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Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

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Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#91

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pen2l wrote: post #46
flyingfences wrote: post #3

There was a thread [0] on /r/Maine in the aftermath of the extreme cold snap last weekend, when outdoor temps dropped into the negative double digits, where people chimed in on how their heat pumps held up. By and large, they confirmed that the manufacturers' claims are correct -- they do keep working (albeit less efficiently) down to the rated temperatures and in some cases even below. The winning strategy, at least…

In addition to this, I think we should go back to doing things the hard way, the old-school way: adapt and adjust your lifestyle to temperature changes like our ancestors did. Let the temperature dictate your cooking: do the dishes that require oven use, that require you to have 3 stoves on at the same time (and crucially, avoid these dishes in the summer!). Go on a bulk in the winter time so that you are more resili…

While, sure, we can adjust ourselves, my concern is more for my house - if my heat pump can't keep things warm that means the cold bits in my house aren't getting the heat they need when they need it the most to keep my pipes from freezing. Yes, that should be solved with insulation too, but you don't really find out about those problems until after they happen.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#92

Post by hedgehog »

losvedir wrote: post #65

I know heat pumps are all the rage on HN these days, but I looked into them for myself in Indiana, and they don't seem to make financial sense at all, unfortunately. My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas. There are 29.3 kWh of energy in 1 therm of gas, and my furnace is 95% efficient, so this works out to an electric equivalent of $0.009/kWh. That's more than an order of magnitude cheaper than the electr…

Relative gas/electric pricing may be a lot different where you are. In the Seattle area gas is around $1.20 per therm which works out to about 24 kWh of heat per dollar. Electricity is around $0.11 per kWh or 27 kWh heat per dollar assuming 300% efficiency for the heat pump, so slightly better here. Of course if you want air conditioning that comes for free as part of the heat pump, and if you add solar that offsets the operating cost. Probably someone somewhere as built a calculator that shows where on the map the tradeoff goes one way or another.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#93

Post by mytwocentsworth »

Related heatpump info for the DIY crowd: Homemade Heat Pump Manifesto (2009) [1]. Although factors such as extreme cold-weather performance will be compromised, the lower cash outlay confers considerable appeal to this approach.

> My initial goal was to make available the knowledge and possibility that anybody with a few tools and gumption could convert discarded air conditioners, and dehumidifiers into very high efficiency heat sources, or cooling sources. Through the years, we have received reports of success from many people, living in many states, and countries.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32959850

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#95

Post by nicoburns »

rsynnott wrote: post #21

I find all this fear mongering about heatpumps in the US currently to be a little odd, because they've been popular in some cold countries in Europe for some time. If there was going to be a problem, there would already have been a problem.

Apparently part of the problem in the US is unreliable electricity supply. In Europe you can reasonably count on the electricity supply not having an outage of more than a few hours (and even that's rare). According the HN comments on past submissions on this topic, it seems that's not the case in the US.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#96

Post by tootie »

londons_explore wrote: post #18

I worry about the 'futureproofness' of heat pumps. Specifically, heat pumps use more energy on cold days. They use a massive amount more energy on the coldest days. Today, if you use double the electricity, it costs double the money. Thats affordable as long as it happens rarely. But, with lots of people getting EV's and heat pumps, and the generation mix getting more wind and solar, I forsee energy companies forcing…

Utilities are well-regulated. There may need to be some adjustments to policy but it's solvable so long as we vote for the right people (a big if, for sure). Increasing adoption of heat pumps and EVs is also going to require a ton more electricity generation which is another policy issue to solve, but again totally solvable. Most power consumption is during the day and the coldest time is night, so I'd think this is not as bad an issue as it seems. We already support a huge amount of air conditioning during summers with only occasional problems.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#97

Post by hammock »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #80
hammock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ideas are good for today, however I question how accurate they are for "our ancestors." Most people in e.g. the colonial days didn't have an oven - they went to the town baker to use theirs when needed. They also didn't have three stoves and all the pots and utensils required to use them simultaneously

While three stoves was probably ahistorical for most homes, a fire which heats the home and is also used to cook (food in ceramic containers) was absolutely commonplace. In particular, a controlled cooking fire in the center of a single-room thatched-roof home was the template for much of Europe, Asia, and for some of the North American natives, albeit at different points in their history.

Of course.

Worth mentioning also (moving away from the poor now) wingback furniture, flannel pajamas with caps, canopy beds, bedwarmers with hot rocks or coals from the fire, three-piece wool suits during the day, etc...

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#98

Post by thehappypm »

jakedata wrote: post #84

Heat pump electrical usage does not go up as the temperature drops. In fact the actual heat pump itself uses less electricity because the compressor needs to slow down in order to scavenge the outdoor heat needed to vaporize the refrigerant. What causes a spike in electrical usage is the backup resistive heat source that kicks in when the compressor cannot satisfy the demand for heat. Installing a heat pump that is e…

Incorrect, efficiency drops as the temperature differential grows. This is a basic law of thermodynamics, since you can extract energy from a temperature difference, it must require energy to create one.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#99

Post by nicoburns »

londons_explore wrote: post #18

I worry about the 'futureproofness' of heat pumps. Specifically, heat pumps use more energy on cold days. They use a massive amount more energy on the coldest days. Today, if you use double the electricity, it costs double the money. Thats affordable as long as it happens rarely. But, with lots of people getting EV's and heat pumps, and the generation mix getting more wind and solar, I forsee energy companies forcing…

The obvious solution to that is having a home battery. Those are expensive now (although even now, not that expensive in comparison to what a heating system already costs), but in the future they're likely to be cheap.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#100

Post by sbradford26 »

adql wrote: post #53
flyingfences wrote: post #3

There was a thread [0] on /r/Maine in the aftermath of the extreme cold snap last weekend, when outdoor temps dropped into the negative double digits, where people chimed in on how their heat pumps held up. By and large, they confirmed that the manufacturers' claims are correct -- they do keep working (albeit less efficiently) down to the rated temperatures and in some cases even below. The winning strategy, at least…

Don't they just start working essentially as effective resistive heater below some temperature ? So theoretically just oversizing it a bit should've been enough for the once in 10 years cold snap event. Woodstove with some supplies probably cheaper than oversizing tho

So many people will say that but even at -13F the LG Red heat pump I have is rated for a COP of ~2. Which means it is still twice as efficient as a resistive space heater. Now capacity does fall off and that can cause issues since heating demands rise as temperature drops but that is an initial design constraint that just has to be designed around.

NEEP has a great website to find all kind of specifications for heat pumps. Below is the link to the unit we have at our house in Southern New Hampshire. https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/53914/7/25000///0

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