New York set to ban gas furnaces, stoves in new buildings | Hacker News Reader

New York set to ban gas furnaces, stoves in new buildings

politico.com

47 pointskoolba82 comments

Ugh, I think this is a terrible idea for heating.

I've installed 2 Mitsubishi hyper heat pumps in the past 5 years with 3 indoor heads totaling ~48,000 BTUs of heat capacity. I don't think people understand how much more expensive heat pumps are than a traditional natural gas furnace. I paid $25,000, and that was 5 years ago. This is for a small house of 1500 square feet. If you had a larger 3 or 4,000 square foot house, you can double or triple that price. In contrast, I know you can get a 250,000 BTU gas boiler for ~$20,000 with install.

Plus, electricity is still way more expensive than gas, even with the price shocks over the past year and even with the high efficiency of modern heat pumps. And it's not that green, given that you lose ~7% in transmission, and usually it's coming from a coal or natural gas plant. If you had solar to offset some of it, that would be great, but usually there isn't enough sun in the winter to account for all of your heating needs, at least without a gigantic array.

I think this is pretty impractical and misguided. I've tried to be green, but next time I buy a house, I'm going to try to go back to a gas furnace.

Sounds like you gave it an honest try and it wasn't good for your setup - won't argue that. I do think it's something that depends very greatly on your climate, local costs/subsidies, and your house.

I also want to shed some light on why heatpumps can be great - by disagreeing with this statement:

> you lose ~50% in transmission, and usually it's coming from a coal or natural gas plant

Heat pump performance is often rated in terms of COP - a number that indicates how much more heat it generates than the energy it consumes. A COP of 4.0 means that for every Watt of energy, it produces 4 times that much heat. This is thermodynamically possible because a heat pump removes energy (makes cool) the other end. It depends largely on the temperature outside, and the individual device. Follow along with me for some cool results of this:

- Natural gas to electricity is about 85% efficient.

- Transmission losses are close to 10%

- So your house gets (roughly) 75% power efficiency.

- Natural gas furnaces are basically 100% efficient (almost all heat from burning goes into your house)

- A medium-good heat pump can expect to get a COP of 3.5 on a 30F day

With all these assumptions, let's do a little test:

- Let's burn a gallon of natural gas in your basement, using 100% of the energy it has.

   -  We get... about 64 BTUs

- Now let's have a power plant burn that gallon and send the electricity to your house at 75% efficiency.

   -  We get 14 Watt hours...

- Now let's put those 14Wh into a heatpump with a COP of 3.5...

   - We get 167 BTUs!!

That's right - the same gallon of gas burned in a power plant will produce more heat in your house than if you burned it right there. Which sounds basically like magic, but it's of course because a heat pump doesn't create heat, it moves it.

Now, whether it makes sense for a given customer has a lot to do with the price of gas, the price of electricity, the price of furnaces vs heat pumps, and the temperature outside (COP can drop down significantly if you live in an extremely cold place). However, if you need an AC, it makes sense to at least get one that can dual function as a heat pump, this way it can be your source of heat in the spring/fall, without having to use the more powerful burner.

Then there's the question of how the electric grid will sustain this significant new increase in demand. As with mandates banning gas cars, the grid supply and stability is always regarded as a mere detail to be sorted out later.

>And it's not even green, given that you lose ~50% in transmission

Source? I thought the loss was much lower than that.

Looks like you’re right. This https://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how... claims it’s only 7%. I’ve updated the original comment. You still have the problem of non green generation sources, and you could still do better with a high efficiency gas furnace on-site, although I think most people go with low efficiency (~80 or 85%) units.

Even if electricity is generated with gas, and with the energy lost in the generation and transmission, with a really good heat pump and optimal conditions, it could outperform a gas furnace, because a heat pump can be more than 100% efficient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance

>The efficiency of air source heat pumps is measured by the coefficient of performance (COP). A COP of 4 means the heat pump produces 4 units of heat energy for every 1 unit of electricity it consumes. Within temperature ranges of −3 °C (27 °F) to 10 °C (50 °F), the COP for many machines is fairly stable.

