Electric vs Natural Gas furnace (Chicago: appliances, new home, water heater)

[Hiruko]

Originally Posted by ConawayDouglas

If I were the OP, I'd go for electric. Oil is a nonrenewable resource, but our electric grid can be powered by different sources over time. Save the oil for the sake of saving it for others

Heating oil was never part of this conversation. Even so, oil is highly unlikely to run out.

[ConawayDouglas]

Hiruko ^^^^ yes, I did hear someone mention that peak oil is a conspiracy, and that the earth has unlimited oil reserves. Regardless, I admit that I just googled how natural gas works hahaha what do I know ?

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by ConawayDouglas

If I were the OP, I'd go for electric. Oil is a nonrenewable resource, but our electric grid can be powered by different sources over time. Save the oil for the sake of saving it for others

I don't think the "renewable vs. non-renewable" factor looms as large for the OP as does the most meaningful "Green" factor all of us must pay attention to - dollar bills.

So, I just picked up my September ComEd bill, to put some real numbers to the conversation. I paid $0.24 per kilowatt-hour, including delivery and taxes/fees.

On my Nicor bill, I paid a total cost of $0.95 per therm (a "therm" is a hundred thousand btu's). Per the Google, there are 29.3 kWh per therm of energy. So, for the same amount of energy, you pay (at least in the south suburbs of Chicago) $7.03 per therm-equivalent of electric, and $0.95 per therm of gas. Now, you could reasonably bump up the cost of the gas to $1.10 - $1.20 per therm, because of the inefficiency (a significant portion of the heat goes up the furnace chimney, whereas electric is 100% efficient, as stated earlier in the thread). And, I believe the "delivery charges" for each utility are fixed, so your total cost goes down with volume (the more you use, the cheaper it is, but there's a limit). I also believe ComEd gives you a special rate if you have electric heat, you'd have to research that.

But bottom line, at least in my town, the cost of the same unit of energy from natural gas is a LOT cheaper than electricity. But if you need further proof, walk outside and start counting chimneys. My guess is that the high-ninety-something percent of homes in the Chicago area heat with natural gas over electricity, including most commercial and industrial buildings. Why do they do that? Because it's much cheaper. The idea that we are going to be able to get off fossil fuels, especially natural gas, is a "pipe dream", at least until we find a much cheaper and more reliable way of producing electricity (nuclear fusion?), retrofit our homes with much better insulation, and rebuild our electric grid for much higher capacity. But I digress.

Now, the OP's question was more nuanced, because they want to know if they would be better off spending the money to replace their gas furnace, or change over to electric heat, because their perceived usage is low. But nobody can answer that but them, they have to do the math on their own costs, finances, condo regulations and actual heat load, etc.. My own opinion is that except for a few weeks to "get by" to find a good installer and pricing, replace the gas furnace. Unless, of course, their next door neighbor is willing to install a supply and return fan through the common walls of their condo, and provide them with free heat Feel free to use your own bills to double-check my calculations, my calculator had a lot of dust on it for a reason, LOL.

[Hiruko]

Originally Posted by ConawayDouglas

Hiruko ^^^^ yes, I did hear someone mention that peak oil is a conspiracy, and that the earth has unlimited oil reserves. Regardless, I admit that I just googled how natural gas works hahaha what do I know ?

Natural gas and oil are very different things.

[OyCrumbler]

Can you use a heat pump?

[Berteau]

Why don't people just google these things?

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by Berteau

Why don't people just google these things?

I just searched for, "Why don't people just google these things", and mostly came up with lists of things you should never, ever, Google search. The descriptions of some of the video results were enough to make me want to drag my computer out to the bin, some of which with pretty innocuous titles. Spoiler: if you ever come across a video titled "Mr. Hands", don't watch it.

[MarianRavenwood]

Regardless of which type runs most efficiently, you can't just switch from gas to electric easily. Especially in a condominium unit.

Because even if you have your own furnace and your own submeter, the pipes and conduit are all branched off from the main building supply. That infrastructure is controlled by the condo association. It's unlikely that they would grant you permission to modify it.

But in the extremely unlikely event that they did grant such approval....you don't just 'unplug' a gas furnace and replace it with an electric one. For starters, an electric furnace usually requires 220V power. You likely don't have that kind of power running to your furnace closet so you'd need to hire an electrician to do all the wiring. They would likely find that your electrical panel doesn't have enough service to supply this additional power so you'd need to install a new electrical panel. This is not a small task. It's expensive and involved and you need permits to do it. Then of course you have to disconnect the gas service. For safety, this doesn't just mean putting a cap on the gas line. Building code requires that you 'stub off at the source' meaning you have to remove the pipes all the way back to the meter. All the way back down the shafts, likely to the basement mechanical/service rooms. Again, this is no small task, not cheap, and requires permits.

Personally I live very close to the meters in my building, and this kind of change would still involve not just ripping out pipes and installing new wiring but patching drywall ceilings and walls in common areas as well as in my own unit. I'd estimate (based on 20 yrs in the building trades) the cost in my scenario to be $15k or more. Any savings achieved would be offset by expenses, likely for decades.

A more practical means of achieving efficiency is to install a new more efficient furnace. Likely you can't change to an 'energy efficient' unit, because that really just means the exhaust pipes are pvc instead of metal and that means the whole building would need to change their pipes. But you can get a new dual-speed motor which will run off low-voltage most of the time. Caulk your windows, install gaskets and weatherstripping. Get a programmable furnace if you've got one. If you really want to spend money, consider heated floors in you bathroom(s) because radiant heat is more efficient than any kind of furnace and will reduce the work the furnace has to do in one of the coldest rooms in your home.

[MorgLaw]

When I decided to put a furnace in my house I went trough this issue as well, but at the end I chose an electric furnace. I have absolutely no regrets for taking it, it's good when you have friends who already experienced that and one of them just said me that it's way better electricity. I have to add that I am also very happy that I am not the cause of so much pollution, I am on the nature side! If I can suggest something, I would recommend the site that my friend gave me, which I can say that it's nice from personal experience. Good luck choosing the best one for yourself.

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by MorgLaw

When I decided to put a furnace in my house I went trough this issue as well, but at the end I chose an electric furnace. I have absolutely no regrets for taking it, it's good when you have friends who already experienced that and one of them just said me that it's way better electricity. I have to add that I am also very happy that I am not the cause of so much pollution, I am on the nature side! If I can suggest something, I would recommend the site that my friend gave me, which I can say that it's nice from personal experience. Good luck choosing the best one for yourself.

Not looking to hurt your feelings, but according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration
https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=CO

Coal and natural gas are the primary fuels used to generate electricity in Colorado. In 2019, coal-fired power plants provided about half of the state's net generation and natural gas provided one-third. Electricity from renewable sources has more than doubled since 2010 to about one-fourth of the state's electricity net generation in 2019.

So, I'm not sure if "your" electrical energy is produced by renewable resources, since only a quarter of Colorado's juice comes from wind, solar, or hydroelectric. But if your personal electricity was generated by natural gas, you would have been more environmentally responsible to simply burn the natural gas yourself in a high-efficiency furnace. This is due to transmission line losses, generating losses, transformer losses, etc.. And if your personal electricity is generated by coal, then there is no question, you should have purchased a natural gas furnace. Maybe as the years tick past, and the state increases its use of renewables, your claim would hold more water. But probably not in the lifetime of the furnace you bought.

Now, if you were talking about a geothermal heat pump or something, that might be different. Something like that, especially if powered by solar panels on your own roof, may end up being the future of residential heating, I don't know. But everyone needs to do the research for their own area.