[HN Gopher] Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adop...
___________________________________________________________________
Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat
pumps
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 238 points
Date : 2024-02-09 15:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| vundercind wrote:
| > Death is coming for the old-school gas furnace--and its killer
| is the humble heat pump.
|
| Uh, you still need a furnace (though it could be electric) if you
| live somewhere that ever _really_ gets cold, right?
|
| [edit] I mean, seeing it presented as a furnace replacement is
| weird to me. I've always seen it sold as an air conditioner
| replacement that also happens to heat (with weird characteristics
| that often confuse people--they'll think their heat is broken,
| because the air coming out is only _kinda_ warm, not very-warm
| like furnace heat) when it's not _really_ cold out.
| spiderice wrote:
| Yes. I live in Utah and have a heat pump and gas furnace. I am
| told the heat pump is really efficient at medium-cold
| temperatures, but not so much on really cold days.
| loeg wrote:
| I believe heatpump technology has improved over time. Also,
| "less efficient but still functional" is an adequate option
| for really cold days.
| Loughla wrote:
| Less efficient but still functional means my home was 50
| degree inside instead of 67 when it was -1 for two weeks
| here.
|
| On older homes, with much worse insulation, this would
| immediately be a problem.
|
| Heat pumps are great, but they absolutely need some kind of
| emergency heat back up.
| loeg wrote:
| > Less efficient but still functional means my home was
| 50 degree inside instead of 67 when it was -1 for two
| weeks here.
|
| No, that's just not functional. "Less efficient" means
| consuming more joules of electricity but still providing
| the required function.
|
| > Heat pumps are great, but they absolutely need some
| kind of emergency heat back up.
|
| They include it. You were sold an inadequate pump for
| your situation.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Heat pumps are still more efficient, but you'd need damn good
| insulation (or a really big heat pump) in super cold weather.
| Furnaces scale-up pretty well on the other hand.
|
| If your locale gets life threateningly cold though, I'd feel
| more comfortable with a furnace because of the fewer moving
| parts. Burn gas, get heat, dead simple.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Funny enough in the short term I've lived in my house, I
| already had a winter where the furnace quit.
|
| It's a high-efficiency one with a control board (Nobody can
| convince me FCS isn't Fire Control System) and a separate
| draft motor.
|
| One of the vacuum sensors went out and the furnace couldn't
| prove it was safe to run, so it would turn on the draft
| motor, suspect a clog, and then shut it back off.
|
| An easy fix but not as simple as lighting a Bunsen burner.
| And I haven't seen the electrical cord for it, I'm not sure
| how I would hook it to a generator if I lost power. The water
| heater oddly enough is battery-powered, so I guess I could
| just fill the tub with hot water.
| loeg wrote:
| Heatpumps have resistance heating backup for the exceptional
| periods when it is too cold to make use of the compression
| system. Most people live somewhere a heatpump would work well.
| vundercind wrote:
| Oh, I've not see that kind, only the sort where the "e heat"
| feature on the thermostat is tied to a separate furnace.
| heironimus wrote:
| Problem is, if everyone has resistance backup and it gets
| really cold, I doubt if the grid could keep up.
| giantg2 wrote:
| This also assumes a resilient grid, which may not be the case
| for large areas of the rural US.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Cutting edge heat pumps can now work down into the sub zero (F)
| temperatures. Manufacturers have really been pushing hard on
| this in recent years. But these units still are more expensive
| than your run of the mill ones.
| nitsuaeekcm wrote:
| The best mental model for a heat pump is that they can maintain
| a certain temperature differential, say 80F. If it gets to be
| 0F outside and you want it to be 70? You don't need to switch
| to a fully separate heating system, you just need to warm up
| either the incoming or outgoing air an additional 10 degrees
| via a small resistance heater. The super wide range heat pump
| systems will do that automatically, and the principle really
| applies to any differential you could want.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| The wide range ones are basically two heat pumps back to back
| using different working fluids. They should only be used in
| applications where they are really required as there are
| obviously impacts to the COP.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > The best mental model for a heat pump is that they can
| maintain a certain temperature differential, say 80F. If it
| gets to be 0F outside and you want it to be 70? You don't
| need to switch to a fully separate heating system, you just
| need to warm up either the incoming or outgoing air an
| additional 10 degrees via a small resistance heater.
|
| Are your 70 and 80 switched? What you describe doesn't sound
| like it needs any addition.
| kj4ips wrote:
| I have a pair of heat pumps in a dual zone setup, each of them
| has a backup electric furnace as part of its indoor air
| handler. Newer ones can keep running without that even into
| quite cold areas.
|
| The thermostat just sees the resistive heaters as another
| phase, so I have three phases, and if it doesn't see a temp
| rise within a certain time of calling for phase 1/2, then it
| goes to phase 3. Mine also has support for an external
| temperature probe, that can skip 1/2 if it is already too cold.
|
| I also have other ways to make heat if I have a prolonged
| electrical outage, but outside of maintenance, I've not used
| that.
| loudmax wrote:
| What's _really_ cold? There are heat pumps that are advertised
| as working at -15F. On the days when it gets that cold, your
| heat pump will need to switch to electric heat. So on those
| days, your heat pump is no better than an electric furnace. On
| all other days that the heater is running, the heat pump is a
| far more efficient option.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| From my limited experience, I'd say yes - you still need a
| furnace.
|
| I converted my garage into my office by adding a mini split
| AC/heat pump. The garage walls, door, and attic are insulated -
| but it's still a garage, which means that it's not nearly as
| well insulated as a regular room in a house.
|
| The unit is 18k BTUs, which is quite oversized for the size of
| the garage. I made this choice because the heat pump BTUs are
| significantly less than cooling BTUs. This is definitely
| obvious, experientally - the unit can make my garage
| uncomfortably cold even in the peak of summer.
|
| But even though this unit is supposedly rated for operation in
| temps down to about -20F, when winter gets really cold, it
| struggles to keep the space warm. Once the temps are below
| about 20F or so, I usually add a space heater to the mix,
| which, combined with warm clothes, makes working out here at
| least tolerable.
| rootbear wrote:
| I live in Maryland and the first townhouse I owned, in the late
| 80s to early 90s, had a heat pump. It included an auxiliary
| electric heater for days that it got really cold. I don't
| remember it coming on all that often. (There was a light on the
| thermostat to indicate when it was on.) My current townhouse
| has a gas furnace. I plan to move soon into a single level
| home, more appropriate for an old greybeard, and I'll have to
| evaluate then if I want to switch to a heat pump, if the house
| doesn't have one already.
| rimunroe wrote:
| Note: this is only true for air-source heat pumps. Ground
| source-heat pumps aren't affected by ambient air temperature,
| but they're also much more expensive and require suitable
| ground. Also, I hear air-source heat pumps have made
| significant advances lately in how well they handle sub -15
| degC temperatures.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| > _Uh, you still need a furnace (though it could be electric)
| if you live somewhere that ever really gets cold, right?_
|
| For now - and only in part of the country. Most of the newest
| models can output 100% of their rating down to something like
| -5oF -- they're easy enough to oversize as well, so if your 99%
| heating load is e.g. 48,000BTU, a 60,000BTU heat pump that's
| only outputting 80% of rated BTUs due to the extreme cold can
| still cover the full design load.
|
| Here's the spec sheet for the newer Mitsubishi hyper heat
| models - 87o output at -4oF and 76% output at -13oF -- very few
| places in the states ever get that cold:
| https://static.appliancesconnection.com/attachments/D5bf5709...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I like the redundancy of natural gas. So far, in less than 40
| years, I have been kept warm for multiple days on 3 separate
| occasions by having access to gas while the electricity did
| not work. Also, I was able to keep cooking.
|
| One of the states in the article is Oregon too, where I have
| family that just a few weeks ago lost electricity for 4 days,
| but were able to use an electric generator to keep the air
| handler going and gas to heat the the house and cook.
|
| I fear heat pump only heat will fail exactly when I most need
| it not to.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah if my heat were 100% electric I'd have to install a
| wood heating-stove to feel like I wasn't being
| irresponsible. Or maybe get a couple portable kerosene
| heaters.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I think a sensible option, if you live in a place where
| electrical grids goes out for a couple of days fairly
| routinely, would be a transfer switch and a generator. If
| sized well enough you could use it to run a resistance
| heater (the cheap portable type) to keep one or two rooms
| warm in an extreme scenario.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| Pipes freeze and burst, whole house has to stay warm.
| It's not just about comfort or safety.
| nsguy wrote:
| If you warm up a few rooms to comfortable then it's hard
| to imagine the rest of the house being at freezing
| temperature. It's going to be some sort of gradient. But
| sure, this is a concern/consideration.
| dhosek wrote:
| My ex-wife had a two-day power outage last month (it was
| only a few hours at my apartment) during a cold snap. She
| has gas heat, but the problem is that the heat gets
| circulated by fans1 which are powered by-- _electricity_.
|
| She had to get a hotel room for the night because she
| wasn't comfortable sleeping with the gas fireplace on.
|
| [?]
|
| 1. I would guess that thermostats also powered by
| electricity not working would add to the complication.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Of course, but gas utility supply means a much smaller
| generator is needed just to operate the fans and
| thermostat and much less on-hand fuel is needed to
| operate the generator.
|
| Natural gas is just a very convenient and very dense
| source of energy when you need it most.
| dhosek wrote:
| In the entirety of my life, most of which has been in the
| Chicago area, I have never seen a home with a generator
| for the fans and thermostat of a home. For that matter,
| the only home generator I ever saw was one my grandfather
| bought which he only used once to see if it worked.
| vundercind wrote:
| I'd say -15degF or lower is something you need to design for
| at least into the light-blue area on this map:
|
| http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tdK_AMaZ9pg/Vb51WrvPDhI/AAAAAAAAD5.
| ..
|
| Which is quite a lot of the country.
|
| Light blue is a _typical_ Winter low point in the -10degF to
| 0degF, which means you _will_ see -15degF or lower often
| enough to worry about it.
| hardcopy wrote:
| Meh. I live in Wisconsin. It's fine.
|
| > Our modeling finds that even if Focus incentivizes
| 800,000 heat pumps with electric resistance backup (10
| times the number of heat pumps as it did furnaces in the
| past four years), the state will still be able to meet its
| electricity demand with currently operating power plants,
| even on the coldest days. Depending on the efficiency of
| the heat pump, in-state winter generation capacity would
| still exceed peak demand by 1,400-4,300 MW on the coldest
| day.
|
| https://rmi.org/three-questions-wisconsinites-are-asking-
| abo...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Fortunately, they have county-by-county data (and hourly
| data if you so desire) that spells out the design criteria
| for heating systems;
|
| https://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/bldrs_lenders_raters
| /...
|
| Though heat pumps are unique in that they produce less heat
| as the colder it gets - A few hours of -15o every few years
| shouldn't be the primary consideration in spec'ing a system
| that still produces 75% of its heat in that worse case.
|
| I live in that blue area and ran through all of the math
| and considerations recently - I pulled the hourly
| temperature data for 6 years. Of the 94,000 data points in
| that period, a total of 26 hours were below -5o:
| https://imgur.com/a/P7A3kan
| jcranmer wrote:
| The dataset is typical winter low for 1984-2014. Earth is
| warming thanks to climate change, and the lowest lows have
| notably warmed. See, e.g., https://xkcd.com/1321/. In my 12
| winters of living in the light blue zone, I think I've
| spent like a grand total of 36 hours or so in sub-0degF
| temperatures, and that was pretty much the one period
| mentioned in the xkcd comic.
| dkasper wrote:
| i think this explains the oversizing. 76% seems pretty good,
| but a lot of places do get to negative temperatures once in a
| while, maybe once every year or two, and that's when you
| _really_ want the heat to work.
| semiquaver wrote:
| We have a set of those hyper heat mini splits to supplement a
| hydronic system which wasn't expanded to several additions.
| They're generally great but during the Midwest's recent
| extremely cold snap down to a week or two of negative
| temperatures they were pretty disappointing and could not
| keep up. We ended up having to close off a few parts of the
| house to keep the temperature reasonable in the rest. I think
| that trusting heat to a heat pump system is not yet feasible
| in much of the Midwest and northeast.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yeah, we're remodeling right now - our design specs say
| heat pumps should be able to cover 100% of our load but we
| also have a few rarely used gas fireplaces and some space
| heaters in case that doesn't work out. Though like someone
| else mentioned, the bigger change will be reacting to power
| outages. A small camping generator can provide enough
| energy for to keep a gas furnace blower running whereas you
| need a very large generator to operate the heat pump.
| o11c wrote:
| Temperature rating is irrelevant if the outdoor unit turns
| into a solid block of ice before it gets that low.
|
| Oddly enough, it tends to snow when it's cold. Even rain can
| a problem since the nature of a heap pump means the unit is
| cooler than the surroundings.
|
| So often for a few nights of the year, the alleged "heat
| pump" actually just falls back to electric heating.
| nsguy wrote:
| The outdoor unit goes through heating cycles though to
| prevent that. I'm in Vancouver, BC, where it doesn't get
| _that_ cold but my unit had no problem when it was snowing
| and -15C or so outside. It did have to work pretty hard
| though. We don 't have electrical heating backup for the
| heat pump but we do have a gas fireplace as backup (so I
| _know_ the heat coming from the vents is 100% heat pump,
| not an electric heater in line).
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Technology Connections seems pretty happy with his. I think he
| lives in Chicago, admittedly not the coldest place, but it does
| snow every winter in that region.
|
| He said 2.9 coefficient of efficiency average over a heating
| season for him - https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto?t=1522
| orwin wrote:
| Depends on the heat pump, and the quality of your house.
| Hopefully houses in northern US states are of better quality
| than houses in California or West Virginia/South Ohio, so a
| furnface might not be needed.
|
| Because for the scandinavians reading the thread and with the
| "It works in my country", US house build quality, in my
| experience, is even worse than UK houses build quality (and
| that's a pretty low bar).
| carapace wrote:
| No, you need better insulation.
|
| (And maybe a rocket stove combined with a heat storage
| hypocaust.)
|
| https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/03/heat-storage-hypoc...
| herpdyderp wrote:
| The states listed are: - California -
| Colorado - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts
| - New Jersey - New York - Oregon - Rhode Island
| nostrademons wrote:
| So the usual blue-state suspects, minus Washington and a bunch
| of the New England states.
| virtue3 wrote:
| places where heat pumps are not going to work well when it
| drops to freezing / below freezing.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Our Diakin was working at -15F but Po Lil PumpPump was
| struggling.
|
| I had to have floorboard heat on for that week. So, it does
| work (not if you buy a cheaper unit not made for your
| climate) but it works a lot better above freezing.
| bluGill wrote:
| Several red states (the TVA) have had heat pumps as normal
| for decades. Now heat pumps work better and so they should
| extend to the other states.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| representing ~1/3 of 2022 GDP
|
| (via
| https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/stgdppi3q23....
| )
| jtbayly wrote:
| I don't see how the GDP has anything to do with this.
|
| What percent of the population those states make up might be
| somewhat interesting at least.
|
| But even then, 90% of new installations requires us to know
| what percent of installations those states make up, and
| population isn't necessarily (but could be) a good corollary
| for that.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Interestingly enough, That list of states besides Colorado and
| Maine all were the biggest losers of population in 2023,
| meaning people are leaving these states. -
| California -0.9 - Maryland -0.5 - Massachusetts
| -0.6 - New Jersey -0.5 - New York -1.1 -
| Oregon -0.1 - Rhode Island -0.3
| melling wrote:
| 60 million people live in California and NY.
|
| 9 million in NJ
|
| 4.2 million in Oregon
|
| 7 million in Massachusetts
|
| 6 million in Maryland
|
| 1 million in Rhode Island
| epistasis wrote:
| They are also rich states that are pricing out people rather
| than building housing.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Largely because that's the list of places where housing is
| super expensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/List_of_U.S._states_by_median_home_price #2
| California $554K #3 Massachusetts $422K #5
| Colorado. $397K #6 Oregon $361K #8 New
| Jersey $335K #9 New York $322K #10
| Maryland $308K #13 Rhode Island $300K #25
| Maine $242K
|
| And where income is highest: https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income
| #1 Maryland $90K #2 Massachusetts $89K #3
| New Jersey $89K #5 California $85K #9
| Colorado $82K #14 New York $74K #15
| Rhode Island $74K #18 Oregon $71K #32
| Maine $64K
|
| People are moving out because it's desirable to live there
| and hence there's a lot of competition for housing. If you're
| _not_ one of the top earners in the state, you can increase
| your _relative_ standard of living by moving somewhere where
| it 's cheaper.
