Need to bring down electricity prices for this to be viable in many places
Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
291–300 of 766 posts
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are second order effects from natural gas use in an actual furnace that aren't taken into account in price of energy comparisons. A furnace has to either 1) exhaust out air initially drawn from the house which must be replaced by cold outdoor air coming into the house (this requires more heating of the house) 2) take in fresh cold air for combustion and exhaust that (which requires extra energy to heat up the c…
All modern furnaces I've seen take #2 - use air from outside. Despite that they can get to 99% efficient. It doesn't take much energy to heat up that cold air.
My experience in the US at least is that its not uncommon for the furnace air intake to draw air from inside the house (my last two homes in PNW as one example).
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#293A big issue right now is the oversizing of heat pumps by HVAC contractors who are used to sizing gas furnaces using very simple btu/hr/sqft calculations. A contractor should do some kind of heating need analysis, at the least by studying old utility bills, and ideally by doing a Manual J heat loss calculation for the house. But almost none of them do that. There are some startups attempting to handle these design ste…
A possibly helpful thread related to the heat pump retrofit process and the need to assess context for each home: https://twitter.com/karakara98/status/1598718540365938688 The other thing I've kept thinking about is the replacement interval , material input (compressor, refrigerant, etc.) and ease of maintenance. They generally have a lifetime of 10 years IIRC.
> The other thing I've kept thinking about is the replacement interval , material input (compressor, refrigerant, etc.) and ease of maintenance. They generally have a lifetime of 10 years IIRC.
The compressor and refrigerant should never have to be replaced as a maintenance item. The compressor should be cleaned off occasionally since it's outdoors, especially if you live in an area with high dust/pollen, but that's no different than an AC. The interior air handler maintenance is the same as for any furnace or AC system. The lifetime is also similar to a similarly built AC.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you feel like the number of invisible footguns was manageable? That's always my concern with diy trades stuff, the things that seem fine at install but come back to bite you 6mo later.
In general with contractors, you aren't paying for them to do the simple stuff right. You're paying them to get the one or two weird bits of the job done quickly and efficiently because they've seen something like it before and have the tools and parts on their truck.
That is why I didn't try to DIY. Sure I'm confident I could get it installed. However I'm sure that I would discover after the old furnace was tore out that I'm missing some part/tool and so off to the store - what would take a pro a single day would take me 3 weekends at best: time that I don't have HVAC.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
> stop the attacks on solar installation I've not heard of any attacks, just reductions in subsidies (tax credits, net metering). Can you share what you're referring to?
All electricity generation throughout the US is subsidized in various ways already - eg low interest loans for new generation capacity, programs for low income earners, not (or not effectively) charging for carbon and methane emissions, low fuel taxes on sources used for electricity generation. The "subsidies" you list help make a desirable energy source compete on a more level playing field - matching benefits that…
My understanding is that when utilities buy energy from solar farms, they do so based on the demand and available supply, meaning that solar farms get paid more or less depending on these factors. But with net metering for residential solar installations, utilities are buying independent of supply/demand, which gives the residents a subsidy even vis-a-vis other solar producers.
I understand that all kinds of energy production methods are subsidized, but if net metering lets residential solar owners get paid more for the energy they produce than solar farms would be paid, I don't see how that's anything but a subsidy.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#296I just replaced a furnace... everyone I called for a quote would not touch a heat pump with a 20foot pole, or they wanted prices that were 2X what a separate furnace and AC would cost to install. It was very strange. This is the second home where I had this experience.. basically, they really did not want to install it. I ended up going with gas as no local person would install/warranty a heat pump, or, it was priced…
Had exactly the same experience recently. It seems like there are plenty of good mini-split heatpump systems that will work down to 0F (or even lower) without any kind of backup heat source. But if you're replacing a forced air furnace that feeds an existing ducts the only options are heatpumps that need to have backup heat under 30F. So essentially you're buying 2 furnaces in one which increases the cost. I'm in the…
That is what I got: a heatpump good to about 28F, and natural gas backup. I still save a lot of money over the previous 50 year old propane furnace. However so many variables changed at once I can't say if it was worth it.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
isn't that an attack? removing/reducing subsidies removes incentives for people to install more solar
Depends how you see it. If you assume a neutral state of no incentives, adding benefits to stimulate growth and later removing this benefits once growth is achieved can be seen as "attacking this positive state" or simply "bringing back to neutral". I moved to SoCal recently and didn't realize things like net metering even existed, so when people started to rant about these new measures I was very surprised to learn…
> when people started to rant about these new measures I was very surprised to learn about them, and especially about people presuming these things to be "normal".
I think at first people were (reasonably) scared that net metering might go away with no grandfathering for existing installations. People had a reasonable reliance interest in maintaining at least some of their existing benefits for the payoff period of their panels.
Once it was clear that existing installations would be grandfathered, I didn't hear much ranting anymore — just people who were bummed that a subsidy was going away (or people rushing to get in under the wire).
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures, but they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit. What's the temperature in the ground? Did you look at a ground source heat pump ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_source_heat_pump )
I have - the cost of installing such a system makes it questionable if it will ever be worth it. I've seen a few places that have it and they work great year round and are cheap to operate. However the payoff from the install if 50+ years despite the cheap costs. Everyone hopes the install lasts that long, but a lot can go wrong in 50 years. (the equipment probably won't last 50 years, but that will be cheap enough t…
A large chunk of cost is drilling the holes for the loop. New, compact drilling rigs that use 10' drill sections are a good deal cheaper to run labor-wise and require less space to maneuver. Costs will come down as more companies switch to these rigs.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heat pumps need to come with an electric heater because pumps stop working below 30 deg F.
This is just not true at all. Why do you even respond if you don't know enough about heat pumps?
It is practically true. Sure my heat pump can make heat below 28F - but it was sized for cool my house in summer and so it cannot make enough heat anymore and so I need the backup heat.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#300I looked into heat pumps in north east - didn’t make any sense financially given cost of installation. break even was 10+ years. With that timeline I might as well wait.