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Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

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Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#161

Post by nsguy »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #83
VBprogrammer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pipes freeze and burst, whole house has to stay warm. It’s not just about comfort or safety.

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#162

Post by gertlex »

shadowpho wrote: post #123
nostrademons wrote: post #92

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 sola…

> 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

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#163

Post by virtue3 »

nostrademons wrote: post #81
herpdyderp wrote: post #5

The states listed are: - California - Colorado - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts - New Jersey - New York - Oregon - Rhode Island

So the usual blue-state suspects, minus Washington and a bunch of the New England states.

places where heat pumps are not going to work well when it drops to freezing / below freezing.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#164

Post by ajross »

czbond wrote: post #133
wtallis wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New to heat pumps. Can I replace sub-components of an existing AC system with a heat pump for benefits of both?

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#165

Post by aidenn0 »

Detrytus wrote: post #121
herpdyderp wrote: post #5

The states listed are: - California - Colorado - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts - New Jersey - New York - Oregon - Rhode Island

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?

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#166

Post by burkaman »

floatrock wrote: post #146
shadowpho wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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…

Gas in California is $4.50+ at the moment.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#167

Post by BenjiWiebe »

lbotos wrote: post #88
Tarrosion wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#168

Post by nixgeek »

briffle wrote: post #158
czbond wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New to heat pumps. Can I replace sub-components of an existing AC system with a heat pump for benefits of both?

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.

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#169

Post by dhosek »

Detrytus wrote: post #121
herpdyderp wrote: post #5

The states listed are: - California - Colorado - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts - New Jersey - New York - Oregon - Rhode Island

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?

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.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#170

Post by spamizbad »

aidenn0 wrote: post #156

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 m…

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.
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