| hexis wrote:
| "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
| bagels wrote:
| What are the units?
| Detrytus wrote:
| Why would anyone need a heat pump in California, given the
| climate there? I can understand north-eastern states, but not
| this. Is it a case of mindlessly jumping on "progressive"
| bandwagon?
|
| EDIT: I actually spent one winter in San Diego, and apartments
| there don't even have any heating installed (except occasional
| fireplace in the living room). I know that more to the north it
| might get worse, but by how much?
| jtbayly wrote:
| You still need heat in California, one way or another,
| especially further north. What would you suggest as a method
| of heating in CA?
| BorgHunter wrote:
| Heat pumps are much more common in warm areas than cold ones,
| because the difference between an A/C and a heat pump is
| really just the ability to reverse the refrigerant flow, and
| they're very efficient at heating in mildly cold weather. I
| grew up in Florida, and pretty much every house there had a
| heat pump even thirty years ago, with electric resistive
| heating that kicks in when ambient temperatures drop below
| 40F or so. Where heat pumps don't work so well is when
| ambient temperatures are very cold, which is why adoption in
| northern states has been much slower.
|
| EDIT: My grandparents' house had a thermostat that looked
| like this:
| https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/uqsAAOSwTVlbyNN9/s-l1200.jpg
| They would call very cold (for Florida) weather "blue light
| weather", because the blue "aux heat" light would turn on on
| their thermostat, indicating that the system had switched
| from the heat pump to the resistive heat strips.
| Detrytus wrote:
| My sister just got a heat pump installed in her new house
| in Poland, where temperatures occasionally drop to 0
| Fahrenheit. I wouldn't say they only work in "mildly cold
| weather" - as per new EU policy heat pumps will be one of
| the few legal heat sources, even in countries such as
| Sweden.
| bluGill wrote:
| I consider a winter where the coldest it gets is 0F a
| mild winter. The important thing isn't average or normal
| it is the worst case. I've personally seen -25F here in
| the last 10 years - it was only one time and lasted about
| a week, but that means the HVAC system needs to work down
| to at least -25F just in case.
|
| I don't know what the climate is like in Poland. Maybe 0F
| is as cold as you ever get and you are okay. Maybe your
| system will work to -20F even though you haven't tested
| it. But your might have a system like mine that while it
| can deliver heat at 0F, it is sized such that below 30F
| it can't deliver enough heat (I have the backup system
| for those colder days)
| mperham wrote:
| Because even California dips below 68F and so your house gets
| cold.
| blackguardx wrote:
| Heat pumps make lots of sense in California. It gets hot
| enough to want air conditioning and still gets cold enough to
| need heat in much of California. California has many types of
| climates. Even in the desert areas like near Joshua Tree, you
| will still need heat in the winter. It snows there.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I live in one of the mildest parts of California and I still
| have a gas furnace (no AC though). Heat pump actually makes
| _more_ sense given that the winters rarely dip below
| freezing, so heat pumps can work in a fairly high COP range.
| dhosek wrote:
| I used to own a house in Claremont, California (east edge of
| L.A. County). It had a furnace that I never used until one
| winter it got super cold (under freezing as I recall) and I
| discovered that the pilot light for the furnace was broken
| and had to call out the gas company1 to fix it and because
| everyone else was having similar issues it took two days for
| them to come and fix my furnace. I grew up in Chicago and was
| never so cold as that.
|
| [?]
|
| 1. They fixed minor furnace issues like this for free.
| callalex wrote:
| Everything was built in the 40's-60's and the average amount
| of insulation is 0. I live in the mildest part of CA, the San
| Francisco Bay Area. Today the overnight lows were in the mid
| 30's and the high will be about 50. Without heating my indoor
| temperature would be around 50 which I find unacceptable.
|
| I'm not sure what your bogeyman "progressive" bandwagon has
| to do with not wanting to live in 50deg living spaces?
| ajross wrote:
| For the same reason people in California install heat and air
| conditioning? Heat pumps aren't a new product market, they're
| a more efficient variant of products the market already buys.
| crftr wrote:
| I live in San Diego and energy prices are relatively
| expensive. We installed solar two years ago and routinely
| overproduce 3+ MWh.
|
| Now, with a heat pump, the wife and kids can set the
| thermostat for their comfort and I am less anxious about the
| monthly bill. The freedom was worth it, for us.
| acdha wrote:
| Ever wonder why it's called a "heat pump" rather than a
| heater? It's because they work in both directions, and that
| means that you can have the system which keeps you cool in
| the summer also keep you warm in the winter rather than
| having a separate system. This is especially nice because if
| you don't use a heater much, you don't know that it'll work
| when you need it: where I lived in San Diego, the condo
| complex had radiant heat in the floor in every unit but once
| in a decade a cold snap meant people really needed it ... and
| some of my neighbors learned theirs no longer worked.
|
| The efficiency wins from a better quality system are nice,
| too. I live on the east coast now and went all electric a few
| years back. Our energy costs in the winter went up modestly -
| not much because heat pumps are great on all of the not
| incredibly cold winter days we get in the mid-Atlantic - but
| the savings in the summer versus the cheap AC the previous
| owner had purchased were substantial. The savings up front
| for a less efficient unit get eaten up pretty quickly if you
| use it regularly.
| avery17 wrote:
| Tried to get one in NJ and no one wanted to install one. Everyone
| we got a quote from tried really hard to talk us out of it. We
| ended up going with gas cause it was cheaper but I'm not happy
| about it. Gas is just the new oil, once everyone is hooked
| they'll jack up prices like they did with oil.
| danans wrote:
| A big issue right now is the oversizing of heat pumps by HVAC
| contractors who are used to sizing gas furnaces using very simple
| btu/hr/sqft calculations.
|
| A contractor should do some kind of heating need analysis, at the
| least by studying old utility bills, and ideally by doing a
| Manual J heat loss calculation for the house. But almost none of
| them do that.
|
| There are some startups attempting to handle these design steps
| as a service, but the construction industry is slow to adopt new
| technology.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Can you explain why this is a big issue?
| zbrozek wrote:
| The simplest devices are on or off. If they are grossly
| oversized they cycle a lot and make homes less comfortable by
| pushing a huge volume of hot or cold air briefly.
|
| Variable speed compressors are better, but blowers may not
| also be variable speed. So you'll get better efficiency but
| may still suffer a feeling of draftiness.
|
| A properly sized variable speed unit will operate within some
| optimal band of efficiency and constantly output nearly the
| minimum necessary air volume to achieve the target
| temperature.
| danans wrote:
| Higher up front equipment costs , discomfort, potential
| humidity issues, higher energy costs, shortened equipment
| life, increased noise.
| supertrope wrote:
| Combustion furnaces deliver very hot air so they can cycle on
| once in a while and then turn off. Heat pumps deliver warm
| not hot air so they have to run longer cycles. The slower
| rise in room temperature can even mean that it makes more
| sense to set a constant temperature on your thermostat
| instead of letting the temperature fall when you're away
| during the day (the conventional logic to save energy).
| moribvndvs wrote:
| I've had one for three years. While I generally love it, it
| cools too fast, which means it sucks at removing humidity,
| actually increases it a little. The installer over-
| provisioned.
| Tarrosion wrote:
| I've heard this before -- that oversized cooling units
| (whether standalone AC or part of a heat pump) mean muggy
| interiors in the humid seasons. But...why? I'd think that a
| fixed amount of air compressed in the compressor means a
| fixed amount of condensation runoff from the unit, and it
| wouldn't matter much whether it's a big unit running
| occasionally or a small unit running frequently. Why is
| that wrong?
| lbotos wrote:
| I don't think it's about duty cycle -- it's seriously
| about speed of temp change and I _think_ dew point.
|
| But yes, I have a heat pump and in NYC Summer I cannot
| run it on anything but low otherwise it _increases_ the
| humidity. It took me a few weeks of looking at the temp
| humidity graphs to understand that point.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| As it was explained to me, it _is_ about duty cycle. The
| condensation doesn 't instantly accumulate enough to make
| droplets and run all the way down the drain, so if the
| compressor only runs briefly the condensation is still on
| the fins and evaporates again. You need to keep the
| compressor going long enough that you actually have water
| running down the drain, instead of condensing/evaporating
| cyclically.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's not a fixed amount of condensation because the air
| around the AC only has so much humidity. It quickly
| condenses just a little bit of water and then shuts off
| before the humidity in the rest of the house can
| redistribute to replace the now dry air. By running for
| longer it allows the water in the rest of the house to
| actually make it to the compressor.
| danans wrote:
| > I'd think that a fixed amount of air compressed in the
| compressor means a fixed amount of condensation runoff
| from the unit
|
| It's not compressing air (like in a car tire). It's
| compressing a refrigerant. That refrigerant goes through
| phase changes (liquid to gas).
|
| One major issue is that for most ACs, the compressor is
| cycled on and off according to the target temperature
| (via a thermostat, usually at a single location), not
| humidity. That means humidity can rise without the AC
| kicking on to bring it down. Remember in most typical
| houses, temperature and humidity are not very uniformly
| distributed.
|
| Furthermore, if the humidity rises high enough before the
| AC kicks on, and then the AC kicks on at high power, you
| can get sudden localized cooling and then condensation of
| humidity to liquid water inside the building, which leads
| to other problems, especially if it happens behind the
| walls.
| throw0101c wrote:
| It takes time for the humidity to be removed out of the
| air: a 'particular' cubic foot (metre) of air that passes
| over the coils can be cooled quite quickly, but won't be
| dehumidified as quickly.
|
| So when the unit runs it can drop the temperature by the
| necessary (e.g.) 5F (2C), but it may only drop the
| humidity by 5%, when it needs to drop by (say) 10%. So a
| 'too-short' run-time can adequately cool the air, but not
| necessarily remove moisture.
|
| It's also easier to generate 'excess' humidity by
| bathing/shower than it is to generate excess heat
| (cooking could generate both). So the humidity can creep
| up in value while the temperature stays more steady.
| randcraw wrote:
| The volume of air that passes through the heat pump must
| be cooled (or warmed) at the same rate as it is
| dehumidified, unless humidity control can be done
| independent of the pump. If you oversize the pump, the
| house is cooled faster than it is dehumidified, and the
| air reaches the desired temp before it reaches the
| desired humidity, and the compressor turns off while the
| air is still humid.
|
| It's possible to independently add humidity when heating
| -- using a mist gun -- but not to remove it during
| cooling. However, if the heat pump has a "dry mode" it
| can dehumidify without also cooling by switching back and
| forth between heat and cool mode. If not, to dry the air
| further, it must cool it further.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Would a central dehumidifier help solve that?
| danans wrote:
| Yes. In some very humid climates like the Southeast US, a
| central dehumidifier might be necessary (although they
| are not yet common in those climates). But in northern
| climates which tend to be drier, a right-sized AC or heat
| pump is all you need.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Does your thermostat allow you to "over cool" in order to
| get the humidity down to a comfortable level?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Other than higher cost for the heat pump unit, are there any
| other issues with having one that's oversized for heating? My
| understanding is that for cooling, having one that is oversized
| can be a problem because of humidity issues, which also makes
| me wonder what can be done if a space has an imbalance between
| the size needed for cooling versus what it needs for heating.
| danans wrote:
| > Other than higher cost for the heat pump unit, are there
| any other issues with having one that's oversized for
| heating?
|
| - Short cycling leading to lower equipment life (also true
| for gas furnaces, although heat pumps have more moving parts)
|
| - Greater discomfort as the house heats up rapidly then cools
| down rapidly (especially if it has a leaky building
| envelope).
|
| - Higher peak electric loads, possibly during hours of high
| electricity prices, leading to higher electricity costs.
|
| > My understanding is that for cooling, having one that is
| oversized can be a problem because of humidity issues,
|
| Yes, because moisture will build up when it isn't running.
|
| > makes me wonder what can be done if a space has an
| imbalance between the size needed for cooling versus what it
| needs for heating.
|
| Many heat pumps have different output ratings for heating and
| cooling modes to deal with this. Often however, this has as
| much to do with the distribution of the heated/cooled air and
| placement of supply registers, which is often an afterthought
| when the system is purposely oversized (which is presumed to
| make up for lack of air distribution design).
| bluGill wrote:
| No there is not IF the heat pump is variable speed/flow. Many
| modern ones are, but most old ones are not, and it is really
| hard to tell if a new one is. In fact you want one oversized
| as if it is the correct size for cooling it cannot make
| enough heat when it is cold (it can make heat, just not
| enough)
|
| If you get a normal single speed heat pump see the other
| reply - there are significant downsides.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| A possibly helpful thread related to the heat pump retrofit
| process and the need to assess context for each home:
| https://twitter.com/karakara98/status/1598718540365938688
|
| The other thing I've kept thinking about is the replacement
| interval , material input (compressor, refrigerant, etc.) and
| ease of maintenance. They generally have a lifetime of 10 years
| IIRC.
| danans wrote:
| > The other thing I've kept thinking about is the replacement
| interval , material input (compressor, refrigerant, etc.) and
| ease of maintenance. They generally have a lifetime of 10
| years IIRC.
|
| The compressor and refrigerant should never have to be
| replaced as a maintenance item. The compressor should be
| cleaned off occasionally since it's outdoors, especially if
| you live in an area with high dust/pollen, but that's no
| different than an AC. The interior air handler maintenance is
| the same as for any furnace or AC system. The lifetime is
| also similar to a similarly built AC.
| bagels wrote:
| I'd much rather have oversized than undersized and still be
| sweating inside when it's hot outside.
| genmud wrote:
| What a clickbaity, poorly written and sensational article.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| The only thing that's holding me back in electrifying more of my
| life is my jurisdiction's track record in long-term planning for
| grid and supply capacity. If I switch water heating, home heating
| and transportation to electricity, and they fuck up again,
| that'll affect me way more when rates start rising or shortages
| begin. I'd rather they work out the kinks without me and be a
| late adopter. For example, I will not be among the first 50% of
| drivers to switch to fully electric. Being a one-car household I
| believe we've already done more for the environment than 2 car EV
| households simply by taking one vehicle off the roads.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Yeah I'm waiting for a carbon tax to pass somewhere. I'm an
| environmentalist but why spend extra money being good when
| there are still assholes driving lifted pickups with loud
| exhausts and widened axles they don't need?
|
| My next car will be a plug-in Prius though. My old boss had one
| and almost never had to put gas in it. All-electric commute
| with a range extender / emergency heater
| vdaea wrote:
| >"It's a really strong signal from states that they're committed
| to accelerating this transition to zero-emissions residential
| buildings,"
|
| Heat pumps are zero-emissions now. Shipping them and replacing
| your gas furnace also emits no carbon.
| firebat45 wrote:
| Have you ever tried running a gas furnace off of a solar panel?
|
| "Accelerating a transition" != "this has been 100%
| accomplished"
| vdaea wrote:
| I skipped the part of the article that says that the heat
| pumps will always be accompanied by solar panels.
| supertrope wrote:
| The idea is that electrification enables a future where
| electricity generation transitions to low emissions. A gas
| furnace will always burn gas. In Canada electricity is
| called hydro because it nearly all hydroelectric. So buying
| an EV zeros out tailpipe emissions and electric generation
| emissions are also very low.
| seiferteric wrote:
| Heat pumps look great and definitely planning on getting one (or
| many) when my hvac system needs replacing, as well as a heat pump
| water heater. In NorCal I think they are a no-brainer since it
| doesn't get that cold to begin with, though I am unsure of what
| options exist to replace a central AC/furnace system, or if it is
| better to get several smaller ones throughout your house. Though
| I have to laugh since it was only a few years ago there were news
| articles decrying air conditioning as a climate disaster are now
| claiming heat pumps are a climate savior...