>In mild weather with an outside temperature of 10 °C (50 °F), the COP of efficient air source heat pumps ranges from 4 to 6.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pump

It’s complicated.

If you’re talking about transmission between a nearby generation facility and end user, losses are low. If you’re talking about losses in April/May, it’s low. The statistics are difficult because the average losses don’t matter, it’s the marginal losses that matter. In mid-August when electricity demand peaks, you need to generate twice as much electrify at a higher price to get another marginal unit of electricity.

For New York, which is planning to ship power in from Quebec, losses at that distance are very high, and require significant investments in new transmission infrastructure to improve yield. At one point, shipping additional grid supply from far away to NYC resulted in losses as high as 65% in certain weather conditions. That’s why so much was invested in peak load reduction… stuff like voluntary shutdowns in exchange for discounts, efficiency programs, etc. Every dollar invested there avoided like $7 in infrastructure investment.

Hmm you should've only needed a 3 ton unit for that amount of square footage and those cost about 2-5k. Was there some other kind of work that needed to be done that you aren't mentioning? You should've seen prices around 8k for the unit plus installation.

You might be thinking for the non hyper heat modules. The ones I’ve got still heat down to -13 F. I remember thinking the same when I was originally pricing out the units. But when you actually get them through a reputable installer with a warranty, that roughly doubled the price. I quoted 3 installers at the time and they all came in at roughly the same price.

I started with a 30,000 BTU unit in 2 of the bedrooms and then added another 18,000 BTU unit later. My house is a split level which makes it a huge pain to heat. The price of the first units was ~$15,000 and the second one was ~$10,000. Nothing special as part of the installs.

Hyper heat are typically 5-10% more expensive than regular heat pumps.

Natural gas distribution is also leaky, IIRC, and the amount of gas released into the atmosphere is significant. So I wouldn't say electric heating is not "greener", I'm pretty sure it is.

But electric is way more expensive. Natural gas is so cheap (n the northeast US). If it was practical, I'd also seriously switch back to gas powered hot water heater and furnace. A couple years ago I moved from an Apt with hot water and heat included for free from a gas-powered boiler in the basement, to a Condo with its own electric hot water heater and heat-pumps, and it was a bit shocking how much more expensive it is to heat with electricity ... like (very roughly) $30/mo vs $200/mo in winter

It’s absolutely a terrible idea for heating. Natural gas is obviously the better choice - that’s why it’s used and they had to make it illegal to prevent it.

Why not properly educate the population on why electric stoves should be preferred over alternative stoves?

Why not incentivize buyers to buy electric stoves (e.g., tax credits) or incentivize OEMs to lower the cost of electric stoves?

As someone who’s house is intentionally and entirely designed around the premise that we lose mains power on a routine basis due to poor infrastructure and challenging environment (a mountain with dense forest), and wish to have a means for cooking food indoors without electricity, I have a propane stove. It is the only viable option as far as I am concerned, and as such, I am willing to pay a premium for one if I need to replace the unit I have. But if I can’t get a replacement propane stove in the future, what am I supposed to do? Overhaul my house at my own expense? Pay the electric company the multiple millions of dollars it would take to modernize their infrastructure to make an electric stove a viable option?

Shifting that much burden onto someone like me is absurd, as is this ban. There are numerous other ways to address the problem that the ban aims to solve.

Bans are rarely—if ever—good solutions, and should only ever be used as a measure of last resort. The situation at hand is far from one of last resort. But apparently the US is fully mired in the unfortunate “bans are the best way to score political points” phase of its history… one that I think we’d all be best served to put behind us quickly.

> Why not properly educate the population on why electric stoves should be preferred over alternative stoves?

We have long passed treating people as adults. If people don’t see your way they are either manipulated, stupid, irrational, or malevolent.

Manufacturing consent vs. force. People will not give up ICEs or meat agriculture willingly, even if it's killing us.

A tax would be better than a ban. The tax can increase every year. And the money from the tax could be redirected to help people transition to electric.

The downside of a tax is it's harder to implement, so there will be inefficiency in the system. A ban is easy.

A tax would also affect old homes. This proposal only affects new homes.

