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Harnessing America's heat pump moment

heatpumped.org

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Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#231

Post by DavidPeiffer »

cycomanic wrote: post #181
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heat pump just makes no sense whatsoever for me in my northeast town. The electric bill alone would outpace the old propane bill, not to mention installation. And it won't even work during some of the coldest winter weeks when you _really_ need it to work. Maybe I would consider it if I was in, like, Nevada or somewhere.

I don't know what sort of heat pump systems are common in the US, but Sweden (and AFAIK Norway and Finland as well), are probably >%80 heat pump for single family homes (most apartments are community heating at least in the larger cities). So it's absolutely now problem to run a heat pump even if it is very cold outside, but if you want to improve efficiency in areas that are super cold you can drill into the ground…

It varies significantly by locale. I've seen people post online about how it made little sense to keep just one gas appliance because of significant savings. I'm in Iowa, which typically heats on natural gas in urban areas. I have a natural gas central furnace and water heater. My clothes dryer is electric, and I have a 3 head heat pump which I use for comfort in a couple rooms. The house is an early 2000's standard builder-grade home.

For September, $12.31 of my $27.01 gas bill was variable based on my consumption.

In December, $84.82 out of my $99.65 total was consumption driven.

I've run numbers on whether it'd make financial sense to go electric for heating, and the break even point is in the 30-40 degree vicinity. With temperatures 20 and under a healthy chunk of the year, unfortunately the added expense doesn't make financial sense.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#232

Post by vecter »

EngCanMan wrote: post #217
mastax wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it important to right-size non-heat-pump installs anyway? Too large a system causes short cycling, humidity problems, temperature swings. I have read installers habitually guesstimate over size to over charge (rather than do the proper calculations).

The reality is that this is all solving a problem that people don’t have. Forced air is a terrible way to heat a building yet thats how most homes are heated, and it is good enough for most people. If you perfectly size a furnace for the coldest days of the year, it is now oversized for the other 90% of days. The cheapest way is to install a multi stage heating/cooling system that works on first stage most of the tim…

Are you just referring to a two-stage AC/furnace?

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#233

Post by prasadjoglekar »

danielsju6 wrote: post #148

Maybe I have scar tissue from COVID prices but $20k to install a ductless heat pump vs. a $200 to throw a window A/C in or $700 for a portable heat pump. While I get that these heat pumps are better for the environment and much more efficient it's a last mile issue. The installers charge an arm and a leg and I'm not hurting enough to self install. I'm hoping the window heat pumps that just run off mains will be avail…

This. The quotes I got for a single 2 ton heat pump with a oil backup ranged from $15K to $45K.

It's insane and really made me look into the DIY installs. Even if I broke 2 of those it would still be cheaper than one professional one.

Solar install is another scam. All those companies want to steer you into a PPA rather than let you buy panels.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#234

Post by neltnerb »

I've got to throw out an obvious explanation.

A third of the country rents. Renters pay the utility bills. Landlords pay for appliance upgrades.

Why would the landlord put any effort into upgrading appliances when the cost of not upgrading them is borne by the renters?

I've never rented at a place where they didn't want to fix broken equipment with the cheapest possible replacement. And no renter would ever consider purchasing a major appliance like this since they'll end up priced out before they recover the cost in utility bills.

They're a nice technology, but our incentives are all wrong for a lot of housing stock.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#235

Post by chongli »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #226
chongli wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s another alternative: a mini-split. Larger than a window unit, with a refrigerant lines you run yourself but with the actual refrigerant pre-charged inside the unit, so you don’t need to handle it yourself (which usually requires a license). Mini-splits tend to be much cheaper than full installations.

2k NZD to install minisplit vs 160KWh per winter month to heat my bedroom. Thats about $150 in power or 16 yrs to pay itself at COP 5. Or install 1 additional $130 solar panel to make about 650 KWh per year. Makes sense for living room tho.