| Slevin11 wrote:
| It is technically the correct climate; but unfortunately the
| incorrect place for them, given the electricity costs and
| propensity for large power outages during storms (read: times
| when you actually need heating).
|
| If you are in one of the cities with public utilities where
| electricity is cheap, then go for it, great choice. But on
| PG&E, the monetary proposition is awful compared to a gas
| heater, modern wood stove, or masonry / rocket mass heater.
|
| Given the extreme excess of wood in the region (that otherwise
| ends up in huge forest fires), it makes a lot of sense to be
| running an efficient wood stove / masonry / mass heater.
|
| The big loss is of course automation, so it pays to have some
| automated backup source of heat for when you are out of town,
| but that could just be whatever heating method you are using
| already.
|
| If you are already heating using electric baseboards though,
| yes, definitely move over to a heat pump. It will save you a
| lot of money. Not as much as natural gas or the others, but
| savings are savings.
|
| Also, there are plenty of ducted air source heat pumps that
| work as drop in replacements for gas furnaces. Use one of them
| if you already have a ducted system that works well and do a
| heat pump replacement.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Though I have to laugh since it was only a few years ago
| there were news articles decrying air conditioning as a climate
| disaster are now claiming heat pumps are a climate savior...
|
| Because they're completely coherent but for some reason you're
| not thinking any further than "they're essentially the same
| device"?
| samatman wrote:
| It's substantially cheaper in energy to cool buildings in the
| hot parts of the world than it is to heat buildings in the cool
| parts of the world. I've seen the sort of articles you're
| referring to, in the US at least, they're thinly-disguised
| political screeds based on nothing other than the fact that
| there are more Republicans in the air-conditioned parts of the
| country.
| scythe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/NkfeK
| scythe wrote:
| Hijacking my own comment:
|
| I feel like I started talking about heat pumps a long time ago.
| I'm unable to find evidence for this before 2021. Anyway, it's
| certainly hit the cultural mainstream really fast over the last
| couple of years, and the story on the street is...
| manufacturers are running at capacity, installers have long
| waiting lists, some people are getting systems installed that
| aren't right for their space (too big or too small) and
| regretting it.
|
| It's good that we're doing this, but it feels like a microcosm
| of our general cultural impatience. There's a limit to how much
| government subsidies can speed the adoption of a new
| technology. There are going to be issues with hiring a bunch of
| technicians to install heat pumps really fast if they suddenly
| don't have as much work in five years. The Spanish solar-energy
| debacle of the early 2010s rings in my head.
|
| Maybe instead of setting big, distant, ambitious-sounding
| targets, we should set shorter, smaller, more gradual targets,
| and update every couple of years to accelerate in a sustainable
| way. It's pretty easy to say that the way to decarbonize the
| economy is "as fast as reasonably possible"; forecasting how
| fast that will be is hard, unnecessary, and potentially
| distracting.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Thank you, that's all I really cared about but I had "read my
| last free article" so I couldn't even find that out. I'm so tired
| of the internet.
| mrpopo wrote:
| I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30EUR/month for
| unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads.
|
| Of course, seeing what happens with Netflix now, I guess it
| wouldn't last long until things turn back to the old way...
| jzawodn wrote:
| I guess that's sort of the value proposition of Apple News+
| if you're in their ecosystem, right?
| ashryan wrote:
| In general, yes. But it's also the "Netflix of information"
| in that discovery is difficult, and you're fighting an
| opaque algorithm working behind the scenes.
|
| I'd love the information subscription but with, say, a
| NetNewsWire-style interface: reverse chronological feeds
| and search box.
| pocketstar wrote:
| inkl has pretty good variety of news sources for a reasonable
| subscription fee, i subbed for years then started using apple
| news. Unfortunately i cannot recommend inkl because you have
| to email support to cancel your subscription, they offer a
| 50% discount if you try to cancel but that business practice
| of sign up with one click, email support to cancel i cannot
| condone.
| deeviant wrote:
| It's the most obvious thing ever, and it, of course, will
| never happen.
|
| The new media companies seem completely oblivious to how
| people consume information. I touch 10+ news sources a day,
| at a minimum. There is no way in hell I'm going to subscribe
| to 10+ new services.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would bet they know how people consume information, they
| don't know how to sufficiently capture revenue from it or
| if copy pasting it on a different website is sufficiently
| easy.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30EUR/month
| for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and
| no ads.
|
| Used to be you simply paid your ISP and -bam- that was it:
| you had the Netflix of information at your fingertips. Now
| everyone has their hand out.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Many people have their hand out, because many people think
| working for free is not a good deal for them.
| sev1 wrote:
| You can read it on Ars: https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2024/02/these-states-are...
| malermeister wrote:
| archive.ph will help in cases like that :)
| dang wrote:
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39315648)
| rconti wrote:
| Bay Area, just beginning a remodel+expansion of our home. We've
| never had air conditioning, and our gas furnace is well over 20
| years old. We'd likely need to upsize the furnace anyway, and for
| resale reasons if nothing else, adding A/C (and the attendant
| larger ducts or whatever else) is a no-brainer while we have the
| house apart.
|
| A heat pump is absolutely a no-brainer in our case. I like being
| able to get away from natural gas, although I must say, moving
| all electric means we'll be held hostage more and more to PG&E.
| (We have solar, but it'll be well below our needs once we had
| square footage and the heat pump, and don't want to get screwed
| by NEM 3.0).
| zbrozek wrote:
| PG&E electric rates are so high that it's operationally more
| expensive to use a heat pump than a condensing gas system. The
| heat pump is the better deal practically everywhere else in the
| contiguous US.
|
| I'm installing a heat pump system in PG&E territory as part of
| a remodel, but pairing it with a large solar system.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Aren't PG&E gas rates substantially higher than their
| electric rates?
| samatman wrote:
| There are a couple ways to interpret what you're saying:
| that PG&E charges a higher rate relative to the national
| average for gas vs. electricity, which is what I think you
| mean, and that PG&E charges more for a joule of gas than a
| joule of electricity.
|
| Presuming you meant it the first way, it's still possible
| that heating with gas is cheaper, since the national
| average for a joule's worth of natural gas is quite a bit
| cheaper than the same for electricity.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Their price per joule of electricity is higher than per
| joule of gas by more than the coefficient of performance of
| a heat pump. You are better off getting thermal energy by
| burning gas if your energy provider is PG&E.
|
| The story only gets worse once you start carefully
| accounting for baseline allowances.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Every state should be doing it it's a part of the inflation
| reduction act
|
| https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator
|
| Plus a lot more
| david422 wrote:
| I recently got heat pumps in the hopes that I could phase out my
| oil furnace. What I can say so far is:
|
| The temperature is wildly inconsistent. I don't know if this is a
| software issue, a hardware issue, or just the way heatpumps work.
| I've had the installer come back and look at it, I've had the
| heat pump rep come and look at it too. They basically checked
| everything and tried to convince me this is normal.
|
| With oil, I can set the temperature to, say, 70, and the
| temperature will stay at 70.
|
| With heatpumps, I can set a temperature and it can vary by ...
| let's say 8 degrees. That's a lot. I have my bedroom temperature
| at 66, and the wall thermostat often gets up to 73+. I look at
| the software and it tells me the room is 68. Is the hardware not
| reporting the right temp? Does the software just suck? The
| heatpumps also vary in efficiency, so when it's warm outside it
| tends to overheat, and when it's cold outside it tends to
| struggle.
|
| Wondering whether I got lemons or if other people have similar
| experiences.
| thehoff wrote:
| We got a heat pump put in about a year and a half ago. We kept
| the oil as backup for the days its too cold (which if I
| remember right it switches over to oil somewhere around 40 F.
|
| Our situation is the opposite. The house feels more comfortable
| overall. Its still a little warmer upstairs where the home
| office and bedrooms are but generally around the house it feels
| a little more consistent.
|
| You can definitely tell when the oil furnace kicks in as the
| air is noticably hotter. But when that happens the house gets
| warmer faster and gets a little too hot before it turns off
| again. And stays a little too hot for too long.
|
| We went with a midrange system. In hindsight I do kind of wish
| we went with a different installer who was pushing a more
| "cadillac" type system where the fan (according to him) would
| always be (or just about) on but be variable in speed basically
| keeping the house at the right temp more often and slightly
| more savings.
| oramit wrote:
| It sounds like something is wrong with your installation. That
| behavior certainly isn't normal for heat pumps and I would get
| a new vendor. I had a heatpump in my Condo and those things
| were rock solid, from 20 degrees to 110 I never had issues. In
| my new house we have a gas furnace and are experiencing the
| same behavior this winter you describe where the programmed
| temp and the actual temp in the room wildly diverge.
|
| Just this morning I woke up to it feeling chilly. The
| thermostat said it was 65 and the programmed temp was 68 but it
| wasn't running. When the furnace runs it works great but
| something is off with the controller system. I need to call the
| heating people....
| theogravity wrote:
| I had my heat pump installed in Dec. The contractor really
| screwed up where they wired the zoning incorrectly - the upper
| floor thermo controlled the lower damper and vice versa,
| meaning that the pump would run almost indefinitely because the
| thermostat would never register the temp of the opposing floor.
|
| It took me a full week to troubleshoot this (what helped was I
| bought a thermometer and placed it next to the thermostat to
| verify temperature readings) and when I realized what was
| happening, the contractor came and re-wired things, and now
| things work like how it should. The temperature stays
| consistent for both floors.
|
| So definitely test your dampers.
| david422 wrote:
| > the upper floor thermo controlled the lower damper and vice
| versa
|
| I have 2 floors with multiple units and I was running around
| with a wall thermometer taking measurements. This was
| actually my guess as well since the temperatures seemed to
| align this way. But the installer assured me it was wired
| correctly .... I might need to find someone else to check
| things.
| dralley wrote:
| That is simply not normal. I have a heat pump downstairs
| (albeit a fancier Mitsubishi one) and it stays within one
| degree of the target temperature at all times. It's much more
| comfortable and stable than it was with the previous gas
| furnace or the gas furnace we still use for the upstairs, and
| it handled the temperature dropping into the low teens
| overnight with no issues.
| Siecje wrote:
| 8 degrees is not normal+/- 1 C is what I experience.
| nsguy wrote:
| I'll put in another "not normal". I have a heat pump and the
| temperature stability seems better than the furnace. It takes
| longer to change but once it gets there it's very stable. With
| every AC system it can be a challenge to get different regions
| to be perfect but that shouldn't be worse with an air pump.
| gniv wrote:
| Did you check the hysteresis value? I've had similar issues
| with some radiators, and the hysteresis was set to 0 (don't
| know why it's even allowed), which caused it to run a lot more
| than normal.
| beej71 wrote:
| Our neighbors are getting one (Central Oregon). Install price:
| $15,000. Or $20k with two additional heads.
|
| I have baseboard heaters, and even I don't know if I could make
| up that cost before the heat pump needs replacement.
|
| Every year now, though, it seems like we add one to the number of
| days we need AC, something that was unnecessary when I first
| moved here, so that would be nice...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] wasting our time OP
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39288940
| readingnews wrote:
| I just replaced a furnace... everyone I called for a quote would
| not touch a heat pump with a 20foot pole, or they wanted prices
| that were 2X what a separate furnace and AC would cost to
| install. It was very strange. This is the second home where I had
| this experience.. basically, they really did not want to install
| it. I ended up going with gas as no local person would
| install/warranty a heat pump, or, it was priced so high it was a
| non-starter (e.g. a gas furnace is $4k, the AC is $4k, making it
| $8k, _but_ if you want a heat pump, well, that is going to be
| $15,999.85.)
|
| This was recently, btw, as in last month. I am still kind of
| shaking my head.
| huytersd wrote:
| If you're somewhat rural the contractors just don't have the
| experience to do it so they try to quote you out of the
| decision. I had to shop around until I found a contractor that
| had done this before and I was able to get a whole home heat
| pump for about the same price as a regular furnace/AC system
| (because of the rebates).
| TheBlight wrote:
| How well do they function? Do they provide nice consistent
| heat? How's the noise? Sorry to clog up HN with a random
| request of a product quality review but I'm in the market
| right now to replace my furnace as well. Thanks.
| demondemidi wrote:
| Heat pumps need to come with an electric heater because
| pumps stop working below 30 deg F.
| wtallis wrote:
| They come with an electric heater, but they don't stop
| working until far below freezing point. It's normal for a
| heat pump to still be better than pure resistive electric
| heating even at 10degF.
| headsupernova wrote:
| This isn't true, the latest models work at temps far
| below that. There are still thresholds where you'd want
| another source, but they're very functional even in the
| upper Midwest.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Ground source heat pumps are available that go down
| significantly lower than 30F. They are more expensive.
| Though running the electric wires is also very expensive
| due to their inefficiency. Typical heat pumps are often
| better suited for warmer climates because of this
|
| It also appears that the tech for the more typical air
| source heat pumps has improved significantly in recent
| years which makes it more viable for colder climates
| virtue3 wrote:
| I believe they run a heat conductive fluid through heat
| exchange coils in the ground. This allows you to pump
| heat into the ground during winter and extract said heat
| (not sure how accurate this is) during the winter.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| You're not storing the heat that's underground, it's just
| that the ground is a huge thing with massive heat storage
| capacity that doesn't notice weather as much as above
| ground does.
|
| If above ground ranges from 0-100 degrees F, underground
| likely ranges from like 64-68 degrees F, which makes it
| really energetically "cheap" to get to your preferred
| temperature range, heating to idk 70 at most and cooling
| to probably not even 65.
| Fuut wrote:
| This is just not true at all.
|
| Why do you even respond if you don't know enough about
| heat pumps?
| bluGill wrote:
| It is practically true. Sure my heat pump can make heat
| below 28F - but it was sized for cool my house in summer
| and so it cannot make enough heat anymore and so I need
| the backup heat.
| demondemidi wrote:
| Oh, sorry, I guess I was brainwashed by the "anti heat
| pump mafia". I had this conversation with three HVAC
| installers but according to this thread any HVAC
| installer that speaks ill of heatpumps is old and stupid.
| Recently, I stayed at an AirBNB recently that had a
| heatpump and the temps dropped during the deep freeze and
| it was running 100% of the time and failing. The AirBNB
| owner said it was brand new and I would be responsible
| for excessive electricity use. They didn't charge me.
| Based on this, I am sooo glad I replaced my dead furnace
| with gas three years ago and steered clear of heat pumps.
|
| But do go on about how I don't know enough.
| lkbm wrote:
| Old heat pumps didn't do well in old temperatures. In the
| 80s and 90s, a heat pump couldn't handle freezing temps.
|
| Modern heat pumps do fine well below 0 degrees Celsius.
| Here's one that's great to -15 C and okay down to -25
| C[0]. If you search cold-climate heat pumps, you'll find
| plenty of information about how modern heat pumps are
| fine in most the temperatures you'll find in most of the
| US (including up north).
|
| (I have heard that a lot of them are still only available
| in Europe, but you can definitely find some in the US.)
|
| [0] https://carbonswitch.com/best-cold-climate-heat-pump/
| antisthenes wrote:
| I mean, instead of an argument you responded with some
| kind of rant about your Airbnb experience.
|
| So his point still stands.
| huytersd wrote:
| Not true, mine goes down to 23F with negligible decrease
| in efficiency and still functions after that, but with
| reduced efficiency.
| gertlex wrote:
| One anecdote I've seen is that the right way to run them is
| to maintain a near-steady-state temperature in the house,
| including overnight. I'm not sure if that's maybe a bit
| extreme and just how they suggest use to non-savvy home-
| owners, but it makes sense... They're not going to blast
| out heat to raise the house temperature 10 degrees in an
| hour in the morning. Spreading heat-increase over several
| hours is more feasible. Good insulation presumably helps a
| bunch, too.
|
| For a similar reason, heat pump water heaters tend to have
| a larger storage tank, as they take longer to heat the
| water and you want more of a usage buffer.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> I had to shop around until I found a contractor that had
| done this before and I was able to get a whole home heat pump
| for about the same price as a regular furnace/AC system
| (because of the rebates).
