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I just swapped out my electric water heater and stove to propane models. I would not hesitate to do my heating system if it was not too expensive to do. My electric heat pump sucks and runs all the time.
Is your heat pump fairly new? We just got a new one in late October (to replace one that was destroyed by a tree in a severe thunderstorm). It's variable speed, and ran all the time. I called the installer, they came out and checked it, and said the variable speed ones were designed to run on a low speed a lot more than the previous one or two stage units. That's to save the energy required for startup from a dead start. And it seems to work as designed, using less energy than the old one.
You don't say where you live, but heat pumps aren't for everybody or all regions. And is propane cheaper for hot water than electricity? Here, propane is very expensive. My house is all electric - cooking, heating, cooling, dryer, hot water. And during the spring and fall, when neither heating or cooling is needed, my electric bill is a bare minimum so hot water is almost a negligible part of the overall usage.
If I had natural gas available in my neighborhood, that's what I'd use for heating and probably hot water but I'd not go with propane.
While most is hydro, much of our electricity is produced using natural gas. Our furnace, water heater and stove are all natural gas, as is one of our fireplaces.
I have the same setup in my home up north. Natural gas for a stove is unmatched by electric if you do a lot of high heat cooking. Natural fireplaces burn relatively clean compared to wood.
Gas furnaces and water heaters, on he other hand, are largely inefficient compared to using electric variants when the electricity is generated from natural gas. Power plant electricity generation and distribution are much more efficient... Especially when it comes to water heaters.
I have the same setup in my home up north. Natural gas for a stove is unmatched by electric if you do a lot of high heat cooking. Natural fireplaces burn relatively clean compared to wood.
Gas furnaces and water heaters, on he other hand, are largely inefficient compared to using electric variants when the electricity is generated from natural gas. Power plant electricity generation and distribution are much more efficient... Especially when it comes to water heaters.
A couple points to correct some misconceptions.--
Heating using a wood burning gasification furnace produces virtually no soot (but plenty of ash to be shoveled out and disposed of; good soil amendment, rich in minerals; also good to provide traction on icy walks & drives)...
...I will concede that wood burning is more work, and unless you are willing and able to do your own lumberjacking for "free" fire wood, you're probably not saving any money vs NG heating--if you have access to NG. LPG is much more expensive. Wood fuel is a good choice for those in rural locations, but in town, you're better off with NG.
If it takes X amount of NG to be burned at your house in some appliance to perform some duty, then it takes X + 10% of gas to be burned at a central plant and transmitted over power lines, and then another small percentage of loss as the electricity is converted to work in the appliance.... I won't argue that centralized. industrial sized power generation may be more efficient at site, but not that much more to compensate for other losses along the way.
Heating using a wood burning gasification furnace produces virtually no soot (but plenty of ash to be shoveled out and disposed of; good soil amendment, rich in minerals; also good to provide traction on icy walks & drives)...
...I will concede that wood burning is more work, and unless you are willing and able to do your own lumberjacking for "free" fire wood, you're probably not saving any money vs NG heating--if you have access to NG. LPG is much more expensive. Wood fuel is a good choice for those in rural locations, but in town, you're better off with NG.
If it takes X amount of NG to be burned at your house in some appliance to perform some duty, then it takes X + 10% of gas to be burned at a central plant and transmitted over power lines, and then another small percentage of loss as the electricity is converted to work in the appliance.... I won't argue that centralized. industrial sized power generation may be more efficient at site, but not that much more to compensate for other losses along the way.
The link below discusses industrial natural gas turbines and mentions that the Guinness world record for gas turbine efficiency in 2018 was 63%.
The equivalent efficiency direct fire residential gas furnace wouldn’t even be allowed for installation due to such low efficiency; we perhaps have a few still lingering from the past in people’s homes; not sure how many.
They make residential gas furnaces with efficiency of 98.5%.
To be fair, not sure how much gas is lost in distribution system, it would lower the above.
