electricity is comically expensive compared to gas for heating, I understand that some places don’t consistently get to -40 every winter, but many places do.
Heat pumps are popular in VT where it does go down to -40 somewhat regularly. Most places still have a backup heat for the really cold days - either wood stove and/or oil.
I have one in Wisconsin, and this last week has had a few exceptionally cold days. Those days, the heat pump doesn’t go at all, but most days, it does.
Here’s what the usage looks like over the past week:
Dark red is the furnace, light red is the heat pump. Green line is outdoor temperature, and you can see we’ve had some wild swings over the past week. Yellow line is the 71F inside temp. You can see that even on a 25F day (Dec 6), it was predominantly using the heat pump. That tends to be a fairly typical temperature in a Wisconsin winter most of the time.
yeah the reason we call it hydro here is because it connects to hydro dams which we have alot of, but we also have alot of natural gas and then some nuclear reactors as well (Im not far from one)
I’m on oil (and a renter so it’s not like I have a choice) but a friend of mine is on a heat pump and loves it. She has backup heat too, a wood stove and I believe either heating oil or gas. But most of the time she runs the heat pump and the wood stove.
I have electric so if the power goes out it fucks up the climate control. in the winter it’s not so bad because our building gets very warm without any heating, but in the summer its killer because you need AC running 24/7 for it to even be habitable, and sometimes you need extra on top of that.
Yeah, sounds like opposite environments. If you want to prep for that, you can buy a battery operated fan from one of the tool companies (dewalt, Milwaukee, etc) plus one or more of the larger batteries and then put it in front of a window with a tub of water and have the fan blow air from outside over the water into the house and it will cools things down.
Fwiw, heat pumps are not comically expensive in operation. They also work in the north of Sweden, so I’m sure that any issues with low temperature operations have been hammered out by now.
I understand that installation can be prohibitively expensive in some markets still though, but this is a problem that can hopefully be addressed.
Yeah, but gas heat still requires electricity, so that argument is not a great one, though repeated often.
Plus you can add a generator and reverse that advantage, as well as batteries. If you have an EV with a large battery that allows power out, that can be used as a good short-term solution.
An issue for sure, but one that can be remediated by the distributed nature of local renewable production and energy storage - something that gas by its nature cannot do.
-40 sounds insane. There are very few major cities with such cold temperatures. Outside of such extreme locations, heat pumps are very competitive to gas heating if not simply cheaper.
electricity is comically expensive compared to gas for heating, I understand that some places don’t consistently get to -40 every winter, but many places do.
Heat pumps are popular in VT where it does go down to -40 somewhat regularly. Most places still have a backup heat for the really cold days - either wood stove and/or oil.
heat pumps are great and i love the idea, but for places where it gets really cold your right that backup heat is still required.
I have one in Wisconsin, and this last week has had a few exceptionally cold days. Those days, the heat pump doesn’t go at all, but most days, it does.
Here’s what the usage looks like over the past week:
Dark red is the furnace, light red is the heat pump. Green line is outdoor temperature, and you can see we’ve had some wild swings over the past week. Yellow line is the 71F inside temp. You can see that even on a 25F day (Dec 6), it was predominantly using the heat pump. That tends to be a fairly typical temperature in a Wisconsin winter most of the time.
its picking u some slack that’s for sure. are hydro rates fair out there?
Water is $0.0046/gal.
lol…canadian/american language barrier. we call electricity hydro here. that’s what i mean to say. sorry.
Gotcha.
Wisconsin only has a tiny fraction of hydro power. Mostly natural gas, followed by coal:
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WI#tabs-4
We have solar on our roof, though obviously that’s very limited in the winter.
yeah the reason we call it hydro here is because it connects to hydro dams which we have alot of, but we also have alot of natural gas and then some nuclear reactors as well (Im not far from one)
I’m on oil (and a renter so it’s not like I have a choice) but a friend of mine is on a heat pump and loves it. She has backup heat too, a wood stove and I believe either heating oil or gas. But most of the time she runs the heat pump and the wood stove.
I have electric so if the power goes out it fucks up the climate control. in the winter it’s not so bad because our building gets very warm without any heating, but in the summer its killer because you need AC running 24/7 for it to even be habitable, and sometimes you need extra on top of that.
Yeah, sounds like opposite environments. If you want to prep for that, you can buy a battery operated fan from one of the tool companies (dewalt, Milwaukee, etc) plus one or more of the larger batteries and then put it in front of a window with a tub of water and have the fan blow air from outside over the water into the house and it will cools things down.
Doesn’t work when outside is humid.
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Fwiw, heat pumps are not comically expensive in operation. They also work in the north of Sweden, so I’m sure that any issues with low temperature operations have been hammered out by now.
I understand that installation can be prohibitively expensive in some markets still though, but this is a problem that can hopefully be addressed.
the other problem is that the electricity is less reliable than the gas (currently here).
Yeah, but gas heat still requires electricity, so that argument is not a great one, though repeated often.
Plus you can add a generator and reverse that advantage, as well as batteries. If you have an EV with a large battery that allows power out, that can be used as a good short-term solution.
An issue for sure, but one that can be remediated by the distributed nature of local renewable production and energy storage - something that gas by its nature cannot do.
-40 regularly? Yes, sounds like Yakutsk.
-40 sounds insane. There are very few major cities with such cold temperatures. Outside of such extreme locations, heat pumps are very competitive to gas heating if not simply cheaper.
Welcome to North Dakota friend. :(
-50 mean in Oymyakon in january. -67.7 record low.
Yes I totally understand that there are cold places on earth, but I feel like few here understand the meaning of the term major city./s
More seriously I am sure that 90 percent of the world’s population lives in areas where heat pumps are the most efficient method of heating/cooling.
Yes.
Welcome to VT. We have heat pumps but also backup heating sources.