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Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#21

Post by fintechjock »

Really cool and interesting. I definitely think the market is there for this.

I'm betting that your biggest hurdle will be post-purchase. If I remember correctly, Tony Fadell talks about how hard it was to disrupt the contractor model when building Nest. People often just bought whatever thermostat their contractor recommended, and those contractors were incentivized to push them towards specific brands. They beat this by just making the product super easy to install by the consumer and cutting out the contractor all together (something I doubt is feasible with a heat pump).

Maybe that won't be a problem with the DTC model considering the contractor is only brought in post-purchase, but I wonder if this really takes hold if competitors start trying to corner local installers. Good luck!

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#22

Post by dawnerd »

z3ugma wrote: post #12

Chris, one of my biggest worries is that your startup will get acquired or go out of business and then the firmware will leave me with a $14,000 brick. What if I want to keep using the cloud-based thermostat when your servers get shut off or moved to another system, or if something like Google Nest closing down their API happens after you've exited? This is an expensive system with an expected long life, and I'd want…

My thoughts too. Local heating/cooling should not be tied to the cloud period. If it doesn't use the normal wiring people already have it's a hard pass from me.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#23

Post by imhoguy »

Dnguyen wrote: post #19

So the difference in cost between natural gas and ElectricAir is ~ 400/yr. And it costs $14,000 to install the ElectricAir system. It will take a very long time to break even. It will be very difficult to convince people with current working natural gas system to switch over.

Unless the ruling changes and one won't be able to install fossil fuel based heating, like in EU soon.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#24

Post by rcme »

Those are beautiful looking units. It's a cool idea to focus on giving something very pedestrian and utilitarian a nice cosmetic overhaul.

I just replaced radiators with a heat pump install. I had a few questions about your units: What are "backup heating strips?" They're mentioned in passing when talking about cold weather, but I imagine there is some meat here. Also, even though many heat pumps work in cold weather, their efficiency drops. Where is the break even point? Also, what is the sound level of the condenser unit? It looks like you only list sound levels for the air handler.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#25

Post by masterj »

neilalexander wrote: post #3

This is interesting but many systems like it fall at the first hurdle in countries like Britain where forced air is not the norm. How are products like this supposed to work in a house that is currently optimised for radiators and combi-boilers and with no existing air ducts?

They're not. Instead you can use air-to-water heat pumps to swap out those systems.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#26

Post by iknowstuff »

neilalexander wrote: post #3

This is interesting but many systems like it fall at the first hurdle in countries like Britain where forced air is not the norm. How are products like this supposed to work in a house that is currently optimised for radiators and combi-boilers and with no existing air ducts?

Yeah you would either get an air-to-water heat pump, or better yet a minisplit system where a single condenser has multiple runs of small tubes carrying refrigerant to heat exchangers in different rooms.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#27

Post by cmui »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #4

The holistic approach is nice to see. There are obviously already several major players in the industry (notably, Mitsubishi, but also more "DIY"-focused brands like "Mr. Cool") offering heat pump systems with air handlers, such as this. But this approach seems to be much more integrated in ways that actually might make a difference.

What I've observed is that getting a heat pump turns into a real science fair project for homeowners, and forget trying to integrate air quality in a good way. The proprietary communicating thermostats that come with heat pumps are really bad, and you can force an Ecobee or Nest to work with the heat pumps, but it hurts system efficiency by turning your variable speed equipment into less efficient fixed stage equipment. Lots of integration problems to be solved!

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#28

Post by pappn »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #11

If the Vapor aspect works well then this might make air source heat pumps tenable in cold countries. The current crop here in the UK are costing home owners a fortune as the 3-4 kw multiplier drops to 1 below 0degC or so and hearing becomes horrifically expensive. I know a chap who was paying £1,200 a month to hear is home at the worst of this winters cold and the energy price jumps we have here.

FYI, air-to-air heat pumps are very popular in Norway. There are models that have >2 COP in -15 C, for instance Toshiba Daiseikai 9S at 2.35 at -15C, and >5 at +7C.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#29

Post by IanCal »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #11

If the Vapor aspect works well then this might make air source heat pumps tenable in cold countries. The current crop here in the UK are costing home owners a fortune as the 3-4 kw multiplier drops to 1 below 0degC or so and hearing becomes horrifically expensive. I know a chap who was paying £1,200 a month to hear is home at the worst of this winters cold and the energy price jumps we have here.

That doesn't sound right. They should be above 1 for much lower temperatures.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#30

Post by heatpumpfan »

I recently purchased and installed a 3 ton MrCool Universal (Gree Flexx, I believe) with lineset for ~$4K shipped: https://hvacdirect.com/mrcool-universal-36-000-btu-heat-pump... Worked just fine during the Christmas arctic blast. We will see about longevity but at 1/3 of the price of your proposed units, I'm not worried about slapping a new one at any time. I am essentially on my own for service as no contractors will work on it but it seems your units would present the same problem.
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