201–210 of 227 posts
in the south, a lot of people opt for split Airconditioning instead of heatpumps. Cheaper and much easier to install/maintain
Carrier article: https://www.carrier.com/residential/en/us/products/heat-pump...
For anybody in TVA's electricity networks (mostly: Tennessee): they offer an annual promotion to single-family homeowners only to purchase an $1800 AO heatpump waterheater for only $250 . Maths: 85% discount on fancy new waterheater, which also dehumidifies and cools your house (passive result of heatpump). TVA usually offers this promotion between Thanksgiving and NYE. You can order online from HomeDepot, or walk in…
> Whatever you do: do NOT use a water softener before the tank. I'm curious why not? I can't immediately think of a reason why that would be bad, but I admittedly know hardly anything about plumbing.
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It doesn't work this way. Dense cities just don't have enough space for geothermal heating. It really works for single-family homes only, or maybe just a slightly more dense areas. Not to mention that city infrastructure is WAY too expensive to build, anywhere. You'll spend more money on planning than on doing the actual construction.
https://mncifa.mn.gov/heights-geothermal-district Granted, this system is being installed on the grounds of a former 112 acre country club that is being redeveloped, so it’s more of a greenfield project than slapping a geothermal loop in a central business district, but it’s a geothermal district heating and cooling system in a city.
In general, you absolutely can do district-level heating. The former USSR countries are known for doing this on the scale of entire cities. But I don't think it's feasible with geothermal (unless we're talking about Iceland).
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Buying the panel box which is unchanged from the last 70 years and costs $50 less than a nicer new style, but also our houses are big enough the panel is nearly always in a mechanical room so who cares what it looks like.
You can’t get the ‘nice’ panels in the US - they aren’t approved by local code.
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>In DACH, there's not really an alternative for many homes. And yet in Austria, most apartment buildings in big cities are still heated by burning heating oil, gas or even firewood. Worst of the worst for air quality. Walk through Graz in sub-zero winters and it's like you're breathing in a barbeque bonfire. Even your clothes smell like soot when you get home if you've been out too long. Which is bizarre to me, consi…
It's incentives. Landlord pays for the installation and decides, tenant for the operation/heating. Best way to get around this is making heat pumps more accessible (easy to get, financing options), as well as legislation (banning gas/oil heating).
So if people on HN see what the solution is, why isn't the Austrian government doing it, to get rid of polluting fossil fuel heating in the cities?
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https://mncifa.mn.gov/heights-geothermal-district Granted, this system is being installed on the grounds of a former 112 acre country club that is being redeveloped, so it’s more of a greenfield project than slapping a geothermal loop in a central business district, but it’s a geothermal district heating and cooling system in a city.
Their resulting density (~450 square meters per housing unit) is only a bit more than a dense SFH zone. And they also are able to tap into an aquifer, significantly improving their capacity. In general, you absolutely can do district-level heating. The former USSR countries are known for doing this on the scale of entire cities. But I don't think it's feasible with geothermal (unless we're talking about Iceland).
Not today anymore. In my warsaw-pact country, my parents and most of the city residents cut themselves off from district hating since the 2000 and installed natural gas heaters/boilers in their apartments, which is what most people in my city use to this day.
It's because the former commie district heating was incredibly wasteful and inefficient in the post commie era, making it cheaper and more convenient to have you own apartment heating.
Probably the same thing would happen with heat pumps in apartments now, if air-to-air heat pumps could produce enough heat in cold winters.
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You can’t get the ‘nice’ panels in the US - they aren’t approved by local code.
The "new" white Leviton is kinda nice. Or maybe I don't know what I'm missing!
It’s only a minor change from a 75 year old square D design, with some (albeit nice) aesthetic improvements. [https://www.se.com/us/en/product/HOM4080L225PC/load-center-h...]
The ones I think they are referring to a more like industrial control cabinets with DIN mounted breakers, which are indeed (paradoxically) less ‘old industrial’ looking. That Leviton board has a similar look, but with the standard bus bar type mounting in a heavy metal box.
The metal box does serve a useful purpose, which is protecting the flammable wood framing typical in North American construction from fire, where most European and Asian boxes are either much thinner metal, or plastic. Because their construction is often concrete and fire danger is much lower.
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>The solution is of course to get a communal system. If it's that simple why is Austria not doing this in the cities? I don't know any voter who opposes cleaner air and cheaper heating.
If you have district heating I think there might be conflict of interest / regulatory capture.
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Yeah, recently saw some numbers for air-to-air vs air-to-groundwater, and it break even after more than 25 years, with more than twice the initial cost
There’s no way the system is designed to last 25 years though?
The water/water heatpump unit in my house is 20 years old and has not had any major failures yet. I hope it will run for another ten years before the compressor gives up, but it is indeed approaching its calculated technical lifespan. I estimate it will set me back €10k to have it replaced.
Air/air is the cheaper option over time, even in most of Scandinavia with coldish winters. The main drawback of air/air systems are that they are loud and ugly and therefore annoy both yourself and your neighbours.
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Their resulting density (~450 square meters per housing unit) is only a bit more than a dense SFH zone. And they also are able to tap into an aquifer, significantly improving their capacity. In general, you absolutely can do district-level heating. The former USSR countries are known for doing this on the scale of entire cities. But I don't think it's feasible with geothermal (unless we're talking about Iceland).
>The former USSR countries are known for doing this on the scale of entire cities. Not today anymore. In my warsaw-pact country, my parents and most of the city residents cut themselves off from district hating since the 2000 and installed natural gas heaters/boilers in their apartments, which is what most people in my city use to this day. It's because the former commie district heating was incredibly wasteful and i…
The engineering culture in the USSR was also quite poor, so it was easier to build one steam/heat plant rather than hundreds of individual water heaters.