pump operation. It
| costs about $80-90/annually so far.
| dundarious wrote:
| Vermont, and perhaps Maine as well, have initiatives to
| transition housing to high-efficiency heat pumps that are still
| efficient enough to be better than just resistive heating even
| in negative F temperatures. Obviously they will not be
| efficient in something like -40F, but I believe nowadays they
| break even in -20F, but don't quote me on that exact
| temperature. And even accepting that you'll get <-20F a few
| days a year, it is likely still a net-energy win, and I would
| suspect, suitable for use even without a fixed backup system.
| I'd imagine if it's good enough for Vermont, it would be good
| enough for Wisconsin. The state has websites listing suitable
| models that might be a good starting point for you.
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(page generated 2022-08-27 23:00 UTC)