Americans want heat pumps – but high electricity prices may get in the way | Hacker News Reader

Americans want heat pumps – but high electricity prices may get in the way

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35 pointsPaulHoule53 comments

I've been using two heat pumps near Austin, Texas since 2011, rated at a total of 84,000 BTU/hr (4 ton + 3 ton capacity) (25KW of heat) on a total of 5KW electrical input (COP ~= 5.0).

They are standard outdoor air heat exchangers so below about 35F efficiency drops significantly. That's pretty rare around here so it is almost always enough - we can still gain about 45F vs the outdoor temperature even below 20F.

We don't have natural gas available where I live, only propane. When I purchased the heat pumps, propane was $5/gallon for 91,500 BTU. That translates to about $4.60/hr to run 84,000 BTU/hr of furnace. With electric energy (cheap in Texas!) at about $0.11/KWh, the equivalent costs of my heat pumps was and remains close to about $0.55/hr to run.

In the summer, they cool with equal capacity and similar power consumption for a 15 SEER rating (waste heat from the system components works against cooling in the summer!)

Factor in your acquisition costs (mine, just after the housing bust and with a little legwork, were about 20% of retail at the time, so a no-brainer) and you can get a lot more objective idea what you're really accomplishing.

> I've been using two heat pumps near Austin... (25KW of heat)

Is this for a single house? What kind of insulation do you have

For ATX, this capacity is entirely about the summer. Any winter performance is an afterthought.

That's for sure. It can get pretty hot and humid, not quite Houston-like but you spend some significant cooling capacity condensing water out of the indoor air as well.

Insulation works regardless of the climate though. A well insulated house will be much easier to cool down in Texas, and much easier to warm up in Alaska

I hear you, it's a single two-story house built in 2000, not small but smaller than typical developers build these days here. I added 18 inches of insulation to the attic, not much I can do in the walls. Double-pane glass. It's not drafty but seems poorly insulated as a whole despite being relatively modern and better-than-average quality. Houses in cold climates seem much tighter and better insulated.

Electricity prices have gone up due to datacenters as well as neglected grid infrastructure needing investment. Natural gas prices are going up because of LNG export infrastructure causing US consumers to compete against global LNG consumers for fuel to heat, as well as domestic electrical generation demand. Pick your poison.

Electricity prices might come down over time (renewables push down generation costs), natural gas prices won’t due to global demand for it.

What happened to cheap home solar with batteries?

You don’t really make that much electricity in the winter when you need the heat

I picked a random spot in New York state. It looks like the solar generation in January is about 68% of July. As solar keeps getting cheaper, one option is to just install more solar.

Don't get me wrong, there are still issues here, like snow or back-to-back-to-back cloudy days. But the rate of a price change for solar has been pretty dramatic.

That's my challenge in Colorado.

I installed a modest solar system (5kwh) in 2024 and was incredibly happy with the results. On any given 24 hour period it'd offset 40% of my electricity consumption (EV, hot tub being the big loads).

Last year I installed a cold climate heat pump. I'm incredibly happy with the switch from gas as my primary heat source. The solar now only covers ~15-20% of my consumption in winter.

So my solution this year will be to add more solar. In the two years since I installed mine prices have halved. I'm fortunate enough to be able to do a DIY install, properly permitted and inspected, for about $350/400w panel once you factor in inverters, mounts, etc.

It's an amazing time for affordable energy.

Installation costs dominate the price. I check every few years, and while the hardware is down to about $5k for me, cost for installation remained $45k-$50k. Which is where it’s been for years. Makes diy very attractive though.

How big is that system? Without incentives mine was half that for 8kw.

How hard is it to DIY?

The installation is straightforward, but the problem comes when you want to connect to the grid, because you have to get it approved by the utility. I'm sure getting a DYI installation approved by the utility is _possible_, but I wouldn't count on it. And, you may not know that you got disapproved until you've made the investment and are sort of screwed.

What I did was install solar with batteries and inverters that have the ability to never export power to the utility. That way I didn't have to tell them or seek their approval.

That cost makes absolutely no sense. It takes one single day for a couple of people to install solar and batteries on a residential house.

Baumol's Cost Disease at work, I guess.

It's a third or fourth of the price in Australia with equivalent labor costs.

It's mostly unnecessary red tape and a broken market that cause the differences.

Australian labor costs are significantly lower than the US, as are labor costs in most countries. Americans are paid pretty well.

Solar installer costs are broadly comparable as Australians are better qualified and even if they weren't comparable the fraction of the cost isn't enough to explain the total difference.

There's various studies comparing the two countries, Tesla did one and found various technical approach changes and permitting reforms. It suggests labor is 7% of the cost in the US. Soft costs around acquisition, sales and marketing can be 18%.

50k? I could fly there, stay somewhere nice, buy a decent truck, put the solar PV on your roof, and make it home with 20k in my pocket to upgrade my solar power with and a truck.

That explains why many tradesman here are always driving new trucks.

This is bananas. Ten years ago I paid £5.5k for a whole 3.9kW installation, which has now more than paid for itself. I can see why everyone in the US is saying "get a trade job", you can rip off householders to a massive extent.

