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The heat pump options that don’t have the hideous unit on the wall cost thousands more. It was priced out when I did my house and was about 7k more than gas. If my only options was that hideous thing on the wall or freeze I would call it day and move to Florida or Tennessee, 0% I would be willing to have those monstrosities ruin the esthetics of my home.
Bottom line efficiency is very rarely fiscally responsible. A hybrid car saves gas $$, you need to drive it 100-150k miles before your even with the increased upfront cost. Maybe a heat pumps saves a few bucks they cost more upfront. A 20 seer condenser is cheaper than a 14 but it could take 15 years to make the $$ back. Until these fake green items such as heat pumps or electric cars get there energy from renewables and not from gas oil and coal power plants it’s really just a wast of $$ and not doing much for the environment.
That's not necessarily true that they cost thousands more. It's dependent on how your home is already configured as it's possible that adapting the radiative climate control system might be cheaper. I also don't think it's universally regarded as hideous to have a unit on the wall as it's pretty standard in some places as is generally well out of the way--of course, that's a matter of preference so if it's so bad for you to see it causes you to opt to freeze to death or move out, then it is obviously of great importance to you. It is not to me though and I think there's likely a fairly large number of people who are fine with such.
Whether efficiency is fiscally responsible is highly dependent on context. What it ultimately comes down to is what the trade-offs are in what you want and how you end up using it. Some hybrid vehicles in some conditions fairly rapidly make up their powertrain cost differences, but not all. Sometime solar panels can have a payback period of a few years sometimes it'll be many years, depending on the situation. The same goes with heat pumps in regards to how long that payback period is. It's generally worth looking into at this point since there are now available in the US heat pumps that can deal well with the sort of winters that Long Island gets. This was not always true and so you often had to have backup heat or such, but it is true now and they're also generally quite a bit more efficient than before. With that, there are far more situations now, were that someone needed to replace or have major maintenance of their heating system or have new construction, where heat pumps can work and do make sense.
I also think the last sentence is not a rational argument. The idea that you can only do something when it's all or nothing is just bad logic. People make compromises all the time. Heat pumps and electric cars when using electricity sourced from fossil fuels, due to their efficiency compared to their closest competitors, oftentimes means substantially less fossil fuel used overall or fewer emissions overall. It's also not true that all of our electricity comes from fossil fuels nor is it true that it always will be whereas heat pumps and electric cars aren't something that get replaced every year (for most people), so it can still be over the course of its lifetime still be better.
It's called air ducts. Very doable. Cheap? Hell no. It can be done though. The whole situation is a mess. It shouldn't be forced on anyone.
I think the more popular option for retrofits are usually ductless mini-splits. You can do air ducts, but you don't need to. You can also convert radiative heating sources as there are hydronic heat pump systems as well other radiative heating systems that use heat pumps. Think of heat pumps as less a set system of how it's implemented and more like a technology that can be put in where the important part of it is that there is a way to move heat from one source to another. The funny thing about radiative heating with heat pumps is that you can also use it to cool which is a little weird.
I think the more popular option for retrofits are usually ductless mini-splits. You can do air ducts, but you don't need to. You can also convert radiative heating sources as there are hydronic heat pump systems as well other radiative heating systems that use heat pumps. Think of heat pumps as less a set system of how it's implemented and more like a technology that can be put in where the important part of it is that there is a way to move heat from one source to another. The funny thing about radiative heating with heat pumps is that you can also use it to cool which is a little weird.
Generally speaking: what behooves a homeowner to migrate to heat pump technology?
I did some reading, and with heat pump exchange/radiated units, the output temperature of heated water reaches 110 degrees, while natural gas units heat water to 140 degrees.
Since the Federal government is interested in promoting renewable energy, wouldn't it make more sense to encourage the Nation's electrical system to reliably produce electricity, and then migrate homeowners to heat pumps?
Thus far, it seems as though the output of heat pumps - be it forced air, or radiated heat, cannot compete with their natural gas/oil counterparts.
Why not continue to refine the technology, and get the grid up to snuff first? The approach seems a$$ backwards to me.
That's not necessarily true that they cost thousands more. It's dependent on how your home is already configured as it's possible that adapting the radiative climate control system might be cheaper. I also don't think it's universally regarded as hideous to have a unit on the wall as it's pretty standard in some places as is generally well out of the way--of course, that's a matter of preference so if it's so bad for you to see it causes you to opt to freeze to death or move out, then it is obviously of great importance to you. It is not to me though and I think there's likely a fairly large number of people who are fine with such.
Whether efficiency is fiscally responsible is highly dependent on context. What it ultimately comes down to is what the trade-offs are in what you want and how you end up using it. Some hybrid vehicles in some conditions fairly rapidly make up their powertrain cost differences, but not all. Sometime solar panels can have a payback period of a few years sometimes it'll be many years, depending on the situation. The same goes with heat pumps in regards to how long that payback period is. It's generally worth looking into at this point since there are now available in the US heat pumps that can deal well with the sort of winters that Long Island gets. This was not always true and so you often had to have backup heat or such, but it is true now and they're also generally quite a bit more efficient than before. With that, there are far more situations now, were that someone needed to replace or have major maintenance of their heating system or have new construction, where heat pumps can work and do make sense.
I also think the last sentence is not a rational argument. The idea that you can only do something when it's all or nothing is just bad logic. People make compromises all the time. Heat pumps and electric cars when using electricity sourced from fossil fuels, due to their efficiency compared to their closest competitors, oftentimes means substantially less fossil fuel used overall or fewer emissions overall. It's also not true that all of our electricity comes from fossil fuels nor is it true that it always will be whereas heat pumps and electric cars aren't something that get replaced every year (for most people), so it can still be over the course of its lifetime still be better.
