Next (ban) up for California: no gas furnaces or water heaters (Oakland: home, buying)

[NORTY FLATZ]

Originally Posted by joosoon

What's to prevent me from just buying a 40kW diesel genset to counteract all the potential shortages?
Yeah, most people won't do that but I can't see the state really stopping the truly determined. I can see a future where individuals are forced to produce all their own power or provide themselves whatever it is the state takes away.

Well, the cost of dyed diesel will make this a tremendously BAD investment. Plan on burning 50 gallons of fuel per day. (That's at 50% duty.) Here in the LA area, dyed diesel is currently $5.63 a gallon. Do the math on that one, for the month...

[Valley Boy]

Electric heaters are horrible and costly to maintain. The heater and AC basically is the same unit. The AC unit pulls in cold air from outside and coils heat it. So it takes way longer to heat your house versus heating it with gas. And since the unit is now on in the winter and summer, the wear and tear is insane.

[MechAndy]

I installed a whole house generator on my CA house.
It’s on the far side of the house close to the property line near my neighbors house.
That darn thing is loud.
We can’t hear it but I’m sure my neighbor can and I bet he doesn’t like it.
I’m sure that soon these will have restrictions too.

Back to topic,
We summer in Washington.
There is no natural gas on the Olympic Peninsula.
Electric water heaters is what we have there and they suck.
They never really get too hot and they take too long to regenerate hot water.
That really sucks when you have a house full of out of state guests.
I might go tankless or design a better tankless for my needs.

In closing I don’t think it is fair that one person can have this much power over millions of people that have no say in his policies.
He did a similar thing with the gas tax too.
Things like this should require a vote.
There should be no taxation without proper representation used to be taught in our schools.

[Bill the Butcher]

Originally Posted by Valley Boy

Electric heaters are horrible and costly to maintain. The heater and AC basically is the same unit. The AC unit pulls in cold air from outside and coils heat it. So it takes way longer to heat your house versus heating it with gas. And since the unit is now on in the winter and summer, the wear and tear is insane.

Interesting. We almost went with a heat pump when we had to replace our last unit just recently. We do have solar so may have been a good deal. But still I opted to go with gas furnace.

[wac_432]

I'm renovating this year:
Gas water heater.
Gas furnace.
Gas range.
Gas fire pit.
Installing solar with a battery back-up.

I might need to replace the water heater with electric some day, but that's NBD. I'll spend a little extra on the gas range to make sure it lasts forever (or is repairable). Same deal with the furnace.

I'd say I'm looking forward to cheaper gas as demand falls, but that's not realistic. My area will be totally built-out by 2030, and all those gas appliances will already be installed.

I agree that banning gas for heating and cooking is going to backfire and annoy people into eschewing REAL conservation efforts, just like that plastic straw nonsense.

[JGC97]

@wac_32, if you can avoid installing an electric water heater, do it. I've had both electric and gas and gas is, by far, more economical. Electric "anything" is expensive in a home. I don't know why the state is doing this. I don't think they understand how expensive electric appliances are to operate.

Also, between a gas furnace and electric, I prefer gas. It's a different type of warmth. Hard to describe but it's much more comfortable and heats the home quicker than electric, not to mention less expensive too.

Stupid state. Their new rules are going to be very bad, imo.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by HereOnMars

@wac_32, if you can avoid installing an electric water heater, do it. I've had both electric and gas and gas is, by far, more economical. Electric "anything" is expensive in a home. I don't know why the state is doing this. I don't think they understand how expensive electric appliances are to operate.

Also, between a gas furnace and electric, I prefer gas. It's a different type of warmth. Hard to describe but it's much more comfortable and heats the home quicker than electric, not to mention less expensive too.

Stupid state. Their new rules are going to be very bad, imo.

If I need to I'll heat water by wood over electric

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

If I need to I'll heat water by wood over electric

I didn't include wood burning stoves since they aren't predominantly a source of heat here in CA. But they're good and I like them, too. The old cast iron we had in our home in the country heated the entire house. The only problem we had was we cut the wood ourselves. That is a lot of work. Cut, split, stacked. Yuck. Handled that stuff as much as we do groceries.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by HereOnMars

I didn't include wood burning stoves since they aren't predominantly a source of heat here in CA. But they're good and I like them, too. The old cast iron we had in our home in the country heated the entire house. The only problem we had was we cut the wood ourselves. That is a lot of work. Cut, split, stacked. Yuck. Handled that stuff as much as we do groceries.

It's a great workout and now I have some younguns to sling that axe. Who am I kidding. We have a wood splitter.

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

It's a great workout and now I have some younguns to sling that axe. Who am I kidding. We have a wood splitter.

Good for the kids! We had our kids helping too. They learned to appreciate where the heat came from on those cold chilly mornings. You can't be a splitter. Being quite the handyman, my late husband built one as did my brother. That makes short work out of the job but you still had to haul it and stack it after splitting. We'd go through close to three cord a season. Gets cold around these parts.