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Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

> energy independence

We use LPG gas (from a tank buried at the bottom of the garden) feeding a gas boiler to heat our house.

I'm all for energy independence, and would love to switch to a more environmentally-friendly energy source, but I'm deeply concerned about how much this will cost me, and even if I did have the money, based on reports in local media, getting a heating engineer in would take many months.

Half a continent wants to switch energy supply "now" and the world was already suffering a serious supply chain crisis. Changing quickly may simply not be possible, never mind affordable.

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We are in Germany and switched to a heatpump system 4 years ago through incentives over the "Marktanreizprogramm" we got over 45% of the costs reimbursed. It's not even only on the supply chain crisis it's simply ramping up production and training installers because everyone was totally fine with just doing oil and gas for a long time but now everyone scrambles. Shortsightness not only from the state but everyday people and businesses. Thank god for being Links-Grün versifft.

For our detached house the price of a heatpump setup is about 40.000 euros. We decided to stick with gass for a while. At some point a electrical heat unit would be better. Very inefficient, but with solar and batteries a lot cheaper than a heatpump. About 15.000 euros.

That's interesting, so the tank is permanent and you refill it somehow? If yes, how often? Can you do the same thing with natural gas? Does the place you live in have natural gas?

It depends on the heating need and size of the tank.

In the US, there is nothing unusual about a 1,000 gallon tank that you might fill twice a year.

Not your parent poster, but the tanks are commonly installed above-ground in the rural USA. It is propane (C3H8), which is liquid under pressure. Tanks are refilled as needed depending on usage via a tanker truck. I assume this is monthly but I don't personally have one.

In the US, natural gas normally refers to methane (CH4) heating, attached to a city methane heating grid. I pay a monthly bill per cubic foot of methane burned. Currently my water heater and furnace are methane. I live near Kansas City.

It depends on tank size and usage. I have small tank I use just for a range and it gets filled once a year—I use less than the minimum.

As residential development continues to expand and natural gas delivery systems do not to match in many areas the use of propane has moved beyond the rural US. I have a house in a suburban neighborhood developed in the last 10 years and all the houses have buried propane tanks instead of natural gas hookups. The propane fuels heating systems, hot water heaters and stove tops. Most have grills and fire pits also attached. I have all those plus the propane fuels an emergency whole house generator.

How often tanks are refilled depends upon your particular usage pattern and the time of year. Refills can occur on demand, on an automatic basis determined by looking at your past usage patterns or as in my case triggered by an IoT connected meter which notifies my propane supplier when my tanks fall below a pre-determined level. Depending on the time of year it can be 3 months or 6 months between fills.

A township I lived in had a provision against natural gas in the master plan.

Not sure if it was an actual blocker, or just a statement that there was no plan to install infrastructure.

> the tank is permanent and you refill it somehow? If yes, how often?

Yup, dug into the ground when the house was built, and refilled basically once every two years ever since.

Given I used to be a lab chemist, it's oddly fascinating watching the tanker drive up and then the best part of 1000kg of propane is pumped into a tank under part of your garden...

We were told "no naked flames within 3m of the tank" - we BBQ at the other end of the garden :)

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