|
| Not sure the trouble is over. You are only good until you
| need servicing, and then you need to shop around again.
| Servicing is even worse, because it is an acute problem and
| you are under so much time pressure to solve the issue.
|
| Sometimes even the company that sold the unit does not honor
| their warranty. They shut down. They re-incorporate under a
| new company, etc.
| bonton89 wrote:
| A guy at work doesn't have a heatpump, just some really high
| efficiency oil boiler. He lives in a rural area and basically
| had to become an expert on maintaining and repairing it
| himself because no one seems to know how to service the
| thing.
|
| My father had similar issues with his new boiler although in
| his case after constant failed repair attempts his local
| place finally hired some guy who knew what he was doing.
|
| There's also rebates on heatpumps around here but local
| forums seem to suggest that the installers are super backed
| up and quote "go away" prices. You can't get the rebate
| unless you go with a state approved installer, so even if you
| can install it yourself you're out of luck. Seems like
| they've just raised their prices to compensate for the rebate
| since they already had to much work.
| bluedino wrote:
| > If you're somewhat rural the contractors just don't have
| the experience to do it so they try to quote you out of the
| decision.
|
| Or they're so busy they can pick and choose their jobs. I had
| a quote to replace a 12 foot section of pipe come in at $700,
| not even two hours worth of work.
| readingnews wrote:
| I thought of that, I am not rural (town is about 300,000
| people)... Perhaps that is rural in some areas I guess.
|
| The HVAC contractors here are pretty small, maybe they do not
| want to take the risk.
|
| As someone else said, if I had more time, I would have
| purchased a few DIY split systems... I might do that for AC
| only, as I did not replace the AC at that time.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| wait I didn't know I could replace my AC with a heat pump, can
| I replace my noisy AF condenser that's always grinding and
| hissing or do heat pumps make the same noises
| lolinder wrote:
| A heat pump is just an air conditioner that can be run in
| reverse. Replacing your air conditioner might help if it
| makes the noise because it's old and broken, but if you just
| really dislike the sound of an air conditioner it probably
| won't help much.
| modeless wrote:
| Maybe one of the new variable speed ones would help?
| ericd wrote:
| The variable speed inverter ones tend to be much quieter
| than the old single-stage ones that most people have, fwiw.
| lolinder wrote:
| Ah, right! I actually have a variable stage regular AC
| unit, so that's not a benefit unique to heat pumps,
| that's something you can get by replacing your AC unit in
| general.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| A heat pump is the same technology as what your condenser is
| doing, just in reverse. So you could otherwise just think of
| an air conditioner as one half of the heat pump in this case.
| So no
| jlawrence6809 wrote:
| A heat pump is just an AC that can move heat in either
| direction so you should be able to.
| wtallis wrote:
| AC is just a heat pump that doesn't give you the option of
| running it backwards. There can be good and bad
| implementations of either.
| czbond wrote:
| New to heat pumps. Can I replace sub-components of an
| existing AC system with a heat pump for benefits of both?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| You have just constructed a heat pump.
|
| Heat pumps have the benefits of both.
| briffle wrote:
| I'd be very interested as well. My gas furnace is only a
| few years old, but my AC system is probably 10 years old.
| If I could replace just that with a heat pump, and leave
| my gas furnace in place as a backup, that would be ideal.
| nixgeek wrote:
| You can do that. It's very common in New England to go
| this way because the heat pumps generally only work down
| to -15F and then you need to switch to furnace for heat.
| turtlebits wrote:
| You can install non ducted mini splits, which is what I
| did.
|
| I left my oil furnace intact and added 4 high wall units
| (each bedroom and living room) with 2 outdoor
| condenser/compressors.
|
| I still use my oil furnace when it gets below 40.
| widdakay wrote:
| I'm surprised this isn't more common. The only difference
| between a heat pump and standard air conditioner is a
| reversing valve. These are usually $50-$100, and just
| require one more wire to the thermostat. In colder
| weather, defrost and fancier controllers are needed, but
| for mild climates the reversing valve is really all that
| is needed.
| cogman10 wrote:
| You are dealing with different pressures on the
| refrigerant lines, but honestly that shouldn't really
| matter all that much. You also need a bit of logic for if
| the condenser starts freezing over to temporarily reverse
| the flow (and turn off the home fan) to defrost.
|
| But otherwise, yeah, almost identical and a little crazy
| they'd cost much more over a typical install.
| ajross wrote:
| In theory but not practice. No one makes that kind of
| conversion kit, and there are enough "minor" differences
| (e.g. heat pumps need a defrost mechanism where AC's are
| presumed to operate with hot ambient air) to make it
| impractical.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Not really. You replace your existing AC with a split
| heat pump. It's not a mix-and-match situation, but the
| heat pump will both heat and cool and, if you already
| have existing ductwork that's correctly sized, you should
| be fine to just drop in a heat pump. (In an extreme
| heating dominated climate, you could have ducts that are
| too small for a heat pump, but adequately sized for AC
| and a furnace. That's pretty uncommon though.)
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Things like the ducts plug right in.
|
| Other things like the blower and condenser may need to be
| swapped out. It also depends on how old your system is.
| The controller will probably most certainly need to be
| swapped out. Do the normal thing with contractors like
| that. Call 3 different dudes have them come out and give
| you an estimate. Tell them you want quotes for partial
| swap out, full swap out, and 3 different price points.
| Within a couple of weeks you will have most of the
| knowledge you need if you want to do it.
|
| My parents when they switched out they replaced both the
| indoor unit and outdoor too because they were 30+ years
| old at that point.
|
| Now you probably have NG? If so you can also leave that
| fairly in place as is. I did that with my prev house.
| Then have the heat pump for when it is warm outside. Then
| switch over to NG when it gets to a particular temp. I
| set it to switch over at about 30F. I could have gone as
| low as 15 with that unit. It worked decently for most of
| the time. Where I live it maybe gets in the 20s for about
| a week a year at most. So the heat pump worked decently.
|
| One thing though I would say is if you have a older home
| especially 1990 or older start with the insulation. It is
| _wildly_ cheaper to get and gets you part of the way
| there. Many power companies even run deals where they
| will help you buy it.
| esaym wrote:
| A "heatpump" is an AC with a reversing valve. Yes you can
| just get a reversing valve and have some hack cut and
| solder it in for you. I'd assume any normal contractor
| would charge $1000+ for that job though. It would take
| multiple hours for a tech when instead he could make
| multiple house calls in that same time (and possible
| making more money doing house calls). So that is why you
| won't find someone to do it. It make no sense. Right now
| on ebay you can get a "Goodman 4 Ton 14 SEER Heat Pump"
| for $1800 delivered to your doorstep.
|
| Oh and I guess another thing a heatpump has that an AC
| doesn't is a defrost controller board. You'd need one of
| those too.
| twiceaday wrote:
| No, it's actually worse. The heat pump will make that same
| compressor noise when cooling in the summer AND heating in
| the winter.
| epistasis wrote:
| Your experience is extremely common. Residential HVAC
| contractors tend to be extremely conservative, and don't adopt
| new technologies quickly, or even attempt to understand them. I
| had some flexibility in time in replacing my 50 year old gas
| furnace, so I was able to call about 8 contractors before I
| finally found one who was comfortable with the tech and wanted
| to do it.
| ajross wrote:
| Yeah, it's not an innovative sector, though a lot of the
| blame belongs with the hardware manufacturers and not the
| installers. FWIW, the quotes I got for installation weren't
| that awful. But getting it hooked up to the Nest thermostat
| turned out to be a 2-day process and require a subcontractor
| to show up.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've installed two Nest thermostats and there's industry
| standardized color-coding and functionality and Nest
| conforms to that. (I don't doubt that you had that problem,
| but I think that speaks more to the incompetence of the
| original installer than to the complexity of installing a
| thermostat with a screen.)
| ajross wrote:
| I think it was more that the heat pump itself _really_
| wanted to be integrated with the Carrier Official
| Thermostat (which I think might have been an ecobee but
| can 't remember), and the documentation on how to run it
| in legacy/standard/on-off mode was missing or confusing.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Probably a bit more nuanced than that.
|
| A lot of the installers run small businesses. If one of
| these units goes wrong or if they do the install wrong
| because it's new to them, then that's lost time and lost
| revenue rectifying it.
| Dowwie wrote:
| where are you located? I was quoted 14k to replace a gas
| furnace for a single family in NJ
| ecshafer wrote:
| Unless that's a massive furnace that's robbery. In philly I
| replaced my furnace for $6k 2 years ago.
| Dowwie wrote:
| Got two quotes thus far and they're in the same ballpark. I
| asked for quotes in December 2023, 2 months ago. Bergen
| County, NJ.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Had exactly the same experience recently. It seems like there
| are plenty of good mini-split heatpump systems that will work
| down to 0F (or even lower) without any kind of backup heat
| source. But if you're replacing a forced air furnace that feeds
| an existing ducts the only options are heatpumps that need to
| have backup heat under 30F. So essentially you're buying 2
| furnaces in one which increases the cost. I'm in the PNW where
| it rarely goes below 10F so the minisplit systems would work
| fine without backup.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is what I got: a heatpump good to about 28F, and natural
| gas backup. I still save a lot of money over the previous 50
| year old propane furnace. However so many variables changed
| at once I can't say if it was worth it.
| sgerenser wrote:
| There's plenty of central split heat pumps that can function
| just fine below 30F. Look for ones marked "hyper heat" or
| advertised for use in cold climates. As long as the heatpump
| can handle down to 0F or so, then your backup heat only
| really needs to be an electric resistance heat strip
| (inefficient, but very cheap) since it would be used so
| infrequently.
|
| OTOH, if you're replacing a gas furnace and already have A/C,
| then installing a new gas furnace + heat pump shouldn't cost
| much more than a new gas furnace + new A/C.
| yterdy wrote:
| Reminds me of the hissy fit plumbers made over no-flush
| urinals.
| IndrekR wrote:
| That sounds like a fantastic opportunity for a fresh company to
| take over the market. Heat as a service.
|
| It costs about 2kUSD to get air to air exchange heatpump
| installed here (minisplit, includes the cost of the pump, EU).
| Takes approx 3 hours.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Yes, HVAC contractors in the US massively overcharge.
|
| I saved ~ 10k doing the install myself. The equipment is
| inexpensive, labor can be upwards of 2x equipment cost.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| Do you feel like the number of invisible footguns was
| manageable? That's always my concern with diy trades stuff,
| the things that seem fine at install but come back to bite
| you 6mo later.
| exhilaration wrote:
| There's a bunch of DIY heat pump install videos on
| YouTube, I watched this one recently:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79C2StyNlBg Honestly it
| convinced me that it's beyond my skillset.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| In general with contractors, you aren't paying for them
| to do the simple stuff right. You're paying them to get
| the one or two weird bits of the job done quickly and
| efficiently because they've seen something like it before
| and have the tools and parts on their truck.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is why I didn't try to DIY. Sure I'm confident I
| could get it installed. However I'm sure that I would
| discover after the old furnace was tore out that I'm
| missing some part/tool and so off to the store - what
| would take a pro a single day would take me 3 weekends at
| best: time that I don't have HVAC.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| That's what I was asking about. How likely I am to
| succeed at a DIY job seems to depend on the number of the
| "weird bits" as you describe them.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I looked into doing my own heat pump install. At least here
| in Vermont, you can't buy one without a refrigeration
| license[0] because of the ozone depletion issues with
| refrigerants. You _also_ have to buy one from an in-state
| supply house to qualify for some of the incentives. Not all
| supply houses will sell to muggles.
|
| My experience was that it was simpler and quicker to pay
| someone despite having basically the simplest possible
| installation: inside and outside units on opposite sides of
| the same exterior wall. The guy was great, and recommended
| a unit with an easily removable blower wheel for the dusty
| wood shop application[1]. I wouldn't have gotten there on
| my own, for sure. And he made sure that it qualified for
| the incentives. The list is long, and the models that are
| actually in production/available change pretty regularly.
|
| Technically, it can be a pretty simple job. Practically,
| local regulations and circumstances might sway things
| towards hiring it out.
|
| I say all this as someone who is a fairly competent shade-
| tree mechanic. I've done an engine swap and replaced a
| couple of clutches (transmission seal failure and previous
| owner's poor work; I know how to drive stick)
|
| [0] I'm playing fast and loose with the exact words; it's
| been a few months since I looked into it.
|
| [1] Cooper-Hunter, which is a Midea brand
| jxramos wrote:
| what were the justifications, did you ask out of curiosity for
| them to share what was driving their decisions?
| Casteil wrote:
| Price gouging seems like standard practice for HVAC companies.
|
| I'd like to replace my 25+ yr old system (gas furnace/AC) with
| a new gas furnace & heat pump so I can have the option of
| heating with gas or electricity... but when I ran this by an
| HVAC technician who was here for a service call, I got the same
| kind of exorbitant figures thrown at me with the heat pump in
| the equation.
|
| Same technician wanted $750 to replace a control board when my
| furnace had gone out during a blizzard - I sourced my own & did
| it myself for <$150.
| acchow wrote:
| For heat pumps, you actually want to start at the
| manufacturers. Their website or customer service will help find
| servicers in your area.
| tilwidnk wrote:
| We've owned three homes, our first one had a heat pump. In
| Virginia. It generally sucked. It wasn't as good as real A/C in
| the summer and wasn't as good as gas or electric heat in the
| winter. I hope to never end up in a place that uses a heat
| pump.
| ikiris wrote:
| ... what do you think real ac is?
| tilwidnk wrote:
| https://www.thisoldhouse.com/heating-cooling/reviews/heat-
| pu...
|
| "Heat pumps use refrigerant to condition the air in your
| home by adding or removing heat through thermal exchange."
|
| "Air conditioning is a cooling system that circulates cool
| air into an enclosed space, creating a comfortable
| atmosphere and improving indoor air quality."
|
| "Air conditioners generally last longer than heat pumps
| because air conditioners only run when the air needs
| cooling, while heat pumps operate year-round."
| lkbm wrote:
| > "Heat pumps use refrigerant to condition the air in
| your home by adding or removing heat through thermal
| exchange."
|
| This is what air conditioners do, too.
|
| > "Air conditioning is a cooling system that circulates
| cool air into an enclosed space, creating a comfortable
| atmosphere and improving indoor air quality."
|
| This is what heat pumps do, too.
|
| These are two sentences that describe the same process,
| just in different words.
|
| The last quote is potentially relevant: a heat pump is an
| air conditioner that can run in reverse to provide heat
| in the winter, so you're running it in both situations,
| and thus for more time.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| I'm in Northern california, I just got a heat pump installed by
| these guys: https://www.heliosclimate.io/ - a YC company btw,
| for those who think they just fund consumer apps :)
|
| Overall it was a great experience, there were some minor issues
| immediately after installation that got dealt with quickly and
| efficiently. I think the list price was similar to what you
| were quoted, but in northern california (menlo park, peninsula
| clean energy) there were around $5000 of grants/tax incentives,
| and an interest free loan from pce for the rest, over 5 years
| meaning our monthly repayment should be about equal to the
| reduction in our gas bill.
|
| We already had solar and batteries, otherwise I would NOT want
| to put myself at the mercy of PGE and their crazy electricity
| rates. But as they reduce the payment rates for solar
| electricity, the heat pump becomes a better deal.
| nostrademons wrote:
| These states really need to get their electric rates down if they
| want to accelerate adoption of electrification technologies.
|
| We were planning to fully electrify our house + transportation in
| the next few years. PG&E rate hikes and net metering policies put
| the damper on that. It's now more expensive to fuel a vehicle
| with electricity than gas, so I'm charging my PHEV at work and
| using gas for the rest. We have solar + battery sized for the
| existing usage of our house (gas heating, cooking, and vehicles),
| because that's what PG&E would let us interconnect. Upgrading the
| size to support a heat pump or EV would make us lose NEM2, so
| we've just chosen to defer those upgrades until NEM3 is rolled
| back or NEM4 comes out or there's new technology or the
| Californian government falls.
