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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

#141

Post by mrguyorama »

luckylion wrote: post #40
hallidave wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cold climates, heat pumps are usually supplemented with electrical resistance heating (or even gas in some cases). The switch over is automatically controlled by the thermostat. No need for a wood stove or other hassles.

And when the electricity fails, all the systems fail. Pretty sure you'd be happy to have a wood stove in that case.

When the electricity fails, you put on a jacket and get under a blanket and wait patiently for CMP to restore your power. Most of us don't have emergency powerless heating. Even with a supposedly unreliable electricity grid here in Maine, it's still pretty common to only have heating that requires electricity to operate. Even in the north, where it's very rural and way colder, wood stoves are still an interesting thing that only some people have.

It gets cold every year, you just get used to it. It's not hard.

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

#142

Post by jobs_throwaway »

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…

$300 to keep your house warm (and pipes unfrozen) during extreme cold events doesn't seem that bad to me?

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

#143

Post by throwaway894345 »

rsynnott wrote: post #38
throwaway894345 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Europe have cold countries? According to some quick Googling, the average winter temperature in Norway is still warmer than in Iowa (a not-particularly-cold state). (FWIW I think heat pumps are interesting, I drive an electric car, etc--I'm not speaking from some reflexively anti-electrification ideological position)

Northern Scandinavia gets pretty cold. Various parts of Europe also have exceptional extremely cold weather; the average isn't _really_ what you want to think about when it comes to heating systems (well, it matters, in that it's relevant to the cost structure, but you really want your system to be able to deal with the reasonable edge-case weather).

Yeah, it's a crude metric for sure, but we have to make sure we're making a good comparison before claiming "If there was going to be a problem, there would already have been a problem." Notably, some Googling indicates that heat pumps aren't effective below -13F which can be the high temperature in Iowa (never mind colder states) for week on end. Are heat pumps common in parts of Scandinavia that get this cold (or colder)?

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

#144

Post by jobs_throwaway »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #45
anovikov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short-term interests of the poor, that is. On the next round, when non-renewable energy will become really scarce, poor won't be able to heat their homes at all without "green technology".

Easy to say “this is what you should want” when it’s really what I want.

what do you mean by that

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

#145

Post by luckylion »

mrguyorama wrote: post #141
luckylion wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the electricity fails, all the systems fail. Pretty sure you'd be happy to have a wood stove in that case.

When the electricity fails, you put on a jacket and get under a blanket and wait patiently for CMP to restore your power. Most of us don't have emergency powerless heating. Even with a supposedly unreliable electricity grid here in Maine, it's still pretty common to only have heating that requires electricity to operate. Even in the north, where it's very rural and way colder, wood stoves are still an interesting thi…

I suppose it's the frontier spirit that makes you say "it's -30°F, you put on a jacket and get under a blanket".

I'm pretty sure civilization would end over here if Germany had temperatures where F and C come close and heating failed.

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

#146

Post by gooseyman »

binkHN wrote: post #133
pen2l wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> ...do the dishes that require oven use, that require you to have 3 stoves on at the same time... This doesn't make a difference in my home in the winter. That said, I'm one of those types that has no issues putting on gloves and layers of clothing and driving around in my doorless and topless Jeep in the winter too.

That heat has to go somewhere! But you are right that you may not feel the difference especially if your run the hood and it vents externally.

Your HVAC was designed for environmental comfort, the oven for cooking.

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

#147

Post by aidenn0 »

hedora wrote: post #15
aidenn0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no modern system that "just works" whatever the weather. We had an ice storm when I was growing up and lost power for 3 days. Wood stove worked great as a backup, not much else would have.

Dual source heatpump + Solar + battery + propane generator might be OK. The batteries would need to somehow be kept warm though. (The solar and battery are there to stretch out the propane supply until the delivery truck gets past whatever road blockages exist, and then addresses the inevitable shortage cause by the electricity going out.) Of course, an 80% efficient wood stove costs a small fraction as much as the a…

Starting a generator below a certain temperature becomes hard too (most lubricants do a nice impression of putty when sufficiently cooled).

As an aside, if you have a large free-standing propane tank you probably don't need to worry about stretching out the supply. I've known people who use propane as their primary heat source and can go a month between deliveries. Even assuming your propane heater + heat pump is 1/3 as efficient, that should give you 10 days of heat.

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

#148

Post by aidenn0 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #141
luckylion wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when the electricity fails, all the systems fail. Pretty sure you'd be happy to have a wood stove in that case.

When the electricity fails, you put on a jacket and get under a blanket and wait patiently for CMP to restore your power. Most of us don't have emergency powerless heating. Even with a supposedly unreliable electricity grid here in Maine, it's still pretty common to only have heating that requires electricity to operate. Even in the north, where it's very rural and way colder, wood stoves are still an interesting thi…

Do the pipes in your house not freeze at 30 below with no heat?

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

#149

Post by yamtaddle »

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…

> Let the temperature dictate your cooking

Focusing on historically-seasonally-appropriate cooking also means you'll tend to get cheaper produce and it'll be higher-quality, since it'll be in-season at least somewhere in your hemisphere (even if you're not at the right latitude/growing-zone for whatever cuisine you're cribbing from). Traditional seasonal recipes won't include things that were hard or impossible to find in a given season, without modern farming, refrigeration, pasteurization, transportation, et c, in whatever region they recipes are native to, except maybe a few things that are especially canning- or pickling-friendly.

Squash dishes in the fall and early winter, a general great abundance of produce enabling colorful dishes with a large variety of veggie ingredients in the Summer, heavier on beans and meat and potatoes and starch and soups in the Winter (but still some salad greens! At least before the coldest few weeks of Winter, most places), green things galore in Spring.

The rhythm of it's nice. And it can make end-of-week use-up-the-leftover-ingredients dishes easier, since the space for those for a given area in a given season is usually well-explored and well-documented, so if you stick to one area and one season for inspiration for a week's menu, you can benefit from that.

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

#150

Post by losvedir »

mkozlows wrote: post #114
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…

You have very, very cheap gas. Suspiciously cheap. Are you sure you're factoring everything in? NIPSCO's rate pages show much higher rates: https://www.nipsco.com/bills-and-payments/billing-programs/c... In Michigan here, it's like $1/therm (doing the conversion from the Mcf they actually bill in). Multiply your gas numbers by four, divide your electric numbers by three (to reflect a COP of 3 -- that is 300% efficien…

Bingo! I'm so glad I asked. Yep, I was looking at only part of the rate schedule. Looks like my effective rate is actually closer to $0.96/therm, or $0.033/kWh equivalent. At an electric rate of $0.14/kWh, now we're closer to comparable.
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