It's really a slow phaseout. People are getting upset over nothing. You're not all buying new homes anyway.

The long term effect of such legislation, especially if replicated in other jurisdictions, is that OEMs will cease to manufacture LNG/LP appliances because of lack of demand.

If OEMs no longer sell LNG/LP appliances, vendors that make LNG/LP components (burners, orifices, combustion chambers, etc.) stop making them. Over time, appliances become unserviceable.

Then consumers must purchase electric appliances, even if they are not a viable option—because they are the only option.

You are correct; there is no cause for immediate concern for existing appliances and existing residences. But over time, only electric appliances (and parts) will be available for purchase, and that is precisely the intent.

Just as California emissions laws generally set the standard for automobiles that are available for purchase in the US, this legislation will have far reaching affects across the country.

You cannot focus on only the negatives to determine if something is worthwhile.

We banned leaded fuels for cars. That made driving more expensive for people with older cars with engines designed for leaded fuel.

It also removed a lot of lead pollution.

The ban on CFCs for most air conditioning meant people had to find substitutes, and switch out cooling systems. That was expensive.

But it did not outweigh the effects of the increasing hole in the ozone layer.

People die every year from CO poisoning due to their gas furnaces.

If people were paying for their own healthcare, maybe we could let them take on the risk of improper fume hoods in their kitchens. But since the risk is socialized, your poor health choices could cost me money.

> As someone who’s house is intentionally and entirely designed around the premise ...

Do you live in New York State? Otherwise it would seem like complaining about California earthquake construction requirements when you live on a houseboat in Georgia.

Also, these bills only concern new construction, not older houses, so wouldn't affect you.

> and wish to have a means for cooking food indoors without electricity

From earlier this year, at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/13/hochul-backs-ban-ga... , "The [replacement] proposal does not include gas stoves, according to the governor’s office."

> Pay the electric company the multiple millions of dollars it would take to modernize their infrastructure to make an electric stove a viable option?

The linked-to page says "requirements for reliable service [are] already enshrined in state law" and "A potentially major caveat on grid reliability pushed by Assembly Democrats and a major gas utility also hasn’t been finalized, leading environmental advocates to moderate their enthusiasm until they see the final wording."

That reads like NY will require the electric companies to modernize their grid, not you.

> Bans are rarely—if ever—good solutions, and should only ever be used as a measure of last resort.

Umm, housing and fire codes ban a lot of construction practices. Do you consider them a measure of last resort? Or scoring political points?

As an example, when Hurricane Andrew came through South Florida in 1992 there was a widespread realization that the building codes weren't good enough. ("South Florida building codes were completely revamped based on studies about compromised garage doors, roof structures, basically how to hold houses together, according to Gracia Szczech, FEMA Region IV director. Homes built today in the state of Florida are far stronger than pre-Andrew." - https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/lessons-learned-30-years-... )

Governor Chiles got "political points" for pushing improvements in those codes, which, yes, outright banned certain building practices.

You make it seem like that was a bad thing.

And in any case, we've known that gas furnaces result in CO poisoning deaths every year. If safer alternatives exist - which seems to be the case in NY - how many deaths do you need until you say a ban is indeed the proper last resort?

Meanwhile, in nw europe, there are long waiting lists for qualified technicians to remove/replace/ or at least supplement gas stoves, gas heaters etc. voluntarily.

(this due to the European natural gas situation of course)

I wonder how long this policy will last when builders figure out they can market new homes as resilient to power loss because they have a diesel generator connected to the heaters and stoves...

Yay, no more burning gas for heat, let's burn diesel for it instead! Much safer and pollute less!

Using a generator when the power is out is probably still healthier than burning gas in your kitchen on a regular basis.

If electric stoves are so much better than gas stoves, why do the gas stoves have to be banned?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Because you can throw in a dirt cheap gas stove in a new build pretty easily.

Ah, so effectively this is just another tax on the poor and middle classes.

So is global warming.

Could you expand on that?

Poor people will be more impacted by global warming than rich people, because poor people tend to live in hotter climates, have less access to A/C, are more dependent on crop production for their livelihoods, and food prices impact them more since more of their income goes to food.