If one adds high voltage transmission, various transformers, residential transmission, other losses in electrical distribution system, etc the losses would mount
It is calculated that industrial natural gas made electricity only delivers 33% of the energy to the residence - losing an astoundingly 67% in the process?
Yet, then everyone claims that electricity is “100% efficient” after the process has wasted 67% of it in production and distribution.
Now finally mini-splits reached the US with the the craziest unjustified prices (they are used for half a century and very inexpensive in India, Asia - and nobody pays tens of thousand of $ there - they can’t afford it otherwise.
The Americans are being fleeced again)
The stats for the best of them are showing the efficiency up to 2-4+ due to the use of the refrigerants, but in a very narrow temperature range.
So narrow that people perhaps could just live without them? Some portable heater or portable A/C may be enough in some locations?
And how much energy goes into producing the refrigerants? they keep phasing them out?
This we should count too in the calculation of “efficiency”
They are tweaked for cold climates, but to get an average cop of 2 in freezing temperatures - you could never justify the expense of buying, installing and maintaining costs. The capital and maintaining costs in a not very long life span of equipment just don’t add up.
Most of them are not corrosion resistant - and though the best could help maintain humidity levels on the East Coast - one still could be better off with dehumidifier- but thy could be loud
Basically, the mini-splits have their niche, but it isn’t a panacea:the work should continue and the focus should be on improving construction- highly air-sealed and insulated houses with regulated ventilation don’t need any heat or even cooling - or just very little of it.
That should be the goal: not how more energy to produce, but how to save more and to not waste in the whole energy production cycle from the origin to the end user
This is the message that gets lost.
Last edited by L00k4ward; 02-11-2024 at 06:33 AM..
Is your heat pump fairly new? We just got a new one in late October (to replace one that was destroyed by a tree in a severe thunderstorm). It's variable speed, and ran all the time. I called the installer, they came out and checked it, and said the variable speed ones were designed to run on a low speed a lot more than the previous one or two stage units. That's to save the energy required for startup from a dead start. And it seems to work as designed, using less energy than the old one.
You don't say where you live, but heat pumps aren't for everybody or all regions. And is propane cheaper for hot water than electricity? Here, propane is very expensive. My house is all electric - cooking, heating, cooling, dryer, hot water. And during the spring and fall, when neither heating or cooling is needed, my electric bill is a bare minimum so hot water is almost a negligible part of the overall usage.
If I had natural gas available in my neighborhood, that's what I'd use for heating and probably hot water but I'd not go with propane.
I live in NW Arkansas and my heat pump is about a year old. But this is the third one that replaced the two previous one's. Last year my January electric bill was over $300. This year with two weeks of sub freezing and sub zero temperatures it was $225. The gauge has barely moved on the 250 gallon propane tank. Propane in this area is $1.79 a gallon. If I had my choice I would not have a heat pump, but the house had it when I bought it three years ago. Two of my new neighbors have custom homes and they buried 500 gallon tanks which will be for their heating system, stove, water heater and propane fireplace. I have a second separate propane setup for my propane fireplace. Natural gas is not available in this area.
The link below discusses industrial natural gas turbines and mentions that the Guinness world record for gas turbine efficiency in 2018 was 63%.
The equivalent efficiency direct fire residential gas furnace wouldn’t even be allowed for installation due to such low efficiency; we perhaps have a few still lingering from the past in people’s homes; not sure how many.
They make residential gas furnaces with efficiency of 98.5%.
To be fair, not sure how much gas is lost in distribution system, it would lower the above.
If one adds high voltage transmission, various transformers, residential transmission, other losses in electrical distribution system, etc the losses would mount
It is calculated that industrial natural gas made electricity only delivers 33% of the energy to the residence - losing an astoundingly 67% in the process?
Yet, then everyone claims that electricity is “100% efficient” after the process has wasted 67% of it in production and distribution.
Now finally mini-splits reached the US with the the craziest unjustified prices (they are used for half a century and very inexpensive in India, Asia - and nobody pays tens of thousand of $ there - they can’t afford it otherwise.