|
| In a way this is the market doing what it's supposed to. There's
| a shortage of electricity because of everyone doing
| electrification upgrades, so the price of electricity rises,
| which incentivizes people to defer further electrification
| upgrades until the grid can handle it. But if states actually
| want adoption, they need to solve the utility bottlenecks and
| increase generation capacity to support all the new usage.
| shadowpho wrote:
| > It's now more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity
| than gas
|
| How is that possible? Even at 20c/kWh it's still a good 4x cost
| difference I though
| widdakay wrote:
| PGE goes up to 66c/kwh during peak now and in San Diego I
| think is >70c/kwh. Off peak base is 34c/kwh for PG&E. Gas is
| $4.5-$5/gal so break even I think ends up being near 50mpg
| ish for a 300wh/mi EV.
| brewdad wrote:
| I'm not in CA, so genuinely curious. When you quote 66
| cents/kwh is that the marginal rate for an addition kwh or
| is that averaging in fixed costs? I pay about $20/mo just
| to have an active service line to my house, even if I were
| to shut off the breaker and not use any power. But my
| marginal rate is about 18 cents/kwh.
|
| I would call my rate 18 cents but not sure if we are doing
| an apples to apples comparison.
| svachalek wrote:
| Marginal rate. SDGE is insanely expensive.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| I find my (NorCal) PG&E bill extremely (and
| deliberately?) inscrutable, but for the most recent
| statement, the Off-peak net price was $0.427/kWh and
| $0.466/kWh on-peak.
| floatrock wrote:
| Napkin math:
|
| My crossover EV gets 2.5-3.5 mi/kWh. Call it 3. / $0.2/kWh =
| 15 mi/$
|
| Avg fuel economy in US ~ 25mpg. At $3.50/gal that's 7 mi/$
|
| So at 20c/kWh, your dollar goes roughly twice as far on
| electric. California has been seeing brutal rates, though --
| 40c/kWh not uncommon.
|
| Californians can play games with Time-of-Use rates (charge at
| night), get onto EV-specific rates, be on a CCA which tend to
| not have the try-to-not-burn-down-the-state adjustment fees,
| get solar +/- NEM2 vs NEM3, etc., so your numbers may vary.
| And different cars will have different MPG's of course. But
| all of that is to say, "more expensive to fuel a vehicle with
| electricity than gas" is not necessarily wrong in California.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Where in California can you get gas for $3.50/gal?
| qmarchi wrote:
| Yuba City, CA. According to GasBuddy
|
| ZIP: 95950
|
| https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=39.0898424447186
| 9&l...
| burkaman wrote:
| Gas in California is $4.50+ at the moment.
| zbrozek wrote:
| 3.78 at Mathilda and Maude in Sunnyvale
| callalex wrote:
| PG&E charges more like $.50 and it will soon be $.60-&.70.
| The regulator is corrupted and the infrastructure is failing
| because PG&E spent money that was supposed to be for
| infrastructure maintenance on share buyback programs. As a
| result the infrastructure failed and killed a ton of people,
| so now the utility is in even more debt because of the
| restitution owed.
| gertlex wrote:
| 20c/kWh? Not in California... Try 35c/50c peak or worse.
|
| Even if you have solar, and got in before NEM3.0, that's
| still not an incentive to electrify, when you're just selling
| the non-peak energy to the grid for the increasing rates that
| PG&E is charging/planning... (if that income-based minimum
| monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit)
|
| Not sure about the current gas/electricity per mile costs as
| I'm still driving a 15 y/o gas car.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _(if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing
| happens, this maybe changes a bit)_
|
| FYI, some legislators (including very left-leaning ones)
| are moving to repeal this pending change:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-
| epipha...
| sokoloff wrote:
| At 20c/kWh, that's ~5c/mi. For there to be a 4x cost
| difference, a gas car getting 30 mpg would have to be paying
| $6/gal for gas.
|
| In MA, I bought gas yesterday in our ICE car for $3.10/gal.
| Our electricity is $0.27/kWh. An ICE car getting 31 mpg is
| $0.10/mi for energy. Our EV getting just under 4mi/kWh is
| $0.07/mi for energy.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I have a not-terribly-efficient PHEV (2014 CMAX), and
| depending on where we are in our tiered monthly usage it may
| be more expensive to use electricity. We still do, since the
| cost difference isn't huge and it's nice to ride with less
| emissions/noise. But it is maddening that PG&E charges so
| much that this is even possible (in CA, where gasoline prices
| are also sky-high!).
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Can't speak for PG&E, but I know from experience that it's
| cousin SDG&E (the most expensive in the country I believe)
| will charge more than 60C//kWh in the summer during certain
| times of the day and I've even had it be over 80C/ at certain
| times if memory serves me right.
|
| They've recently retired and restructured a bunch of rate
| plans, but almost all historical and current rates can be
| found on their website[0]. Somehow they still managed to keep
| things nice and complex.
|
| Keep in mind that none of these reflect so called CCA
| pricing, which is another story in of itself. Same for the
| "baseline allowance" after which rates go up, although
| they've now seemed to have structured is a discount to
| somewhat simplify rate comparisons.
|
| 0: https://www.sdge.com/total-electric-rates
|
| Edit: Got curious so looked at some statistics. Top lists of
| most expensive electricity rates all mention Alaska and
| Hawaii, ok fair enough, but even in the contiguous states
| California isn't even mentioned somehow.
|
| At the same time there are articles like[1] these[2] that
| claim SDG&E was the most expensive (at the time).
|
| So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure.
|
| 1: https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/fox-5-asks-sdge-
| why...
|
| 2: https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-
| the-h...
| nostromo wrote:
| > These states really need to get their electric rates down if
| they want to accelerate adoption of electrification
| technologies.
|
| I wish. Instead they'll just do what they're doing in my home
| city, Seattle: ban gas furnaces and other forms of heating
| entirely while raising electric rates even further. The masses
| will cry that you have to be rich to live here, and they'll
| respond to that by raising taxes and spending the raised funds
| on consultants and bureaucrats studying electric utility
| inequities. I wish I was making this up.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Come down to Tacoma. I got > $1k in rebates from the gas
| company replacing my 20yo furnace + water heater with a HE
| gas furnace and a gas tankless water heater.
|
| Housing prices are up now, but early pandemic it was like
| just south of $600k for a 3k sqft house built in the late
| '90s in a nice neighborhood.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Just looking at my street, which is not old infrastructure,
| they would have to replace all the electric lines, all the
| transformers, and all the panels in all of the houses if
| everyone here decided to have EVs. If everyone went to 100%
| electric heat, it would be even worse.
|
| We have dual fuel heating (heat pump, oil burner). It's
| prohibitively expensive to run the heat pump below 32F (0C),
| but the oil works great then, and is way cheaper. Just like the
| heat pump is cheaper at warmer temps. The heat pump won't work
| at all at 0F (-18C), so it's a non-starter to only use air
| based heat pumps for all of our needs. We've tried to get
| quotes for geothermal, but we'll just have to wait for the next
| big recession to do that.
|
| As an engineer, I just have to shake my head at the unrealistic
| timelines being pushed by politicians. All that does is
| increase cost and drama.
| remotefonts wrote:
| >>As an engineer, I just have to shake my head at the
| unrealistic timelines being pushed by politicians. All that
| does is increase cost and drama.
|
| Do you really think that's a coincidence? Not being snarky,
| just curious.
| paulmd wrote:
| it isn't just california either, deficient and neglected
| infrastructure is basically a national-scale problem.
|
| around my area we blew up _two_ substations during a heatwave
| last summer. we constantly get brownouts at 4-6pm during the
| post-work peak load such that I 'm almost not even comfortable
| running the freezer/etc anymore (brownouts are really hard on
| motors). and now you want to push all the gas heating (and this
| area gets cold!) onto the grid too?
|
| a lot of this is that urban and suburban areas are subsidizing
| rural and ex-rural areas - _more than half of my bill_ is
| already capacity-charges and delivery fees and not the actual
| cost of the electric, and we 're still blowing up substations
| regularly due to strained and overloaded infrastructure. Where
| is the money going? Mostly to keeping miles and miles of power
| lines out to the middle of nowhere, I'd think.
|
| That's a problem America is going to face in a lot of "ghost
| town" scenarios - when "the mine dries up" or "the train
| doesn't stop here anymore" and a place stops existing, the
| infrastructure costs to service the 20 people still living
| there don't. Repaving the roads every couple of years, plowing
| and salting them during the winter, etc aren't free and the
| reality is that in some areas there's really almost no economic
| activity anymore to justify the cost. We just have covenants
| and mandates that prevent ever undoing it. And that runs up the
| bills for everyone else.
|
| We have 400k people in this county of 700mi^2, and that's
| suburban, not-particularly-dense either. Another county we have
| 40k people in 2700 mi^2. Should everyone in the former have to
| subsidize the lifestyle of the latter? We are talking about 2
| orders of magnitude less density here, while it's not quite 1:1
| there's no doubt they are incurring _significantly_ higher
| infrastructure costs for their lifestyle and we are paying for
| it.
|
| And since people won't pay for it, what we end up with is
| _everyone 's_ infrastructure falling into neglect, to pay for a
| handful of rural customers.
| callalex wrote:
| > In a way this is the market doing what it's supposed to.
| There's a shortage of electricity because of everyone doing
| electrification upgrades, so the price of electricity rises
|
| PG&E electricity rates have absolutely nothing to do with free
| markets. The only thing setting PG&E rates is corruption and
| incompetence, but mostly corruption.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Customer choices in _response_ to electric rates is
| absolutely free markets, though.
|
| I think that there's a lot wrong with the utility system in
| California (and the corruption actually _incentivizes_
| incompetence - the only way for executives to increase
| profits, make the stock go up, and get higher bonuses is to
| increase their costs, so PG &E is very good at inflating
| costs by doing stuff like burning down cities). But _given_
| that PG &E is as incompetent as they are, the logical market
| response is to make yourself as independent from them as
| possible.
| bagels wrote:
| They are using their lobbying power to prevent this. They
| want their cut regardless of service. Income based minimum
| monthly payment of $92/mo and nem 3 changes.
| super_moose1 wrote:
| Electricity in California is not a free market though.
|
| When I lived in Texas I could choose my electricity
| provider and see what different rates they charge for
| electricity to choose a provider.
|
| In California I can choose Edison for my electricity or
| have no electricity.
| burkaman wrote:
| > It's now more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity
| than gas
|
| This is very hard to believe, what are you paying for
| electricity? California gas prices are also way above the
| national average at the moment. Here's a per-state comparison
| from last year, I'm sure it's a bit out of date but I doubt
| things have completed flipped in a single year:
| https://energyinnovation.org/2023/07/27/ev-fill-up-savings/
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I live in the Bay Area California and get electricity from
| PG&E. I use a minimal amount of electricity and I paid 43
| cents/kWh last month. Gas from Costco is $4/gal right now. I
| have a plugin-hybrid which does 4miles/kwh and 45mpg or in
| terms of money: 9.3miles/$ on electricity and 11.25gas-
| miles/$ on gasoline.
|
| But maybe you don't actually care about fuel efficiency, then
| you have an argument that it's cheaper to fuel a Tesla Model
| 3 instead of a BMW M3.
| burkaman wrote:
| Thanks that's helpful, and just found an overview of
| current rates that matches what you're saying:
| https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-
| plans/...
|
| I think it is still true in California that an average EV
| is cheaper to fuel than an average gas car, but if you have
| a very efficient hybrid then it's a bit cheaper than a pure
| EV.
| gcheong wrote:
| "I paid 43 cents/kWh last month"
|
| I live in the Bay Area as well and I have an EV (2015 Fiat
| 500e), and am on the PG& Home Charging EV2-A plan. I charge
| my car between 12am and 3pm and pay $0.28/kwh, 29kwh/100
| miles and I should be getting about 12.3miles/$.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I think it's always instructive to break out all the
| costs of owning a car on a per mile basis.
|
| I but about $700/year in gasoline. And pay about
| $600/year insurance. And drive about 6500 miles a year.
|
| So insurance and gas are both about 10 cents a mile. I
| think depreciation and maintenance are higher at about 15
| cents/mile. So 50 cents a mile. IRS says a business can
| write off 67 cents a mile.
| nostrademons wrote:
| PG&E is 62 cents/kwh for peak rate above-baseline, I believe
| 52 cents/kwh for off-peak (which most EV charging would be).
| Gas prices where I'm at are around $4.20/gal. I ran the
| numbers for my Mazda CX-90 PHEV SUV, which gets about 1.7
| mi/kwh on electric and about 23 mpg gas. It's about 30
| cents/mile on electric and about 18 cents/mile on gas.
|
| For this tank only I have been charging at home (and at work,
| and anywhere I can), because I want to see how much mileage I
| can get out of a tank with full PHEV driving. In this regard
| it hasn't disappointed; I'm at 1200 miles and just passed
| half a tank of gas. But once I have a baseline for how much
| of my driving _can_ be done on electric, I 'll probably
| switch to just charging at work (where it's free) and using
| gas for most other driving, because it's so much cheaper.
| burkaman wrote:
| I see what you're saying, that makes sense for that
| vehicle. I think pure EVs tend to get about twice as many
| miles per kWh as your car, so for an average pure EV
| compared to an average pure ICE I think the EV is still
| cheaper to fill up, although it is pretty close with these
| prices.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's not really the pure EV vs. hybrid factor, it's the
| weight. The CX-90 is a really big (5200 lbs) 8-seater.
| Hence why its gas mileage is only about 23. It's also
| very heavily terrain & road dependent, eg. for roads with
| lots of stop signs in the hills, I get 0.6 mi/kwh or 8
| mpg, but for flat highway driving it's about 3.0 mi/kwh
| or 40 mpg.
|
| A typical EV would get more like 4 mi/kwh, but then, the
| equivalent ICE car would get more like 35 mpg. The
| delta's a little bit closer because of peculiarities of
| the CX-90's powertrain, but not a whole lot.
| gcheong wrote:
| You should look into a PGE EV time of use rate plan if you
| can charge your car between 12am and 3pm - that should drop
| your rate for charge down to about 34 cents per kWh (though
| on my last bill mine was 28 cents per kWh).
|
| https://www.pge.com/en/account/rate-plans/find-your-best-
| rat...
| qqqwerty wrote:
| The PG&E rate increases have a lot more to do with wildfires
| than it does with supply and demand. Look at SMUD rates, super
| affordable. I will agree though that it has been super
| frustrating for these rate increases to be hitting right around
| when electrification is picking up steam.
|
| With that said, unless you are comparing the most efficient ICE
| against the least efficient EV's you should still see savings
| with an EV. If I charged our EV at the peak electricity rate
| (which I rarely do) it still costs about half as much as a
| fairly average ICE vehicle on a per mile basis. Compared
| against some of the most efficient ICE vehicles (hybrids like
| the Prius) I would still come out ahead, maybe by only 20%
| though. But again, that is comparing the worst case scenario
| where I only charge at peak rates. In practice we probably
| average around half of the peak rate from a mix of at home, at
| work and around town charging.
|
| I will admit though that it is not a particularly good look for
| CA regulators to be pushing electrification so hard while also
| allowing huge rate increases. It ends up looking like a huge
| handout to the investor owned utilities. And the proposed rate
| changes that implement an income based fix charge are
| absolutely idiotic. With batteries coming down in price we
| could soon see the economics of going off grid become much more
| attractive, which would further exacerbate the situation (CA
| IOUs will need battery adopters to stay connected to the grid
| to help with intermittency)
| oramit wrote:
| This is one of my big annoyances as well. Whatever happened to
| the idea of electricity that was too cheap to measure?
| selectodude wrote:
| We had a collective meltdown at the idea of nuclear power.
| I'm currently paying 1.7 cents per kWh in Chicago.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| moved from oil furnace to heat pump in Seattle (with electric
| strip backup)
|
| Seems like a perfect fit for our weather patterns but was
| definitely not the most economical option as it kicked off a
| domino effect of upgrades I wasn't missing before.
|
| Its no where near as "cozy" as the oil heat was, and the
| temperature of airing coming from the vents is significantly
| lower than the oil system. So the domino of upgrades is now
| looking at insulation, windows, etc. Which likely all needed
| upgrades in our old home anyway, but it's been a journey.