I guess it's more of a tax on the poor than on the middle class.

The poor property developers?

Edit: why would one assume that it isnt going to be taken out of their profit margins?

The people who buy and rent properties. They ultimately pay the price for artificially increased material/labor costs.

You think a manhattan apartment costs what it does because of the electric stove?

This is the definition of cherry picking.

Not to mention misrepresenting his argument.

Electric is easier though.

Plenty has been written about how we got here. I won't repeat it here but suffice it to say, it doesn't appear that consumers fairly weighing their options and choosing the "better" one had much to do with it.

I don't think people care so much about ovens as they do ranges, and there seems to be little awareness of induction. So when Americans think electric, they think coil burner, and those are awful.

> If electric stoves are so much better than gas stoves, why do the gas stoves have to be banned?

Because they’re not

This is not a bill about cooking efficiency. It’s about health.

Asbestos outperforms plaster in burn tests.

Then they should regulate health with performance specifications on vent hoods and banning new 80% furnaces. This is just performative governance without doing meaningful work.

I recall reading that even those gas stoves that have acceptable performance in certification tests do not perform to spec in the real world. I think it may have been consumer reports in conjunction with a university - they just stopped testing because not a single one in a single setting performed as advertised.

The performative governance was creating standards with no repercussions for not meeting the standards in the real world. The result is horrible indoor air quality linked to a range of health issues, particularly for children.

Good. But make sure people can get good electricity for their homes. Can’t have buildings swap gas heating for heat pumps run on coal energy.

As for the cost of heat pumps and electricity: it’s not expensive. My new pump that heats my whole home (through radiators and in-floor water circuits) plus contains a large hot water tank cost $6k and will last 15 years or so. It has a COP of about 3 and I pay around 0.10 per kWh of electricity. Total electricity bill is around $2500 per year.

Yes, but in spite of that, EVs running on coal-generated electricity are still cleaner than ICEVs.

Homes heated by heat pumps running on coal-generated electricity should still be cleaner than heating by natural gas.

This is because it is much easier to reduce emissions at the point of generation than at the point of use.

Also, the use of coal is plummeting in the US.

No one should prefer electricity over natural gas before knowing how the electricity is generated. People who push electric but don’t address this are either stupid or think you are stupid.

I did some digging and found 60% of NYS electricity is generated from natural gas. 25% from nuclear.

https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=NY

NYS has just about the cleanest mix in the US.

It’s easier to decarbonize energy generation than it is to retrofit every house in America. If you electrify everything the decarbonization will follow.

Regardless, using electricity isn’t inherently clean. It’s a non sensical claim - electricity doesn’t have the capacity to be clean or dirty. It’s entirely dependent on how it was generated.

How much natural gas is generated from solar panels, windmills or hydro-electric dams?

So it's much cleaner then.

Wouldn't it be easier to install better range vents. Like the ones that actually blow stuff outside, not the ones built into the microwave that just 'move' air?

Second to that, I absolutely hate cooking on an old-style electric range. It's just too slow and you have no control.

Whereas with gas or induction it's much more instant.

Natural gas is cheaper than electricity.

If one has negative externalities and the other doesn’t and yet the bad one is cheaper, then taxes aren’t applied right.

Not where I live. Electricity here is 8.7 cents per kWh.

It blows my mind how expensive electricity is in most of the US. These places are doing something different.

When will people learn that electric is not analogous to gas? My guess is never the way things are going. Swapping electric for gas could theoretically increase emissions. In fact, the increased use of natural gas account for most of the US’s recent emissions gains.

good! the number of active leaks in old cities is astounding, thousands in some cases… not to mention the impact on indoor air quality… it’s time to start moving on

Wouldn't it do more overall good to fix the leaks, which will still exist? They're not banning gas, they're banning new appliances and builds, which won't alleviate any of the existing problems at all. The bad air quality is due to leaks, which are pretty close to non-existent in new builds with new equipment. It's the old equipment and old pipes where the problem really is. Fix them?

Eventually existing gas appliances will be replaced and if only electric is available the inventory will shift. Just like gas cars to EVs.

