Comment by hijinks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hijinks | Hacker News Reader

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I had a home in the CO mountains at 10k feet above sea level. I was looking at heat pumps since the house was electric baseboard and running a gas line was gonna cost $18k just for the line to the home.

I decided on heat pumps and was lucky enough to find a reseller of Mitsubishi who mentioned his contacts there were looking for a cold climate home in elevation that wanted heat pumps to prove their tech.

Long story short, I put in heat pumps at a fraction of the cost of what it would normally cost. Now the benefit of the mountains as opposed to Denver is it rarely gets below 0 even if Denver is -15 the mountain low might be -5ish.

Yes efficiency goes down the colder it gets but when I owned the home I never had to supplement the heat pumps to keep the house warm. It would pull 120F heat when it was -5 out. Again when its -5 natural gas is a lot more efficient but the idea is its not -5 all year. The first year I had them my electric bill averaged $650ish to $310. Also I got AC in the summer as a bonus.

There are a lot of factors involved here, sounds like you might've had a coalescence of fortuitous ones. I would not consider getting off shot freebie as the standard input cost. Also I'm assuming your home is already well insulated like most homes in places with more serious winters.

But the average house and older homes especially (in northeast esp) have poorer insulation. Heat pumps are still very expensive and for many need backup for extreme weather or require major inconvenience.

Not to mention how expensive electricity is, and the fact that it's getting more expensive.

Yeah, that depends on your situation... I recently got into a discussion with someone complaining how her heating bill doubled in a year, so she has to skimp on heating or cooking because she cannot afford it any more.

She has gas heating, while I have electric (which got something like +75%, but starting from a lower baseline), and I don't even have a heat pump !

But then my insulation is average (and I haven't even started heating yet, though to be fair should have for at least one week, this winter is insanely warm so far), while hers is supposedly very bad, probably one of those apartments who have been recently announced will be illegal to rent soon.

And she got furthermore protected by the government which froze gas prices - someone will have to eventually pay those ×5-×10 bills !

In the medium-long term, methane is probably less viable than electricity, which is easier to transport and can come from a variety of sources including 60% efficient gas turbines.

I agree with last point, and you can see some effects of that now where they are no longer building underground gas lines and such for full new constructions and developments in some places. However, aging and unreliable infrastructure which will never be replaced until it's completely destroyed will mean that nat gas will stick around for a long time.

> But the average house and older homes especially (in northeast esp) have poorer insulation.

insulation always pays for itself multiple times over. Why is rhere no financial oroduct like mortgage that wouldballow you to direct the energy saving from extra insulation into repaying installation cost ay favoirable tax-free terms and low interrest rate like mortgage?

There are, in fact perhaps a bit too much, it has resulted in lots of insulation and heat pump scams lately (though perhaps not enough enforcement ?)

See also how the real estate sector was whining in the recent years about the (quite mild !) new insulation laws, seemingly only caring about their short term profits. Well, hopefully they have shut up now (or maybe not, with, now that we ARE in the predicted crisis, serious laws coming up, and at the same time, the real estate bubble popping).

It's going to get worse now because the fed govt has a rebate to install heat pumps, I'd expect the same treatment people get for solar to come to that now, lots of companies cold calling trying to sell more of a financial instrument than actual product. I was really looking into one, and it was impractical due to weather but also not many local contractors were trained and servicing them, I expect more grifter types to pick it up.

That does sound like something places should offer. I know some ESCOs and providers offer like free thermal imaging of your home. While insulation is relatively cheap, often the worst culprits are poorly insulated windows and any penetrations to exterior. Those are much more expensive, window replacement can easily run 20k.

You can use a HELOC for insulation upgrades, just like any other home improvement project.

If I just bought a house with shit insulation with mortgage, is HELOC gonna help me?

Why did you buy a house with shit insulation?

I'm confused, are all your temperatures in Celsius except the 120F (~50°C). I assumed the -5 was -5°C but the use of F later suggests it could be -20°C.

all the temps are in F.

The hyper heat can pull 120Fish heat down to -15F

I’m surprised you needed AC at 10k ft. I have a cabin south of FairPlay at 9200 ft and the high temperature for the year has never exceeded 81 F.

Good to hear on the heat pumps though. I’m planning to eventually replace the propane boiler with them.

So the home is southern facing and was full of windows on the southern side. So even with windows open/shades down the heat from the sun would still radiate in.

When I bought the home I had a company come to help me plan the heating and I don't fully understand the science but the home is built to keep heat in with the windows and no attic.

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