| nsguy wrote:
| I did the same in Vancouver, BC. We took advantage of
| incentives to improve our insulation and to make the switch.
| E.g. we just fixed our crawl space.
|
| The heat pump did struggle a little during the more extreme
| cold weather we saw a few weeks back (going down to -15C) but
| we've kept our natural gas fireplace as backup and "assist".
|
| I'm pretty sure it's a little more expensive to run with a heat
| pump, so you need to be willing to pay more for reducing your
| carbon footprint. The incentives do help though. Similar to
| switching to an EV which we also did for similar reasons. I
| think if you're purely looking at $$$ then it's not necessarily
| the optimal decision.
| bullfightonmars wrote:
| I did the same this past thing, the best part about it is the
| reduction in cost for heating from 300+/mo to ~25/mo, The
| downside is that it was terribly expensive to install, it ran
| me 40k to install the new heat pump and air handler.
| brewdad wrote:
| That's why I stuck with a gas furnace and traditional AC when
| I was looking a few years ago. My heating and cooling costs
| are only about $800-1000 a year. Spending an extra $8-10k up
| front in hopes of reducing that figure simply doesn't pencil
| out. Maybe by the time I'm in the market for a new system it
| will.
| ebcase wrote:
| I'm going through this process currently (getting estimates
| from local HVAC contractors, SF Bay Area), and their general
| guidance so far is to get a Hybrid electric + gas heat pump
| config.
|
| The electric heat pump alone isn't sufficient compared with
| gas, and the "add-on" you get to add more heat to the heating
| output is like a space heater, thus very expensive month to
| month.
| turtlebits wrote:
| In Seattle as well. I kept my oil furnace and added mini splits
| to each room.
|
| What helped the most for my old house was attic insulation. I
| spent around $700 to buy blown-in packs (and got free machine
| rental) and got my attic to around R-40. I'm able to set my
| thermostat 5 degrees higher without any change to my energy
| bill.
| nostromo wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about our heat pump system.
|
| Yes, it's efficient. But it breaks about once every other year.
| Last winter the compressor circuit board malfunctioned and cost
| $5k to fix. Two years ago it was another issue entirely.
|
| All of our savings have been lost to service calls. I'm not super
| price sensitive, but it's still a pain when the heat goes out in
| the middle of winter and all the service techs are booked up.
|
| This is a Daikin system, which I thought was a pretty standard,
| respected brand. But like a lot of things built today, it just
| wasn't built to last.
|
| If we ever have to replace it, we're going to have to rip open
| half of the house to remove the heating lines. It'll be a
| nightmare.
|
| I had a heat pump water heater at our previous home, and the
| compressor also broke after a few years. We just operated it as
| an old-fashioned electric water heater after that because it
| would cost more to fix than it would to replace. And both sounded
| like a pain.
| nsguy wrote:
| I got a TOSOT. So far so good.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| I'm wondering if many of the failures in electronically
| controlled equipment are due to power surges etc. It may be
| worth having a whole-home (or equipment specific) surge
| protective device installed, which will protect the power
| electronics (which have very minimal surge protection built in)
| from anything else happening on the line (particularly if there
| are storms where you live often)
| cyberax wrote:
| > If we ever have to replace it, we're going to have to rip
| open half of the house to remove the heating lines. It'll be a
| nightmare.
|
| Why? Assuming you have a split unit, the lines are just copper
| pipes and will work with any other heatpump.
| nostromo wrote:
| Potentially, yes. But when we asked about this we were told
| that not all heat pumps and head units are compatible -- so
| we seem to be locked in based on brand, model, and
| refrigerant type.
| peteradio wrote:
| I think people may be aware of your price insensitivity.
| jmtulloss wrote:
| FWIW there are different sizes but they are standardized
| and you can adapt most sizes to each other (although on the
| compressor side you only would want to size down). If you
| ever need to replace it you'll need to be careful with the
| line sizes but you should be able to find a compatible unit
| to your existing install.
|
| Controllers, otoh, are a different story. You will probably
| need to replace your head units if you also replace the
| compressor with a different brand. Same story with being
| careful about line size.
|
| Refrigerant isn't a big deal as you'll need to flush it and
| repressurize anyway if you replace these parts.
| nostromo wrote:
| Thank you. You're more helpful than the last service tech
| we talked to. :)
| cyberax wrote:
| > so we seem to be locked in based on brand, model, and
| refrigerant type.
|
| Oh, that's totally true for newer models. They no longer
| use simple dry-contacts interfaces, but instead have
| complicated digital protocols between head units and the
| compressor.
|
| So quite likely you'll have to replace them all.
|
| But you won't need to open up the walls and replace the
| piping.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| How cold are your winters? My heat pumps are doing fine but
| it's NorCal so they never have to work too hard.
| ikiris wrote:
| Sounds like you got seriously taken advantage of by the
| contractors you've been using.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > Last winter the compressor circuit board malfunctioned and
| cost $5k to fix.
|
| Ok, so it sounds like you got scammed. HVAC circuit boards cost
| $100.
|
| > Two years ago it was another issue entirely.
|
| Which was?
|
| > All of our savings have been lost to service calls. I'm not
| super price sensitive
|
| Yeah, obviously, if you're willing to spend $5k on a service
| call.
|
| > If we ever have to replace it, we're going to have to rip
| open half of the house to remove the heating lines.
|
| Heat Pump units can just go in place of a regular AC unit. They
| can use existing ductwork and coolant lines. Not sure why you
| ran heating lines everywhere? Do you have a mini-split unit per
| room or something?
| prpl wrote:
| Which models are y'all using out there on HN, and for what square
| footage/location?
|
| I'm in SF and have a gas heater, but a 115 year old house with
| only 4 vents (none in bedrooms), and it's been cold. I'd like to
| replace, maybe DIY, but not sure.
| robszumski wrote:
| One issue with heat pumps is they are more complex in terms of
| modes they can be in, especially if you have multiple zones. I
| was troubleshooting an auxiliary heat issue and had to pull from
| the Ecobee API just to make sense of what was happening on cold
| nights across zones.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Anyone know what sort of electrical requirements there are for
| these? We currently have a gas furnace and gas range. My
| electrical panel is full (we used up the last of it installing
| 220V for the clothes dryer), and the furnace is on the opposite
| side of the house from the electric panel, under a different
| roofline.
|
| I'm going to at some point get an electrician in to look at
| things and see what the options are, but my house just isn't
| wired for it currently.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Assuming your home has 200 amp service you should be fine.
| Typically if your panel is out of space and more circuits are
| needed, you'll need a subpanel installed (just a smaller panel
| that handle some of your circuits). Alternatively an
| electrician may just recommend you upgrade to a bigger panel.
| Either way most of your costs are likely going to be on the
| labor side.
| ajross wrote:
| You don't need space in the panel as clearly you already have a
| circuit breaker for your existing air handler. It will be a
| bigger line though, my house in Portland got a central heat
| pump and handler that wants 40A.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I would _not_ put it past the people who wired this house to
| have shared circuit for the furnace blower with the bathroom
| right next to it, but we 'll see.
| mapmap wrote:
| If you have lighting circuits that previously were incandescent
| but are now all LED, you might be able to combine some of them
| on a single 15 amp breaker.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you have AC, this replaces the AC and so uses that breaker.
| If you don't have AC you need space for a breaker in the panel
| - but this is easy to get (add a sub panel - $500)
|
| The real question is what kind of service you have. If the
| power company cannot deliver enough power then you need more
| power and this will cost you at best $4000 to replace your
| panel, and could be in the tens of thousands depending on what
| your power company wants.
| mdasen wrote:
| One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that
| our electricity costs 1.7x the US average (https://www.eia.gov/el
| ectricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...).
|
| If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're
| going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save
| a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even
| if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a ton cheaper.
| Iowa/Kansas/Missouri/Nebraska get cold, but their electric rates
| are less than half ours.
|
| Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures, but
| they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit. That
| wouldn't matter if our electric rates were more reasonable, but
| at our high rates a heat pump would probably cost me an
| additional $50/mo in the winter (compared to natural gas). That
| isn't so bad and our electric rates might come down as offshore
| wind actually starts happening. Plus it might actually be cheaper
| than gas given that mini-splits would mean I could choose which
| rooms I want to heat rather than heating the whole place as a
| single zone. Plus there's the option to get solar power to drive
| down prices.
|
| But I think the biggest issue in New England (and California)
| will probably be the high cost of electricity. In most of the
| country, heat pumps are a huge no-brainer.
| bruce511 wrote:
| I'm not in NE, so forgive me if this is obvious, but high
| electricity prices might make solar attractive to you.
| (Unrelated to the heat-pump question.)
|
| I'm in a similar high-priced environment, but we get a fair
| amount of sun. I'm getting around a 16% return on capital based
| on electricity usage reduction.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| New England just doesn't have a lot of light. The time to
| return on investment is commendurately longer. And in the
| winter it's much worse.
|
| NREL has solar availability maps. Alas the scale sucks;
| there's great monthly average views, but all done with the
| same yearly average scale, so during the summer everything is
| the same full-red potential (>5.75 kWh/m^2/d) and during the
| winter everything is (mostly) the same low potential
| (<4kWh/m^2/d). Still, one can kind of read some pattern from
| fall/spring & see how a lot of NE looks a lot like, say,
| Seattle (<<4 average). https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-
| resource-maps.html
| colechristensen wrote:
| Solar is so cheap it usually still makes sense financially
| even in areas without a lot of sun, but less so.
|
| Lots of cold places in northern latitudes have short winter
| days that are overcast more often than not yielding only a
| little solar energy for a big chunk of the year.
| david422 wrote:
| I use solar, but using heat pumps and an electric car uses
| maybe 3x more electricity than my roof can produce.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Higher efficiency panels + vertical panels would help. Most
| houses have decent south-facing walls.
|
| Ground mount is also an option in many places.
| k12sosse wrote:
| Live underground and convert your whole yard to arrays of
| panels!
| lex-lightning wrote:
| Alright, maybe I'm out of touch, but I don't think electricity
| is expensive in California.
|
| Even during 115 degree heatwaves in a 70-year-old, 3-bedroom,
| single-family home. Most I paid was $100 in a month with 2
| people with gaming computers working from home.
|
| Not everyone has that kind of money, but my point is that most
| people have cell service and other services which add up to
| more than electricity costs.
|
| That's fine, I make no judgement of what people spend. I'm just
| setting a comparison. For how much value electricity provides
| us and how much we use it, I wouldn't call it expensive, even
| in California.
|
| YMMV by city, but it wasn't an issue in Sacramento. The real
| monster is climate change, and so here we have a chicken-and-
| egg problem combined with wealth disparity.
|
| I think we need comprehensive social program packages to
| address this.
| bagels wrote:
| How? It's $0.52/kwh here, and before that rate increase, we
| were paying (edit) $278/mo in the summer for similar (70 year
| old 3 bedroom house), and slightly lower temepratures.
| lex-lightning wrote:
| Time-of-day program with SMUD. Ran the AC as cool as it
| could go before peak, turned it off during peak. At move-in
| we dumped multiple feet of insulation (more than code
| requires) into the place. At worst it got to 80 degrees.
|
| Might have been a bit over $100, but I'm just as
| flabbergasted at your $278.
| lex-lightning wrote:
| Lol. Dogpile away. Imma count my money I saved and sit
| here in my early retirement.
| what_ever wrote:
| I think you are out of touch. You need to compare the PGE
| rates with SMUD to get the picture.
|
| https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-
| rates
|
| https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-
| plans/resid... (PDF File)
|
| PGE's off-peak rates are 3x SMUD's off-peak rates. PGE's
| peak rates are 1.5x to almost 2x of SMUD's peak rates.
| tomschlick wrote:
| For context of how crazy that is... here in OH we pay
| ~$0.12/kwh
| secabeen wrote:
| Another factor is topography. Ohio is pretty flat and
| running power lines around it is not that hard.
| California is big and has lots of rugged terrain. It
| costs a lot more to bring power to the small town in the
| California mountains, and those costs have to be paid by
| the urban and sub-urban customers of our large state-wide
| utilities.
| GoatOfAplomb wrote:
| With the latest PG&E rate hike, my off-peak rate is 33c/kwh
| and the highest peak rate in 66c. I think the national
| average is 19c? That seems like a pretty drastic difference
| to me.
| mcbishop wrote:
| The cost relative to other places is a different
| consideration than the value per dollar relative to our
| other expenses. OP is speaking to the latter.
| acchow wrote:
| Can you share your rate during that period? Makes for a
| simpler comparison
| gnicholas wrote:
| When I looked into this, I learned that we pay 2x what
| neighboring states pay.
| floxy wrote:
| Looks like California has the 3rd highest rate after Hawaii
| and Rhode Island:
|
| https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
| nkingsy wrote:
| Let's say 30 kWh per day is the norm to run ac in the summer.
|
| Assuming $.40 per kWh, which is lower than my PGE rate,
| that's $360 per month just to run the ac.
|
| Not sure what kind of setup you have. $100 is my bill if I'm
| not home in the winter and leave everything off.
| lex-lightning wrote:
| I'm picking up a sentiment from the downvotes so let me
| defend: I'm not lying lol.
|
| SMUD time of day. Ran the AC super cold during the night
| (so it would run the entire off-peak period). Ran it
| somewhat cool during mid-peak. Didn't use it at all during
| peak.
|
| Other appliances I only ran at night.
|
| Installed lots of insulation at move-in.
|
| Like I said in OP, Sacramento. YMMV.
|
| But in any case I'd argue $360 is still not _expensive per
| se_ given the value you're getting. How many square feet
| were you cooling? What else was operating?
|
| It's just about perspective. I was responding to the claim
| that electricity is expensive.
| losvedir wrote:
| FYI, a monthly bill is essentially useless information. How
| big is your house? What are you using it for? How efficient
| is your fridge? Your A/C? How much is the fixed cost part of
| the bill? Etc.
|
| I'm assuming, since you mention Sacramento and peak hours,
| these[0] are your rates? Next time, share those so folks in
| other places can compare. That page has these:
|
| Summer:
|
| * Off-peak: $0.1425 kWh
|
| * Mid-peak: $0.1967 kWh
|
| * Peak: $0.3462 kWh
|
| Non-Summer
|
| * Off-peak: $0.1151 kWh
|
| * Peak: $0.1590 kWh
|
| That's pretty high, but I think middling to low for
| California. For comparison, in my town outside Chicago, we
| have a year-round all-day rate of $0.12 kWh.
|
| [0] https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-
| rates
| TheOsiris wrote:
| yeah, there's absolutely no "maybe" about it, you are
| definitely out of touch :). I don't know in what way exactly,
| but something is off. What is your per kwh rate exactly? You
| might be getting some kind of subsidies that you are not
| aware of, perhaps? I used to live in a 1200 sqft house in LA
| without any AC or anything consuming too much electricity,
| and 10 years ago before all the rate hikes I was still paying
| more than $100/month in west LA.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| That's because you're on SMUD, not PG&E, so you're not
| getting charged to cover the maintenance and liabilities of
| above-ground high-voltage power lines going into a forest on
| a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
| bagels wrote:
| Right, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a
| gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for
| the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly.
|
| If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the
| utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar
| installation.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Southern Cali resident here: I got a mini split system
| installed a couple years back, and last year's eye-popping
| surprise gas bill inspired me to start running it backward
| for heat instead of using the furnace.
|
| Pricewise, it's actually a wash. My electric bill went up by
| about $100 a month, whereas during the winter my gas bill was
| running about $100 a month to run the furnace (aside from
| that one random $600 bill one month last year that inspired
| this change). I've been using the mini split all winter and
| it's been great.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Thank you for posting that. Although the cost of
| electricity is important, when deciding on using a heat
| pump for heat, the big question is the cost of electricity
| for heating, relative to the cost of the fuel you are
| already using (natural gas, propane, oil, etc.).
|
| It's definitely annoying to calculate! Since a heat pump's
| efficiency can vary with the outside temperature, it takes
| a bit of work to estimate your potential added electricity
| cost.
