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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

#71

> Death is coming for the old-school gas furnace—and its killer is the humble heat pump. Uh, you still need a furnace (though it could be electric) if you live somewhere that ever really gets cold, right? [edit] I mean, seeing it presented as a furnace replacement is weird to me. I’ve always seen it sold as an air conditioner replacement that also happens to heat (with weird characteristics that often confuse people—…

No, you need better insulation.

(And maybe a rocket stove combined with a heat storage hypocaust.)

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/03/heat-storage-hypoc...

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

#72
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried running a gas furnace off of a solar panel? "Accelerating a transition" != "this has been 100% accomplished"

I skipped the part of the article that says that the heat pumps will always be accompanied by solar panels.

The idea is that electrification enables a future where electricity generation transitions to low emissions. A gas furnace will always burn gas. In Canada electricity is called hydro because it nearly all hydroelectric. So buying an EV zeros out tailpipe emissions and electric generation emissions are also very low.

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

#74
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30€/month for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads. Of course, seeing what happens with Netflix now, I guess it wouldn't last long until things turn back to the old way...

It's the most obvious thing ever, and it, of course, will never happen. The new media companies seem completely oblivious to how people consume information. I touch 10+ news sources a day, at a minimum. There is no way in hell I'm going to subscribe to 10+ new services.

I would bet they know how people consume information, they don’t know how to sufficiently capture revenue from it or if copy pasting it on a different website is sufficiently easy.

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

#75
post #27

Thank you, that's all I really cared about but I had "read my last free article" so I couldn't even find that out. I'm so tired of the internet.

I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30€/month for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads. Of course, seeing what happens with Netflix now, I guess it wouldn't last long until things turn back to the old way...

> I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30€/month for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads.

Used to be you simply paid your ISP and -bam- that was it: you had the Netflix of information at your fingertips. Now everyone has their hand out.

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

#76
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30€/month for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads. Of course, seeing what happens with Netflix now, I guess it wouldn't last long until things turn back to the old way...

> I want a "Netflix of information". Let me pay 30€/month for unlimited information access, quality, no clickbait and no ads. Used to be you simply paid your ISP and -bam- that was it: you had the Netflix of information at your fingertips. Now everyone has their hand out.

Many people have their hand out, because many people think working for free is not a good deal for them.

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

#77
post #8

A 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…

Can you explain why this is a big issue?

I’ve had one for three years. While I generally love it, it cools too fast, which means it sucks at removing humidity, actually increases it a little. The installer over-provisioned.

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

#78

Thank you, that's all I really cared about but I had "read my last free article" so I couldn't even find that out. I'm so tired of the internet.

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39315648)

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

#79

I recently got heat pumps in the hopes that I could phase out my oil furnace. What I can say so far is: The temperature is wildly inconsistent. I don't know if this is a software issue, a hardware issue, or just the way heatpumps work. I've had the installer come back and look at it, I've had the heat pump rep come and look at it too. They basically checked everything and tried to convince me this is normal. With oil…

I had my heat pump installed in Dec. The contractor really screwed up where they wired the zoning incorrectly - the upper floor thermo controlled the lower damper and vice versa, meaning that the pump would run almost indefinitely because the thermostat would never register the temp of the opposing floor.

It took me a full week to troubleshoot this (what helped was I bought a thermometer and placed it next to the thermostat to verify temperature readings) and when I realized what was happening, the contractor came and re-wired things, and now things work like how it should. The temperature stays consistent for both floors.

So definitely test your dampers.

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

#80

> Death is coming for the old-school gas furnace—and its killer is the humble heat pump. Uh, you still need a furnace (though it could be electric) if you live somewhere that ever really gets cold, right? [edit] I mean, seeing it presented as a furnace replacement is weird to me. I’ve always seen it sold as an air conditioner replacement that also happens to heat (with weird characteristics that often confuse people—…

The best mental model for a heat pump is that they can maintain a certain temperature differential, say 80F. If it gets to be 0F outside and you want it to be 70? You don’t need to switch to a fully separate heating system, you just need to warm up either the incoming or outgoing air an additional 10 degrees via a small resistance heater. The super wide range heat pump systems will do that automatically, and the prin…

> The best mental model for a heat pump is that they can maintain a certain temperature differential, say 80F. If it gets to be 0F outside and you want it to be 70? You don’t need to switch to a fully separate heating system, you just need to warm up either the incoming or outgoing air an additional 10 degrees via a small resistance heater.

Are your 70 and 80 switched? What you describe doesn't sound like it needs any addition.

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