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Comment by sgerenser | Hacker News Reader

Natural gas is dirt cheap in most of the U.S., so it does make it hard for heat pumps to compete, especially if electricity is expensive. Just checked my most recent gas bill and I only paid $1.09/therm (plus 7% sales tax and $10 fixed fee).

OTOH if you’re heating with propane or fuel oil, heat pumps are probably a good alternative.

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Last year I had to replace my HVAC. I was set on getting a heat pump, being a huge fan of efficiency. I was averaging a $1.05/therm delivered for gas, and about 17.5 cents/kwh for electricity delivered. A therm is about 29 kwh, so I pay the equivalent of $5.07/therm in electricity.

The best whole house air-source heat pumps had a SEER2 of 18.5, or a COP of just under 5.0. I need a COP of over 5 to just break even in terms of cost efficiency. So a heat pump would actually cost me more on an ongoing basis. And the price for a heat pump installation was $10k more than a furnace/AC.

I just couldn't do it. To pay more up front and then ongoing was just too much. If you showed me even a super long range projection of saving money, I would have been down for it, but it just was not there.

If I can get solar on my house it may make sense, I will cross that bridge in a few years as my roof is almost end of life, but that has its own headaches as I have limited space (brownstone, flat roof), and am in a historic district.

Next go around, as heat pump tech improves and hopefully gets cheaper, it will probably make sense, but for me right now, it just didn't work.

Thats kind of high. I only pay $0.78 a therm here in Wisconsin. 1 therm is around 30kwh so im paying like 2.5c a kwh vs 17c for electricity. So unless I can get a CoP of 700% from a air source heatpump im literally lighting money on fire. That really is the main issue, as much as I care about emissions I don't care enough to spend money on a heat pump to then spend more money on utilities. And the calculus gets worse and worse when your poorer.

Looks like Wisconsin has lower than average natgas prices vs. rest of U.S.: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_a_EPG0_PRS_DMcf_m.htm

seems pretty comparable to the other colder parts of the country. (besides the east coast) The warmer parts of the US i'd imagine are less sensitive to residential gas prices.

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