Why add more buildings that will eventually leak?

You have to stop leaks from being made in the first place.

no because we obviously can’t keep up with the infrastructure, we need to gradually remove it and stop adding more

Agreed. Note that most of these are in older cities with old gas plumbing: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=natural+gas+house+explosion&t=osx&...

This isn't a rare occurrence.

I’m in favor of doing this, but not in favor of the law. It’s stupid policy that’s going to invigorate the MAGA movement in New York.

New York is dominated by NYC metro for issues like this, and the people lobbying for these polices don’t know that Utica, Tupper Lake or Binghamton exist. This year there was a blizzard that pummeled the Buffalo region with several feet of snow. Some folks lost power for 3 weeks. What are people supposed to do without cooking gas, heat or hot water?

Heat pumps are getting better, but need supplementation with space heaters in the extreme cold of winter.

I’m in CA and the funny thing is that my gas furnace would not work without power that is used to run fans pushing heated air through the house. It’s a safety feature

My gas (propane) cooktop works but you're not "supposed" to use it if power is out because it won't automatically reignite if the flame goes out. (Doesn't really matter as I have all sorts of camping backup I can use but I'm probably not supposed to use those indoors either.) I don't live in New York but I should probably get the propane fireplace insert I've been meaning to get before we ban it too.

You can light the pilot flame with a match.

Of course (or a lighter). Which is what I do if my power is out. However, the safety instruction "supposed not to use" is because not everyone will keep their eye on the burner and may go off and do something else if something is simmering on the stove.

Yes, but the gas fireplace sure came in handy.

The current governor is from the Buffalo metro area.

Wrong time to make this claim.

The Governor’s city of record is pretty insignificant. The Albany powerbrokers are almost all from NYC and the surrounding communities and the moneyed interests are most certainly from the City. Given that is who she has to play ball with, it makes sense policies would reflect the biases of the city, not the Governor’s home city.

Then that’s just representative democracy at work?

If the majority of people in New York are from NYC, then that’s who she must consider.

I guess the trade is orchard park gets a new stadium.

_Representative_ democracy is very specifically NOT majority rule.

The majority of the people elect the majority of the representatives?

You don’t know anything about NY politics. Thats irrelevant.

The previous governor was from NYC and Westchester, and shutdown the primary source of base-load electricity for that region. The plan here is that lots of solar farms will replace actual farms, which is deeply unpopular in rural areas and will kill the tax base, as localities won’t be able to set assessments independently. The other thing is to import more electricity from Hydro Quebec. (Which is a weird environmentalist play)

I think heat pumps are great, and invested in one myself. But inflicting needless pain in millions of people is, like I said, bad public policy. And the counter reaction will roll this back and have a worse net impact on the State.

You’re or supposed to comment like that on here.

I’m from rural Upstate NY fwiw.

What about you?

> I’m in favor of doing this, but not in favor of the law. It’s stupid policy that’s going to invigorate the MAGA movement in New York.

It should invigorate a lot more than the 38% of New Yorkers that voted for Trump

If this makes it easier to build new buildings/housing, I'm all for it.

How would adding obstacles make building new houses easier?

Eliminating gas piping and venting will make it easier.

I just priced a gas water heater and a heat pump water heater in a commercial setting. $4500 for gas with all venting and piping requirements included. $2750 for heat pump water heater, which should also have lower operating costs.

Nope, it'll make it harder and more expensive

Genuinely curious: how so?

How could banning something make it easier to do something? You already had the option not to do it, now you no longer have the option. It can only be neutral or worse.

I mostly agree, but there are some slight reasons that could contribute to making it easier:

* It could improve the economy of scale for electric, with more supply chains and installers getting used to it, reducing price.

* It removes the paradox of choice, so there's more time for building and less time wasted making a decision.

Gas hookups not being a practical requirement makes building new homes easier.

Gas being prohibited makes it no longer a feature developers feel is needed to be competitive with other new buildings competing in the same local market, making it no longer a practical requirement.

Developer incentives often don't the buyer's. Leaky pipes can be a nightmare to maintain but the developer obviously doesn't care.

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