What kind of power we're talking about here? I was quoted €10600 (around half of which will be government-subsidized) for 8 kWp worth of panels + 10.24 kWh battery storage, including project documentation (for subsidies), labor, and materials.

I haven’t paid attention to the change in my utility prices but my natural gas furnace is much cheaper for heating than my electric heat pump (I have both and my thermostat can pick). I believe our local electricity is almost fully from renewables already.

The price of electricity where I am in California is pretty cheap for the energy itself -- I pay about $20/mo for generation -- but the cost for electricity delivery is absolutely fucking insane. It costs me $90 for "delivery" of that $20 worth of electricity.

If the press reports are accurate, your electricit infrastructure needs investments, so hopefully your money pays for that, and not someone's bonuses.

Well for heat pump hot water heaters you are going to get them in 2029, like it or not...

https://www.hotwater.com/info-center/doe-regulations/doe-res...

"The standards will require minor updates to gas-fired storage (gas tank) water heaters."

This is why the heat pump should come along with local electric generation (mostly solar) and local storage (mostly battery banks).

In this configuration a typical suburban home can provide ALL of it's own energy needs, including 2 electric cars.

This also needs to come along with a massive reorganization of the US' electric utilities, which are primarily optimized to provide the most money possible to some rich assholes.

Instead we should be optimized for local generation, storage and distribution.

That is to say, we should be technologically optimized, not shareholder return optimized.

Obviously, this won't happen while the world's richest have the sway that they currently hold on policy.

But in the mean time, each homeowner can move ahead with local generation and storage that provides for all of their local energy consumption.

And YES, it does pay for itself over a shorter time span than a typical mortgage...

It’s the install cost that’s in the way, not the electricity cost. A heat pump and a solar array would be great, I’d love to stick that on my house, if I wasn’t buried in debt.

I had an install of a heat pump slightly oversized for the work trailer used. Every day it was below 30-40F 0C-4C, the pre-heater would kick on. A heat strip inside the heat pump.

It would take 30min to an hour to get heat out of the heat pump. We had to get portable heaters to supplement the heat generated and while the pre-heater was running.

Then in summer it could not handle cooling so we needed an additional loud window AC.

So obviously it was undersized, not oversized, lol

Do we though? I've had both and I much prefer natural gas.

I'm a big natural gas guy (for cooking) with property in Coastal California. But, I think getting off gas may be the way to go. My utility bill requires a gas transport fee, and looking at it, when I am absent, I'm spending $120+/month for a pilot light and an idle water heater. Electricity would offer a cheaper way to shut off the usage while gone, and to avoid the excessive gas fees. So, I'd consider a electric water heater, electric stove, and then I have to resolve the heating issue, but climate is mild where I live.

Ramping up idle fees is how they will force the holdouts onto electricity. $120/mo is insane. We pay about $15/mo but I can certainly see it going up

At $120/mo might as well just get a big propane tank and have a tanker come refill it every six to twelve months. If they’re not using it to heat the house a 500 gallon tank lasts a long time. Bonus points because you can use it as a generator fuel source for the inevitable California power outage and possible earthquake disaster.

On my issue, the temperature extremes are like 61-63 with an average of 62. LOL. I’m out of state 6 months a year. I could just shut off the gas. But the realization w the recent price increases really make me want to get rid of gas. I bet I save $500 a year.

They'll ramp up automatically as people switch to the new system and less people use the old system that's sized and priced as if everyone is using it.

In more organized places they are a) ensuring new subdivisions are gas free from the start and b) disconnecting large areas of older connections simultaneously to minimize overheads.

That's a choice, not automatic. The government subsides many, many things and that doesn't have to be an exception. They should just continue to advertise the absolute amazingness of the alternatives, train government backed installers, and use the carrot and stick method

Instead of just whacking people with the stick (and leave the installations entirely up to the private sector who have a terrible history of being conmen when it's the government providing grants to the businesses)

Don't worry, the excessive fee even when you're not using it aka "Base Services Charge" is coming to electricity as well.

I've used gas and induction stoves and they are almost comparable. I certainly wouldn't replace my heat pump and induction stove with gas.

For those who don't know: they make induction ranges with knobs now. Touch controls aren't necessary. Since that was one of the most common real complaints, I figure it's worth noting that it's no longer universally valid.

What do you mean by prefer? Is it more economical in your location? (Where?) Or...?

You get fast control with gas, I have cooked a lot with gas that instant enveloping heat is nice! New electric stoves are in my view superior, because they are less messy and have even better control.

Induction is more responsive than gas

This article is about heating a house, not a pot.

Even older electric stoves are fast at control as long as it's an induction and not basic electric.

Why do you prefer gas?

Why would you prefer natural gas? That stuff is expensive and cooking with it is pretty toxic. Would much rather have government subsidies like the Australians have for solar panels to get over the initial large investment needed for the heat pump.

Number of times me or my family lost power in various states: a lot.

Number of times we lost water: 3.

Number of times we lost natural gas? Zero.

We don’t want them, they are being forced on us by banning natural gas furnaces and efficient refrigerants.

Mhm, and naughty kooks are banning your rolling coal truck too. Such a nasty, nasty people.

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