| lazide wrote:
| Also cost of capital for installing the heat pump, if a
| new installation.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Its a wash when gas prices are at historical lows:
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm
| Spivak wrote:
| That isn't the table you actually care about because it
| doesn't hit the residential customer like that. The
| nominal $/therm in my area has been stable for the last
| 10 years which might be artificial but to my bank account
| it's all the same.
| exe34 wrote:
| Is there a reason heat pumps use electricity? I would have
| thought the same approach would work with gas - you only need
| to burn a fraction of the gas to drive the "fridge"
| backwards?
| colechristensen wrote:
| You seem to be missing something fundamental here, I'm not
| sure what it is. How do you think heat pumps work?
| Arrath wrote:
| OP has a point, fundamentally you could drive the heat
| pump by a little gas turbine, or bridge the gap with a
| gas powered generator.
| theteapot wrote:
| Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is big in Europe.
| exe34 wrote:
| What I had in mind was that heating and cooling using an
| air-conditioner, a fridge or a "heat pump" is
| fundamentally the same thing, and electricity is just one
| way of driving it. Ultimately you have a gas that you
| compress to release heat (outside for AC, inside for heat
| pump), which then expands (inside for A/C, outside for a
| heat pump). The compressor can run off a pedal bike for
| all it cares.
| david422 wrote:
| I think you are back to where you started. If it was
| cheaper to use gas to run a heat pump then everybody would
| just run generators in their houses off of gas instead of
| using electrical lines.
| bluGill wrote:
| That has been proposed. Well the proposal was to run a
| small engine powering a generator, then you cool the
| engine to heat the house, while the electric is sold (or
| otherwise powers the house). However modern gas furnaces
| are > 90% efficient and it is hard to get an engine that
| efficient for heat (remember the engine will be running
| indoors so it needs to not fill the house with noise of
| CO). I think no matter how you look at it, you can't make
| this system more efficient than just using the furnace to
| generate heat without the engine.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> I think no matter how you look at it, you can 't make
| this system more efficient than just using the furnace to
| generate heat without the engine._
|
| I don't think that's right: look at micro-CHP (Combined
| Heat and Power) systems: they run an engine to generate
| electricity, and then capture the heat for heating. I
| don't think you can get them for residential in the US
| though.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Honda sold one for the US, but it didn't catch on or
| something:
|
| Well I found this, they used the heat for hot water:
|
| https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2012/p120925eng.htm
| l
| jefftk wrote:
| In MA this actually does work at first glance: a 23%
| efficient Generac 7171 is rated for 9kW at full output on
| natural gas, and uses 127 ft3/hr (1.37 therms). This is
| $0.30/kWh at $2/therm, compared to the $0.323/kWh I pay
| the power company. If you were doing this for real you'd
| put in the work to find something more efficient than
| this unit, which would then be enough to make up for the
| cost of the generator and the maintenance.
|
| Except it's not legal to do this, and even if it were
| there'd be a lot of hassle.
| dahinds wrote:
| Gas fired heat pumps do exist, they're called absorption
| heat pumps.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps
| bombcar wrote:
| This is how you can have propane powered refrigerators.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Utilities cost excesses in California are largely PG&E paying
| for its liability for causing wildfires in places where
| people probably shouldn't live anyway.
|
| For example Silicon Valley Power which serves Santa Clara (or
| something like that) has rates that are literally half as
| much as PG&E.
|
| In Minnesota I'm paying for Xcel Energy's mistakes in Texas.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _stop the attacks on solar installation_
|
| I've not heard of any attacks, just reductions in subsidies
| (tax credits, net metering). Can you share what you're
| referring to?
| TheOsiris wrote:
| isn't that an attack? removing/reducing subsidies removes
| incentives for people to install more solar
| gnicholas wrote:
| I don't generally view the removal of subsidies as being
| "attacks". I view that as the end of the free money.
| janpieterz wrote:
| Depends how you see it. If you assume a neutral state of
| no incentives, adding benefits to stimulate growth and
| later removing this benefits once growth is achieved can
| be seen as "attacking this positive state" or simply
| "bringing back to neutral".
|
| I moved to SoCal recently and didn't realize things like
| net metering even existed, so when people started to rant
| about these new measures I was very surprised to learn
| about them, and especially about people presuming these
| things to be "normal".
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _when people started to rant about these new measures I
| was very surprised to learn about them, and especially
| about people presuming these things to be "normal"._
|
| I think at first people were (reasonably) scared that net
| metering might go away with no grandfathering for
| existing installations. People had a reasonable reliance
| interest in maintaining at least some of their existing
| benefits for the payoff period of their panels.
|
| Once it was clear that existing installations would be
| grandfathered, I didn't hear much ranting anymore -- just
| people who were bummed that a subsidy was going away (or
| people rushing to get in under the wire).
| what_ever wrote:
| Is net metering a subsidy?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Absolutely.
|
| If a customer is permitted to buy as much electricity as
| they want at a fixed price while also being able to sell
| as much as they can at a different time at a fixed price,
| it seems like there's an obvious subsidy happening
| anytime they sell electricity at other than when the
| wholesale price is the highest or buy other than when the
| wholesale price is lowest. (In areas with an excess of
| solar generation capacity, these distortions become quite
| large.)
|
| (I'm still all for these subsidies on the balance of
| factors; we just shouldn't pretend that they're not
| subsidies.)
| wongarsu wrote:
| If few people use net metering it's kind of fair. Your
| solar installation generates electricity, any excess gets
| delivered to your neighbors. The electricity is providing
| the infrastructure for that without making any money on
| that specific transaction (it gets deducted from your
| meter and added to your neighbors' meter), but that's
| easy enough to account for in base fees.
|
| The issues start if too many people do net metering.
| Imagine everyone has a solar roof and reaches net-zero
| electricity. You can still maintain the infrastructure
| with base fees, but the electricity company still has to
| run power plants in the morning and evening when demand
| outstrips solar supply, and for baseload in the night.
| And during the day there's now an oversupply of
| electricity that they somehow have to sell.
|
| In commercial electricity generation many countries have
| a kind of spot market for electricity, where prices are
| determined by demand (down to the minute) and available
| supply. Prices can go close to zero if lots of solar and
| wind capacity is available, or far above the price
| charged to consumer for capacity to cover the evening
| peak. If we changed consumer prices to more accurately
| reflected this "true" market price (plus markup for the
| grid operator), with prices changing by the minute, net
| metering would be pretty fair. But so far there's little
| desire to dump all that complexity on regular consumers.
| Jochim wrote:
| > Prices can go close to zero if lots of solar and wind
| capacity is available
|
| Negative prices aren't uncommon during quiet periods in
| the summer.
| secabeen wrote:
| > You can still maintain the infrastructure with base
| fees
|
| In theory yes, but the grid has not used properly scoped
| base fees to pay for infrastructure. Delivery costs of
| power are more than half the total cost; to get to a
| base+generation model, you'd probably see monthly
| connection fees for Electricity in the $100+ range for
| many Americans.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't think there's any obligation for people's
| financial trickery to be sustainable. Like, a new power
| pole costs (say) $1000 regardless of how many watts are
| going through the wires attached to it. Someone has to
| pay the person that cut down the tree and hauled it to
| its final location money. That they loan you money on the
| infrastructure and you repay through using electricity
| isn't the actual cost model, it's just a pricing model
| people are OK with. When it stops working, the model will
| have to change.
|
| I always laughed about the pricing structure of the
| business ISP that I worked at. We charged $1000 to
| install your service, then $1000 per month (without a
| contract). This was a financial game; we would lose money
| if you cancelled after your first month. I always thought
| the pricing should be $15,000 to install, and then $5 per
| month. That's closer to what the actual costs are. But
| instead of you going to the bank to get a loan to pay the
| $15,000, we hid that for you. It made more people sign
| up, and we had a better source of funding than bank
| loans. But, at the end of the day, we would have been out
| of business if a bunch of people signed up and didn't
| pay. If that happened, I imagine the pricing would have
| changed to reflect actual costs.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Removing those subsidies while keeping fossil fuel ones is
| kind of attack.
| SECProto wrote:
| All electricity generation throughout the US is subsidized
| in various ways already - eg low interest loans for new
| generation capacity, programs for low income earners, not
| (or not effectively) charging for carbon and methane
| emissions, low fuel taxes on sources used for electricity
| generation. The "subsidies" you list help make a desirable
| energy source compete on a more level playing field -
| matching benefits that competing energy sources already
| receive.
| gnicholas wrote:
| My understanding is that when utilities buy energy from
| solar farms, they do so based on the demand and available
| supply, meaning that solar farms get paid more or less
| depending on these factors. But with net metering for
| residential solar installations, utilities are buying
| independent of supply/demand, which gives the residents a
| subsidy even vis-a-vis other solar producers.
|
| I understand that all kinds of energy production methods
| are subsidized, but if net metering lets residential
| solar owners get paid more for the energy they produce
| than solar farms would be paid, I don't see how that's
| anything but a subsidy.
| SECProto wrote:
| There are all kinds of complications - commercial solar
| isn't dispatchable so it does tend to get lower rates
| than most other sources. In my jurisdiction residential
| (net metering) customers are only allowed to install a
| certain numbers of panels - corresponding with household
| energy consumption and assumed production levels (i.e.
| your monthly bill will never be negative - at lowest
| you'll be paying distribution charges and 0 for
| consumption). With low levels of residential solar
| installation, locally installed panels can help balance
| the grid as it is consumed on distribution lines and
| doesnt need transmission lines (conversely, high levels
| can unbalance the grid).
|
| > if net metering lets residential solar owners get paid
| more for the energy they produce than solar farms would
| be paid, I don't see how that's anything but a subsidy.
|
| Paying them nothing would be even more unfair (and that's
| the only option available where I am at least - net
| metering or no household generation)
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Paying them nothing would be even more unfair (and
| that 's the only option available where I am at least -
| net metering or no household generation)_
|
| I wasn't suggesting this. The phased rollback of net
| metering in California (the state mentioned in my
| original parent comment as "attacking" solar
| installation) means that solar owners will still get
| paid, just not as much as before. I'm sorry that you live
| somewhere that this middle option isn't available -- the
| two extremes are indeed less fair!
| beembeem wrote:
| The "phased rollback of net metering" is a bit more
| extreme than you suggest. Have you heard of income-based
| billing? [1]
|
| [1] https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/working-for-
| you/sdge...
| gnicholas wrote:
| I have heard of income-based billing, but that will apply
| regardless of whether you own solar panels. Also, some
| legislators are trying to repeal it before it goes into
| effect. [1-2]
|
| 1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-
| epipha...
|
| 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39320388#39320860
| SECProto wrote:
| > phased rollback of net metering in California
|
| Thank you for this clarification - I thought the
| discussion about changes to net metering was general, not
| California specific. Reading [1] about the changes to net
| metering in California, it seems reasonable, especially
| as it has high solar penetration. Hopefully it will (like
| many things) lead the way so that load shifting becomes
| simpler/more economical throughout North America.
|
| [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2023/08/18/decoding-the-
| changes-to...
| Retric wrote:
| Most US solar farms have a power purchase agreement
| that's independent of real time market prices. Solar
| farms agree because being paid 2c/kWh or whatever for the
| first X years guarantees they can repay all loans.
| Utilities agree because it's guaranteed to save them
| money.
|
| Those power purchase agreements then makes it really easy
| to get loans.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > > stop the attacks on solar installation
|
| > I've not heard of any attacks, just reductions in
| subsidies. Can you share what you're referring to?
|
| I do appreciate a softball.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?va=c&t=he&q=political+attacks+on+so
| l...
| gnicholas wrote:
| I guess you didn't actually click through to the links;
| they refer to windmills, solar panel pricing issues in SE
| Asia, and various other topics (I'm sure some links
| involve the CA govt attacking solar, but the first
| several didn't). Maybe next time you can post a couple
| links that you've actually read, instead of just giving
| the impression that there are scads of attacks at your
| fingertips?
| bagels wrote:
| California specific: income based minimum pricing, and
| 'wholesale' pricing for power sent to the grid.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Income-based base billing is indeed terrible, but it is
| not an attack on solar. You'd pay it whether you have
| panels or not. Also, legislators have apparently come to
| their senses and are looking to repeal it. [1-2] As for
| the pricing for power sent to the grid, I did mention the
| changes to net metering, which offer grandfathering for
| existing installations.
|
| 1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-
| epipha...
|
| 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39320388#39320860
| brlewis wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but probably https://pv-magazine-
| usa.com/2024/01/30/arizona-proposes-sola...
| gnicholas wrote:
| OP was complaining about CA, and this appears to be an
| proposed law in AZ. It could affect CA utility prices
| because it relates to export, but it's not up to CA to
| decide what laws are passed in another state, governing
| the usage of land in that state.
| GenerWork wrote:
| >If California is serious about this, they need to reign in
| the utilities
|
| Why would they reign in one of the best ways to ensure that
| Calpers remains solvent?
| gregwebs wrote:
| There are second order effects from natural gas use in an
| actual furnace that aren't taken into account in price of
| energy comparisons. A furnace has to either
|
| 1) exhaust out air initially drawn from the house which must
| be replaced by cold outdoor air coming into the house (this
| requires more heating of the house) 2) take in fresh cold air
| for combustion and exhaust that (which requires extra energy
| to heat up the cold air)
| bluGill wrote:
| All modern furnaces I've seen take #2 - use air from
| outside. Despite that they can get to 99% efficient. It
| doesn't take much energy to heat up that cold air.
| giobox wrote:
| My experience in the US at least is that its not uncommon
| for the furnace air intake to draw air from inside the
| house (my last two homes in PNW as one example).
| zbrozek wrote:
| California resident here. Both of my last two places with
| gas furnaces combust unconditioned air.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| The furnace my parents (who live in Ohio) installed 10+
| years ago uses outside air for combustion, not
| conditioned inside air. As it's older, it's not got a 99
| AFUE, but it's high (I think in the low 90s).
| bluGill wrote:
| That used to be very common in the US, and there are a
| lot of old systems still working. However every new
| furnace I've seen is installed to use outside air. Using
| outside air needs $100 more in parts and labor and it
| prevents air balance issues in modern well sealed houses.
| bombcar wrote:
| You could get high efficiency with a furnace that uses
| inside air, but they're basically no longer installed.
|
| 20 years ago quite common.
| TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
| Or, they could increase the price of natural gas (perhaps
| using a tax)
| Retric wrote:
| In the continental US you get ~2x the heat from burning
| natural gas in a combined cycle turbine to run a heat pump
| than you would from using a high efficiency gas furnace.
|
| The market price of electricity vs gas varies quite a bit
| through time and various distortions of the market. Currently
| gas is cheap, but you want to compare historical averages
| when buying something that lasts 15+ years not simply look at
| current rates.
| Aloha wrote:
| I don't think your math adds up.
|
| Combined cycle is like at most 70% efficient, subtract 10%
| of distribution, you end up with 60%.
|
| At 50f my 5T heat pump takes 6.6 kWh to generate 50,000
| BTU.
|
| 6 kWh of energy takes 71cf of gas to make - accounting for
| transmission and generation losses.
|
| 71cf of gas will make 71,000 BTU of heat, assuming an 80%
| efficiency furnace, that comes out to 56,000 BTU usable.
|
| Yes a heat pump will vastly outperform resistive strip heat
| - but not even an 80% gas furnace.
| stephen_g wrote:
| What kind of system do you have that is only giving you
| (if I've converted the those very confusing units
| correctly) a COP of 2.2 at 10deg C? That's really very
| poor... There are air-to-water units that can achieve COP
| > 4 at 0deg C, and even a good air-to-air should still be
| over COP 3... I'd expect to see a COP like that at -15deg
| C or below on a modern unit...