Oh you live in New Zealand! Where I live (Canada) if you don’t heat the entire house then the pipes freeze and burst and then the whole house floods.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#236

Post by darth_avocado »

kragen wrote: post #151
ssuds wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha. It's not straight labor. So much other overhead to consider - workman's comp insurance, back office staff, technician utilization, vehicle repair and maintenance, etc... There are lots of other costs that get baked in when you're looking at a licensed company compared to a guy in a truck

Okay but US$5k for half a day of work? It would have been faster if the guy had had his own ladder instead of us moving my desk so he could stand on it to work. (He's bought one since then.)

Homes in the US are much bigger and more than just installing a mini split. You need to factor that in.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#237

Post by somehnguy »

quickthrowman wrote: post #41
atrus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A possible challenge, yes, but there exist 1500w, standard outlet hpwh, and it's a lot less common to not have any power near a water heater.

A 1500W electric water heater would be painful to use in a home. A typical 30-60 gallon EWH is 6kW. And for the record, every single natural gas water heater is connected to 120V power for the ignition circuit.

> And for the record, every single natural gas water heater is connected to 120V power for the ignition circuit.

This is incorrect. Multiple homes I've lived in had no electric to the water heater, including my current.

With a standing pilot a thermopile is used to generate the tiny bit of electric required for the control.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#238

Post by kortilla »

neltnerb wrote: post #234

I've got to throw out an obvious explanation. A third of the country rents. Renters pay the utility bills. Landlords pay for appliance upgrades. Why would the landlord put any effort into upgrading appliances when the cost of not upgrading them is borne by the renters? I've never rented at a place where they didn't want to fix broken equipment with the cheapest possible replacement. And no renter would ever consider…

Then why aren’t they in 2/3 of houses

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#239

Post by jofla_net »

danielsju6 wrote: post #148

Maybe I have scar tissue from COVID prices but $20k to install a ductless heat pump vs. a $200 to throw a window A/C in or $700 for a portable heat pump. While I get that these heat pumps are better for the environment and much more efficient it's a last mile issue. The installers charge an arm and a leg and I'm not hurting enough to self install. I'm hoping the window heat pumps that just run off mains will be avail…

Its most simply summed up as what I call the tradesman's protection racket.

On one side of the coin you have any moron, calling himself a repair man which can and does end in disastrous jobs which can be unsafe. This though has much lower pricing.

The flip side is, basically a protection racket where suppliers only sell to you if you have a 'loicense' and the hurdles required to become said VIP are so high, giving your body to a master tradesman to get a piece of paper over many years and be allowed to practice installing said systems results in a huge shortage of qualified people. Prices then skyrocket.

I wish I could live in a world somewhere in the middle, but as I've seen both ends of the spectrum, they both suck for different reasons.

Re: Harnessing America's heat pump moment

#240

Post by ssl-3 »

simmonmt wrote: post #178
mithr wrote: post #26

Electricity costs are a big factor in this, imo. Rates for my northeast town increased by ~25% in 2024 and are going up by another ~10% this year. It's a hard sell to spend a large amount of up-front money (even after rebates, which decreased this year) to convert to a system that will cost you more than you pay today, and may not work as well in cold weather (every heat pump company I talked to suggested keeping my…

Costs are a big thing, sure, but for me it's electrical reliability. For better or worse our heating oil and natural gas supply are both more reliable than our electricity supply. I don't need the heat going out in the dead of winter when some wind storm drops a bunch of branches on power lines. I'm aware that both my boiler and a natural gas furnace have electric blower motors. It's a lot easier to power them from a…

You can have both, though. A person doesn't have to make a binary decision of heatpump OR natural gas.

Please remember that traditional aircon is also literally a heat pump. It's perfectly acceptable to have a ducted heat pump and a ducted natural gas furnace both sharing the same ductwork.

In this use, the heat pump and the furnace are just installed series with eachother, with one singular blower motor that is used for both roles. This arrangement is very similar (identical, really) to the layout that combined (heat+aircon) systems have used for many decades.

Power out, or simply very cold outside? Your house still has a natural gas furnace (which can be made work with a fairly small generator), and your rig doesn't require expensive-to-use heat strips for the coldest days either.

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