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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

I am curious about quintile statistics, or at least median. Domiciles are definitely bigger in the US, but I bet the mean average is dragged way up by the top 20% of houses.

Air conditioning also uses the most electricity in a house, and the US has a lot more populated hot and humid regions than many European countries.

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Nope, electric heating uses much more power than air conditioning.

I guess that is true, I just imagined so few domiciles actually use electric heating, or use electric heating in places that do not get really cold, that it is not a significant factor in national statistics of electricity usage.

Seems like 40% of US households use electric heating though, which is way more than I expected.

https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-questio...

Edit: fixed link

Most of that is going to be heat pumps in moderate climates.

Unfortuntately not. In 2015 35% of homes used electric heating, with only 12% (34% of electric homes) using heat pumps [1]. So the majority of electric heating is actually resistive electric.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39293

Bad link. But I'd like to see it by state. In Florida electric heat may exist but never be used, while Massachusetts needs heat and uses oil or gas.

Sorry, fixed

https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-questio...

By far more energy goes to heating than air conditioning, but a lot of heating in the US is natural gas (or oil in the northeast), especially in the colder places. About 43% of household energy use is heating and only 8% is air conditioning.[1]

But for overall household electricity use, air conditioning is 17% and heating is 15% (all houses, not just all-electric houses). [2]

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php

[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit...

Up here in Alaska, heating your house with electricity would be asinine if you have any other option.

In time places like Alaska may well depopulate.

More space for me.

I think that’s only because it’s more expensive. Whether you heat with electricity or with gas/petrol you still need the same amount of energy.

> I think that’s only because it’s more expensive.

Well, sure it is - and that doesn't look to be changing any time soon.

Not if you use heat pumps...

Heat pumps are becoming widespread in Scandinavia, especially Norway — even though Norway is rich in fossil fuels.

Alaska is colder, but: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/heat-pumps-alaska-oil-energy...

Until I started working in the energy industry, I never considered that even gas heating consumes a lot of electricity because of the blower fan and ignition coils. Our blower fan is 0.5 HP, which is over 300 W. The bulk of our electricity expense has been on heat, even though we have gas heat!

Good point, I've realized the same. My electricity bill increases a higher percentage in winter than my gas bill. Our house has two furnaces and they use a lot of electricity

https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/mortgages/articles/how-big-i... claims the median in the US is 2014 sqft.

You would be wrong, even cheap houses in the US are quite large.

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