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Comment by intrasight | Hacker News Reader

I have made a successful offer on a house. When I had initially walked through with realtor, I looked at the furnace and thought something was amiss. Then during inspection, the inspector told me that it was a heat pump, and it's only about two years old. My first reaction was "on no - electric heat". But later I Googled and found a page that has a cost calculator.

https://www.columbiagaspa.com/services/add-or-convert-to-gas...

It looks like it will be ~20% less to have a heat pump. Also natural gas prices are forecast to continue up and make the heat pump even more cost effective.

I still do wish there was gas service to the house. But I doubt that I want it enough to pay for the installation.

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If the house has no gas connection at all then, depending on local regulations, they may have been able to insulate to a higher standard, and so you save even more money.

Because of combustion you need extra ventilation designed in.

That and the connection cost make it an easy choice for newly built homes.

> depending on local regulations, they may have been able to insulate to a higher standard

Are you implying that some places have maximum amounts of insulation that are allowed for new construction? This seems backwards.

No, but they'll insist on minimum ventilation if you burn stuff, which usually involves letting heated/cooled air out with the toxins.

Drove me bonkers that “over-the-range” microwaves are unavailable in europe. Probably because they assume everyone uses gas and would set them on fire, or that it’s impossible for them to vent fast enough.

Builders and homeowners tend to functionally enforce the minimum as the maximum.

If they're too airtight, it's a safety issue if you have a gas system.

The house was built in 1975. There's about 3 inches of fiberglass batting in attic. One of the first things I'll do after closing is to blow in 12+" of insulation.

Blow what? Don't do foam. It'll massacre the timber. If you want something else, look at hempcrete, wool, foam glass aggregate.

If you can pay for an alternative I’d strongly consider it. Blown insulation makes a mess of the attic. Makes it really hard to work up there if you need to get access, potentially blocks your soffits and decreases airflow, and makes it more difficult and dangerous to walk without risking falling through the drywall.

In the US at least, high efficiency home gas furnaces bring in their own combustion air from the outside so they don’t bring drafts into the house. They also don’t have flues throughly the roof. The exhaust gas is cool enough that it goes out wherever is convenient through a PVC pipe parallel to the intake pipes.

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