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I love all the talk about what happens if we lose electricity? Are people that dumb? Oil burner needs electric to start, oh, and electric is needed to pump that hot air/water, same for gas. So guess what? Your f'd no matter what. The issue I have with heat pumps,.is the government shoving them down our throat. It's beyond irresponsible for them to do that. Is it the future? Absolutely, but it doesn't have to happen immediately.
Of course people can do a Dino fueled whole house generator lol…
Most people are turtles on their backs, but if you’re handy…oil & gas burners/boilers have low electric requirements, so you could rig just the essentials to run on small generator, whether battery powered or possibly propane. Battery power sources have actually come a long way, but still limited with capacity and the need to recharge.
For example, after Hurricane Sandy I wired a pigtail to the gun on my boiler so I could just plug it into my generator with an extension cord, so we had heat for the 2 weeks with no power.
A heat pump has higher power demands, so it would need a fairly beefy generator to run.
I love all the talk about what happens if we lose electricity? Are people that dumb? Oil burner needs electric to start, oh, and electric is needed to pump that hot air/water, same for gas. So guess what? Your f'd no matter what. The issue I have with heat pumps,.is the government shoving them down our throat. It's beyond irresponsible for them to do that. Is it the future? Absolutely, but it doesn't have to happen immediately.
As much as we disagree on this issue you are dead on here. Its a silly argument. Same is used to bash EVs too. If electric goes down your gas burner won't run either without a powerwall or generator to back it up. Period. Heat pump is no different although it would need a lot more power but certainly can be done.
As much as we disagree on this issue you are dead on here. Its a silly argument. Same is used to bash EVs too. If electric goes down your gas burner won't run either without a powerwall or generator to back it up. Period. Heat pump is no different although it would need a lot more power but certainly can be done.
My gas stove runs just fine with the electric off... Did it for 9 days during Sandy. Its called using match or lighter stick...
Oil burner is another story..... but once the generator was up, it ran too
I love all the talk about what happens if we lose electricity? Are people that dumb? Oil burner needs electric to start, oh, and electric is needed to pump that hot air/water, same for gas. So guess what? Your f'd no matter what. The issue I have with heat pumps,.is the government shoving them down our throat. It's beyond irresponsible for them to do that. Is it the future? Absolutely, but it doesn't have to happen immediately.
You really are nasty.
I bet your approach really wins over people with dissenting opinions.
Of *course* gas and oil furnaces rely on electricity to operate. But, like some of your earlier posts, I am expressing concerns that the grid is both vulnerable, and not up to par. And migrating everyone away from oil/gas heat is not going to improve the problem.
You're calling me dumb for broadening a concern that you've already expressed.
My gas stove runs just fine with the electric off... Did it for 9 days during Sandy. Its called using match or lighter stick...
Oil burner is another story..... but once the generator was up, it ran too
Many newer stoves don’t. They have safety valves now that automatically shut when there is no electricity. My gas stove (kitchenaid) is useless without power.
I thank you for having taken the time to educate me; you've given me things to read up on.
It frustrates me to no end, how the Federal government can send 200 million to Ukraine, yet it cannot provide subsidies to homeowners to retrofit their homes with solar panels. For while some might argue that it's not the government's place to fund such things, I see our grid as being the US's achilles heal - quite possibly a matter of National security. Decentralizing the grid would bolster our security, in addition to achieving goals of moving away from fossil fuels.
It would have been great if the US had continued to be at the forefront of solar panel production and had reaped the benefits of production learnings and economies of scale for it, but this somehow became a political hot topic with people with no idea what they're talking about sneering at any mention of renewable energy. Oh well!
That would've been great for national security and depending on the level of support could have made petrostates like Russia far less powerful and less capable of waging war. Instead, we have what we have now, but at least there's a silver lining where our main allies and large trading partners have shifted greatly towards renewable energy, and in Japan's case, back to nuclear energy. I also think we can walk and chew gum and still help homeowners retrofit their homes with solar panels. The Inflation Reduction Act extended the federal tax credits that can be used for home solar rather than the phase out and then removal that was originally slated to happen. There's also separate credits for electric panel / breaker box upgrades and home energy batteries. It also has a credit for heat pumps!
A decentralized grid with a lot of households able to run on solar panels, store it, send it to the grid at times, etc. is going to be pretty neat and is a worthwhile goal. However, if that's a good goal, then investing further into expanding and then having to be on the hook for maintaining natural gas to end users is a bad investment as the natural gas furnace doesn't do anything with the solar panels. It makes a lot more sense to invest in localized storage and distribution of electricity and hardening the utility scale grid.
Regardless, I do want to communicate that there are cold climate oriented heat pumps that very much up to the task in at least up to Long Island levels of winter cold, and they are comparatively so efficient compared to natural gas furnaces that it's more efficient use of natural gas resources to use the natural gas in a combined cycle electric generation plant and transmit and distribute it. I've posted links to this coming at it from various angles whether randos showing off their systems online in far colder climates, to research papers and industry tests, to spec sheets of actual models, to adoption rates in climates that have colder winters than that found in the Tri-State Area. I guess for some people their views on this, despite having no experience with cold climate heat pumps, aren't going to change unless someone immediately close to them they trust installs such, so I thank you for a refreshingly civil and open-minded take on this even as you came in with past experiences that differed.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-05-2023 at 08:39 AM..
I bet your approach really wins over people with dissenting opinions.
Of *course* gas and oil furnaces rely on electricity to operate. But, like some of your earlier posts, I am expressing concerns that the grid is both vulnerable, and not up to par. And migrating everyone away from oil/gas heat is not going to improve the problem.
You're calling me dumb for broadening a concern that you've already expressed.
Brilliant.
I called YOU dumb? No, just the dummies that think gas and oil heating works without electricity. And if you read, I agree with you about forcing everyone using a hp, especially without upgrading the grid. So....
I called YOU dumb? No, just the dummies that think gas and oil heating works without electricity. And if you read, I agree with you about forcing everyone using a hp, especially without upgrading the grid. So....
My mistake; I thought you were referencing me in your post.
"... I thank you for a refreshingly civil and open-minded take on this even as you came in with past experiences that differed."
I appreciate the compliment.
There's a learning curve that comes when new/different approaches/technology are introduced. When you approached my post with thoughtful arguments, I investigated your claims, and drew the conclusion that you might be correct with your summations.
Unfortunately, today, most possessors of knowledge seldom take the time to edify others...a shame.
Modern day furnaces utilize electricity despite running on natural gas. If you have a digital thermostat, multiple zones, and/or auto ignite function - you are just as vulnerable as if you had a heat pump. Steam heat or baseboard heat on a single zone probably would function fine.
Only difference is, the heat pump utilizes a lot of energy vs low voltage system that can be backed up more easily.
Agreed.
But the main issue at hand is that the grid is undersized to sustain millions of electrically heated homes and EV's. I find it curious that they're migrating people to different technology, without seriously considering the consequences of powering said technology.
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