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| The point you're missing is electricity should never be
| expensive, if it is then you're doing something very stupid.
| smcleod wrote:
| Natural gas won't stay cheap. It was cheap here in Australia
| 10 years ago and now it's so expensive no one can afford to
| run gas heating and it's only going up. Now (thankfully) the
| government has banned the installation of new gas heating and
| a lot of people are getting rid of gas cooking, hot water
| heating etc... it's for the best.
| maxglute wrote:
| I remember a recent investor report posted on HN about
| declining health of permian basin, and the economics of
| extraction will increasingly not make sense in 10 years.
| Seems like no brainer if shale and by connection LNG is on
| way out. Might also explain Biden stalling LNG expansions
| especially with NATO on the hook, maybe it's cynical
| electioneering to his base, but maybe the future of cheap
| US LNG is not bright vs renewables.
| Areading314 wrote:
| Solar isn't a useful source of energy for heating in
| California, since the demand is almost entirely during winter
| mornings/evenings where the sun is down.
| oooyay wrote:
| Yeah, I made this mistake this year. I pumped $20k into a heat
| pump system, coming from what used to be Natural Gas. I wasn't
| given any kind of relief because I live in Oregon where most
| relief is income based. Then at the beginning of the year PGE
| announced a 20% rate hike. My house is covered in trees, so
| solar isn't really an option. I really regretted my decision
| once I got a $300-$400 bill for heating three months in a row.
| In the summer I now have AC where I didn't at all before, but
| it hardly makes up for the cost of a heat pump during winter. I
| probably won't be doing any of these kinds programs again.
| jdeibele wrote:
| I'm moving from Portland to McMinnville in a couple of
| months. Price of kwh goes from $.1945/kwh to about $.0720.
| I've noticed that McMinnville Water & Light doesn't help pay
| for EV connections, etc. compared to Portland General
| Electric but at almost 1/3rd the cost, they probably don't
| need to.
|
| MW&L is community-owned, PGE is traded on the NYSE. They both
| buy a ton of hydro from the Bonneville Power Administration.
|
| https://findenergy.com/providers/mcminnville-water-and-
| light... gives an average. Actual per kwh rate is cheaper but
| there's a $16.10 customer charge to have an account.
| https://www.mc-power.com/wordpress/wp-
| content/uploads/pdf/ra...
|
| https://portlandgeneral.com/about/info/pricing-plans
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| $20k for a heat pump is sky high, you better have gotten a 24
| SEER2 state of the art fully variable system for that.
|
| If they sold you a 14 SEER1 for that then you got absolutely
| screwed.
| theteapot wrote:
| > Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures,
| but they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit.
|
| What's the temperature in the ground? Did you look at a ground
| source heat pump
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_source_heat_pump)
| bluGill wrote:
| I have - the cost of installing such a system makes it
| questionable if it will ever be worth it. I've seen a few
| places that have it and they work great year round and are
| cheap to operate. However the payoff from the install if 50+
| years despite the cheap costs. Everyone hopes the install
| lasts that long, but a lot can go wrong in 50 years. (the
| equipment probably won't last 50 years, but that will be
| cheap enough to replaces, it is the pipes in the ground that
| better last 50 years)
| htek wrote:
| A large chunk of cost is drilling the holes for the loop.
| New, compact drilling rigs that use 10' drill sections are
| a good deal cheaper to run labor-wise and require less
| space to maneuver. Costs will come down as more companies
| switch to these rigs.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| What are some examples of these new drilling rigs?
| aurizon wrote:
| The big cost for ground source HP, is the large area you have
| to dig with 4 foot deep trenches. I have seen one where the
| installer digs 2 trenches about 16 feet apart and 30 feet
| long down to 6 feet. They then use a soil drill to make about
| 50-60 holes between the trenches and insert 17 foot plastic
| pipes(1 inch diameter) They then connect the pipes on each
| side to a common pipe(3"), all well sealed ABS pipes below
| the frost line. This allow for a large volume of coupled and
| warm(55 degrees) that the heat pump extracts/deposits heat as
| needed for heating/cooling the home. This drilling is a lot
| cheaper than a dozen or more 3 foot trenchs for the water
| loops.
| xutopia wrote:
| I'm in Canada and we have heat pumps with secondary heat
| sources for when it gets really cold. Mine is with gas.
| jefftk wrote:
| These sorts of programs generally require you to disable your
| existing heating system, and don't allow you to run it only
| in warmer weather.
|
| Ex, Massachusetts: https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PDF
| s/Save/Residential...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Note that's for the whole home $10K rebate only. For the
| per-ton rebate, you can leave the existing fossil fueled
| appliance installed and connected. (It's also new for 2024;
| the 2023 rules allowed you to leave the appliance in to be
| used for supplemental heat during extreme cold or during an
| equipment outage. https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PD
| Fs/Save/Residential... )
| fnbr wrote:
| Yup, me too. And with my Nest thermostat, I can manually
| configure the crossover point. I did so at the economic
| balance point (where the heat pump is cheaper than my gas
| furnace).
| jefftk wrote:
| That's right. In MA I'm paying a marginal $0.316/kWh for
| electric and $1.999/therm for natural gas, heating a two-family
| 10-person building. Switching to a heat pump would be an
| additional $1k/y in heating costs, and that's ignoring the cost
| of the system (which is substantial even after the $20k MA
| subsidy this article discusses).
|
| More: https://www.jefftk.com/p/running-the-numbers-on-a-heat-
| pump
| 1minusp wrote:
| Large drilling costs from where I am in the south due to ground
| being mostly (lime?)stone: makes it cost-infeasbile. Other
| areas might have it easier though.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| If electricity is costly, it makes sense to put solar panels.
| Consolidate all energy (transportation - EV, HVAC - electric,
| induction stove, heat pump water heater), put solar panels, and
| wipe off all energy bills. Every household can save $400 - $800
| on utility bills.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| I'm not in New England but I'm imagining that the cold
| winters there are accompanied but plenty of cloudy skies as
| well. In that case solar might not be a great option.
| taude wrote:
| Also, doesn't states like MA import a not-insignificant amount
| of natural gas from elsewhere to convert to electricity? Would
| like to hear about what's more efficient: direct natural gas
| heating vs natural gas -> electricity -> heat pump...
| twoodfin wrote:
| Yes, and for nominally climate-driven reasons MA has
| constrained the construction of pipelines and other
| facilities that would allow the cheaper delivery of natural
| gas for cheaper electricity... thus discouraging consumers
| like me from moving to electrical utilities that would net
| reduce emissions.
| deepsun wrote:
| Why wouldn't heat pump work on gas?
|
| It's already done -- RV fridges work on propane directly,
| without converting it to electricity. A fridge is a heat pump.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Apparently they do, but they're not common for houses yet.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps
| jwells89 wrote:
| I have an aging gas furnace that's about due for replacement and
| a heat pump may be in the cards.
|
| Something I'll need to research is how a heat pump would compare
| to electric heated flooring, though because the way my house's
| HVAC system is set up the upper floor is heated before the lower
| floor, which exacerbates the natural temperature difference that
| results from heat rising and means the lower floor can be chilly
| while the upper floor is warm. My AC is fairly new still too
| which makes me think that installing heated floor in the base
| floor, letting heat rise to heat the upper floor with the old
| furnace remaining as a backup might be smarter.
|
| Electricity costs aren't too bad here ($0.10-$0.14/kWh) so
| switching from consuming gas to consuming electricity won't
| impact bills too much.
| sgc wrote:
| You can do both. For example:
| https://www.arcticheatpumps.com/radiant-floor-heating-with-h...
| jwells89 wrote:
| Had heard of this and it's cool, but would involve tossing my
| still-good AC unit which doesn't feel great unless the
| installer offers trade-ins or something (which doesn't seem
| likely).
|
| Will consider going with a heat pump nonetheless.
| mypgovroom wrote:
| Eh I don't hate heat pumps, but they are not the answer
| progman32 wrote:
| Answer to what?
| billfor wrote:
| Has anyone found a good way to control all the features of a heat
| pump with home automation? I've been lookin at Daikin and
| Mitsubishi but Daikin no longer has an open api and I don't see
| much on Mitubishi. It seems like every heat pump comes with its
| own proprietary remote, and the thermostats and Wi-Fi modules (if
| available) don't integrate well.
| qmarchi wrote:
| I have a suite of LG Minisplits installed in my apartment.
| While there isn't a distinctly open API, there's an integration
| that you can add to Home Assistant for access to the platform.
|
| From there, I've got a few automations including:
| - Automatically turning off "conflicting" units (Heat vs Cool)
| - Schedules (set bedroom to cool at night) and "Away" modes
| - Temperature overrides using custom built temperature sensors
| (BME280 to the rescue) - Access and control via voice
| (via Google Assistants)
|
| Unfortunately, the integration is reliant on the cloud, but you
| can connect a "traditional" relay based thermostat to them as
| well (with the loss of variable load control for the outside
| unit).
| thebestmoshe wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you. As far as I can tell the only
| option is something like Sensibo, which uses IR.
|
| I would love to know if there is a better way to do this.
| callalex wrote:
| Every home in America should have a Heat Recovery Ventilator.
| They are extremely simple mechanically, yet because of their
| rarity they are still way to expensive to justify the cost
| instead of just opening a window. Policy could help a lot here.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| We use PTAC at the hotel and we only buy with a heat pump. It
| reduces electricity bills significantly in winter. It's not a new
| tech, but it has gotten more efficient over the years.
|
| I am surprised that all these companies are charging arms and
| legs for heat pump units. PTAC is about $100 extra if you get it
| with a heat pump.
|
| If you don't have access to natural gas, heat pump water will
| save you a lot in winter.
| readams wrote:
| I recently had to replace my air conditioner, and I looked into a
| heat pump, which in theory should be almost the same thing as an
| air conditioner, but it was so much more expensive than the AC
| that it was impossible to justify.
| photonbeam wrote:
| Need to bring down electricity prices for this to be viable in
| many places
| endisneigh wrote:
| I looked into heat pumps in north east - didn't make any sense
| financially given cost of installation. break even was 10+ years.
| With that timeline I might as well wait.
| ursuscamp wrote:
| As always with these things, if they actually increase the value
| for home-owners, then people will naturally begin to select them
| on their own over time. However, if they do not increase value,
| then you will just be hamstringing your state by forcing people
| to use inferior products.
| freetime2 wrote:
| I hear a lot of horror stories on HN every time the subject of
| heat pumps comes up. Things like high costs, units not defrosting
| properly in winter, etc. Most of these stories tend to be for
| central air conditioning units.
|
| I think that mini-splits could be a much better introduction to
| heat pumps for a lot of folks. They are cheap, easy to install,
| and the units in my house have been running 12 years as our only
| source of heating/cooling with zero maintenance. (The
| manufacturer recommends replacing after 10 years, but they are
| still working fine). This is in an area where we get a lot of
| snow in winter, but temps almost never fall below -10c.
|
| And you can keep your existing furnace as a backup or secondary
| heat source.
| exitzer0 wrote:
| Mini-splits seem like they are the future for the value
| conscious and light-weight DIY crowd.
|
| These systems are quite simple in design and implementation
| while also offering a pretty effective way to control
| temperature in a zoned way in various parts of the house. They
| also can be had in 120V sizes making them far easier to
| accomidate for solar-powered households, etc.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I run mine in a similar climate to what you're describing. Air
| based, not ground or water. Absolutely zero problems at all.
|
| Either I have some magic heat pump or a lot of the horror
| stories are overblown or based on using out of date technology.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| those states specifically? every time they do something in unison
| it turns out bad imo
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| The only thing stopping me from buying a great pump is how
| unreliable the power grid is in my area. Lines are above ground,
| with numerous trees overhanging them so a snow storm is high risk
| for a power outage at a time I can least afford it, as road
| conditions may prevent seeking shelter elsewhere. Conversely,
| with a furnace and a small generator to run the blower, I can
| keep heat on through a couple days without power.
| torpid wrote:
| I live in an old furniture factory converted into lofts. LEED
| certified of course, with mini splits instead of forced air in
| each unit. This is in the midwest.
|
| For the past 11 years, every season it's failed to maintain
| minimum temperature of 68 degrees when it hits below 5 degrees
| outside, or maintain cooling in the summer. Another adjacent
| building built 2 years after this one with the exact same setup,
| same story. The complex had resorted to providing residents
| temporary space heaters up until this year where now they are
| prohibited by the city from using it to maintain minimum temps
| thanks to changing the code.
|
| The sheer amount of costs associated they've dumped into the
| maintenance of this mini split system, along with the electricity
| costs (electricity is included with rent) is mind boggling and
| certainly will offset any gains.
| jrockway wrote:
| Emergency heat was under-installed. In the midwest, you have to
| have it, and it will suck down a ton of electricity for the
| handful of days a year you need it. Being entirely reliant on
| mini-splits without resistive emergency heating is a very
| strange choice, and it's not what heat pump advocates are
| recommending.
|
| The idea behind heat pumps is to eliminate the need for the
| natural gas distribution infrastructure. As the infrastructure
| ages, more pipes will crack (emitting greenhouse gasses, not to
| mention blowing up), and the cost will go up. Meanwhile, more
| renewable electricity is coming online, driving the cost down.
| (It is a much harder problem to replace every gas furnace in
| the US versus replacing every power plant in the US. That's why
| the process is starting early with "hey, maybe you don't want
| to replace your furnace".)
|
| Right now, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to have a
| heat pump for the average midwestern house unless you have a
| pretty big solar installation. But in the future, the day will
| come where "we're going to pipe explosive gas into your house"
| is simply not done anymore. That will come in the form of gas
| companies not being able to maintain their infrastructure at
| the prices they charge, declining fossil fuel reserves,
| international demand to lower emissions, etc. It's not a crisis
| today, but today is not a bad day to start looking towards the
| future.
|
| (I'm looking forward to replacing my gas stove with an
| induction stove. CO2 levels are through the roof whenever I
| cook to the point I have to open windows. I don't need to be
| breathing all of that.)
| clhodapp wrote:
| Aren't space heaters and emergency heat essentially the same
| thing? It seems strange for the city to ban space heaters
| when they really ought not to be worse than any other
| resistive heater
| waynesonfire wrote:
| > it's not what heat pump advocates are recommending.
|
| sure seems like someone is. could it possibly be the heat
| pump salesmen? the idea behind heat pumps is to sell heat
| pumps.
|
| In the event you're cold, maybe you should get a furnace too.
| But that wasn't part of the sales pitch. Regardless, there
| are now two appliances you have to maintain. Tell me again
| how much money this saves?
| NewJazz wrote:
| _Tell me again how much money this saves?_
|
| Who said that was the goal?
| worik wrote:
| What are "mini splits "?
| Whatarethese wrote:
| Sounds like some pretty poor planning. Modern heat pumps
| including the ones that I'm familiar with work down to around
| -5F. They aren't very efficient obviously at that low temp but
| mine also has a resistive backup that fires up if needed.
| bamboozled wrote:
| It's so strange why we're doing all this now. Why not 20 years
| ago?
|
| Better late than never but it's a shame...
| switch007 wrote:
| I don't have a good feeling about retrofitted heat pumps at all.
| The government is pushing too hard.
|
| In the UK we have poor insulation, noise concerns (dwellings very
| close together), high electricity rates, periods of sub zero
| temperatures in winter and from what I can gather a lack of
| skilled fitters in this space.
|
| All together it doesn't make a convincing argument
|
| Plus all the comments here about broken systems, high electricity
| costs, inadequate temperatures etc doesn't fill me with hope
|
| Yes I've heard every rebuttal ("but Nordics", "your fitter was
| bad", "you under specced", "you over specced" etc)
|
| Building code should have solved insulation issues decades ago.
| Heat Recovery systems etc instead of relying on drilling holes in
| to window frames as the primary source of ventilation
| nelblu wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about heat pumps. Where we live winters
| aren't too harsh - our coldest night would be around -18C and for
| the most part January/February hovers around -10C at night. Our
| main heating is oil-based hot water baseboard radiator which I
| think is THE BEST type of heating solution from comfort
| standpoint. But few years ago we installed two mini-split heat-
| pumps which work great and save us a ton of money - BUT they
| don't heat the house evenly and you must leave all indoor doors
| open for effective heating. There is an option to convert the
| main heating to a geothermal heat-pump heating up the water but
| that is quite an expensive solution right now. For now I am never
| giving up oil in the foreseeable future.
| smcleod wrote:
| -18C is very cold!
| bouncing wrote:
| FWIW you can also get heat pumps that feed into regular central
| heating. The split units are nice because you can heat
| different rooms to your liking but if you prefer a central
| approach, that's also possible, just like it is with a furnace.
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