My home ins new construction HVAC was installed in april 2019. The ugly mini splits on the wall was around 5k more. The ones with registers in ceiling and floor was a about 10k more. Gas is highly efficient when done rite. I used 70 therms last month and I use gas for cooking and HW. My highest bill ever since Jan 2020 has been $174 and that’s because rates are insane now.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,078,565 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NDL
89% of downstate's electricity comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which has me headscratching about the State's jump to get everyone into EV's, and having homes heated by heatpumps.
TX's grid went down in 2021, partly because they didn't winterize their solar panels and wind turbines. I am wondering if the effects of negative weather can be sufficiently mitigated?
Electric garbage trucks in NYC proved to be a disaster while plowing: after four hours of use, they lost their charge. A much more suitable alternative would be hydrogen powered trucks, yet the State is rushing headlong towards electric.
***
I don't know enough about the technology, to speak at length about it. But what I see thus far, are limitations, exacerbated by NY cold winter climate.
Solar is a fantastic option in NYS, for three seasons, and Upstate has plenty of available land, to be used for solar farming.
Texas grid went down because they didn't winterize their systems, the natural gas pipelines among other things froze. This had happened before and they failed to act, it will probally happen again but its not due to solar & wind falling short. Of course they choose to remain disconnected from the National Grid because then they would have to upgrade everything to meet US Standards...
Texas grid went down because they didn't winterize their systems, the natural gas pipelines among other things froze. This had happened before and they failed to act, it will probally happen again but its not due to solar & wind falling short. Of course they choose to remain disconnected from the National Grid because then they would have to upgrade everything to meet US Standards...
Generally speaking: what behooves a homeowner to migrate to heat pump technology?
I did some reading, and with heat pump exchange/radiated units, the output temperature of heated water reaches 110 degrees, while natural gas units heat water to 140 degrees.
Since the Federal government is interested in promoting renewable energy, wouldn't it make more sense to encourage the Nation's electrical system to reliably produce electricity, and then migrate homeowners to heat pumps?
Thus far, it seems as though the output of heat pumps - be it forced air, or radiated heat, cannot compete with their natural gas/oil counterparts.
Why not continue to refine the technology, and get the grid up to snuff first? The approach seems a$$ backwards to me.
Generally, it's because the heat pump over a period of time will have saved money in operations over other sources due to heat pumps being far more efficient in most situations (though of course depending on the local climate, what kind of heat pump, and what the alternatives are) and that many heat pumps can be used for cooling as air conditioning is a fairly common feature on Long Island. In such, the sticker price comparison should be for heating and cooling. Winters such as LI's aren't all that extreme so even air source heat pumps can maintain a very high efficiency many times greater than that of other choices which overall should lower prices of operation. Heat pumps work principally via moving heat and there is always heat in the air down until about absolute zero which is about -459F though it becomes less efficient the larger the temperature differential you want to make up. I say principally as the act of doing work will by itself generate some heat and good heat pump designs can harvest some of that heat. For LI winters and their average and absolute minimums though and given that people probably don't want their homes to be an ambient temperature at or above 110 degrees but usually substantially lower, heat pumps as they are today can still work very efficiently with a coefficient of performance usually above 2, sometimes well above 2, for most of LI winter. This in contrast to newer natural gas heaters that are usually at a COP of 0.8 to 0.9.
This means that even in very cold weather, natural gas that is burned at a co-generation utility plant (around 60%) to generate electricity then sent to a home with a cold climate heat pump, even with factoring transmission and distribution loss, is a more efficient use of that same natural gas resource to heat than natural gas in a furnace. Ultimately, that means cheaper operating costs even when the source of generation is natural gas though in the real world there are other factors like debt load of the utility, any fees or taxes imposed, and negotiation periods for contracts on electricity or natural gas. The crazy thing is that heat pumps today are at an efficiency level that are already quite good in comparison to natural gas (or oil heating) and they aren't even close to reaching the theoretical efficiency of the heat pump process and so it's likely the economic argument for heat pumps keeps improving while natural gas has a theoretical (and asymptotic) COP of 1.
Now, that's in the best case scenario that would be most favorable to a natural gas unit. The other scenarios are so bad that they aren't even attempted in a comparison. Turning coal into a fuel compatible with natural gas heater is an incredibly expensive and inefficient process and makes for very expensive gas. Turning petroleum into such is also incredibly inexpensive and inefficient and using petroleum starts at a higher price than natural gas. Turning nuclear generated electricity, hydroelectricity, wind turbine output or photovoltaic panel output into a fuel compatible with natural gas is ridiculously expensive and inefficient. Meanwhile, there are many tried and true pathways to turn all and any of these resources into generated electricity. As heat is pretty necessary for a functioning society, there is a pretty good national security argument for using heat pumps as they run on electricity which can be generated from many sources. This is a pretty good underlying rational for subsidizing the currently higher upfront cost of heat pump installation over other heating sources.
No arguments against improving grid reliability though. There's been a pretty massive influx of investment in hardening the US grid in the last couple of years and I hope that continues as the US's grid does have more issues overall than that of other developed countries. There's also as stated earlier been additional credits made available for solar panels, electric panel upgrades, and stationary storage devices, so there's not just utility level improvements being made, but the incentivizing of steps that end user can do to have more reliable electrical power.
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