The Americans are being fleeced again)
The stats for the best of them are showing the efficiency up to 2-4+ due to the use of the refrigerants, but in a very narrow temperature range.
So narrow that people perhaps could just live without them? Some portable heater or portable A/C may be enough in some locations?
And how much energy goes into producing the refrigerants? they keep phasing them out?
This we should count too in the calculation of “efficiency”
They are tweaked for cold climates, but to get an average cop of 2 in freezing temperatures - you could never justify the expense of buying, installing and maintaining costs. The capital and maintaining costs in a not very long life span of equipment just don’t add up.
Most of them are not corrosion resistant - and though the best could help maintain humidity levels on the East Coast - one still could be better off with dehumidifier- but thy could be loud
Basically, the mini-splits have their niche, but it isn’t a panacea:the work should continue and the focus should be on improving construction- highly air-sealed and insulated houses with regulated ventilation don’t need any heat or even cooling - or just very little of it.
That should be the goal: not how more energy to produce, but how to save more and to not waste in the whole energy production cycle from the origin to the end user
This is the message that gets lost.
Exactly...
My earth berm house needs no AC in the summer and requires only 4 cords of firewood to heat 2700 sq ft comfortably thru WI winters....The vent fan went out last month (luckily we were in an unusual El Nino warm period- temps running down to 25F at night and up to 40F days) and it took a week to get the needed capacitor. Furnace was down for the week and temps gradually fell in the house from 70 to 63 and we could live with that. Just put on another sweater.
"Conservation" means "To Save"
Reubenray-- NW Arkansas?..You don't even need a heater way down there in the tropics, you big sissy!
My earth berm house needs no AC in the summer and requires only 4 cords of firewood to heat 2700 sq ft comfortably thru WI winters....The vent fan went out last month (luckily we were in an unusual El Nino warm period- temps running down to 25F at night and up to 40F days) and it took a week to get the needed capacitor. Furnace was down for the week and temps gradually fell in the house from 70 to 63 and we could live with that. Just put on another sweater.
"Conservation" means "To Save"
Reubenray-- NW Arkansas?..You don't even need a heater way down there in the tropics, you big sissy!
Compared to where I live, NW Arkansas is the artic. I’m in Lafayette Louisiana.
Compared to where I live, NW Arkansas is the artic. I’m in Lafayette Louisiana.
I lived in South Louisiana before moving to NW Arkansas. Last month it was below zero for two nights and in the single digits during the daytime. The 3" of snow did not melt for a week.
Methane is a newable and sustainable resource that the earth creates and has an abundance of these hydro-carbons. Electricity is a product not a resource. So it depends on what type of resource is used to generate the electricity and methane is one of them the other is solar. Unless the earth can build some type of Dyson Sphere to harness solar, it is not easy to harness solar. We need need a combination of atomic, oil, or coal in order to supplement our current power generation if methane is not used. And American does not like any other forms except solar. The main problem with methane is that can cause greenhouse effect by trapping heat
^^ I repped you for your generally good post, but need to straighten out a couple points--Methane is not, for our practical purposes, renewable naturally. Those coal/oil/NG deposits that were formed over the course of millions of years from thousands and thousands of square miles of swampy habitat that is no longer in existence. ...We can produce our own methane from biomass. It is done today and marketed as SynGas, but is economically not competitive with mined NG...When the fossil fuels finally are depleted, SynGas will continue to give us the portability, reliability and convenience of natural fossil fuels not provided by solar or wind or even nuclear alternate energy sources.
Experimental evidence places the GHG potential of methane as somewhere between 10 and 100x "more powerful" than co2 on a molar basis, but it's concentration in the atm is only 1/10,000 that of co2, so its effect is essentially zero on global warming....Even co2 is 10x more effective at delaying energy escape than h2o, but is 1/100th less abundant in the atm, so h20 is far and away the most important GHG, accounting for over 90% of the warming effect of air.
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