Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

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> If the electrification saves money, then people will happily pay up for a technician

That’s the problem: it often doesn’t. I’d have an air-to-water heat pump heating my house today if the quotes I got were remotely cost-competitive with a replacement gas boiler. A payback of “never” or “not within the projected lifespan of the equipment”, coupled with far fewer people who can service the equipment and far less likelihood that any part you need will be right on the truck, means that a lot of houses, including my own, have a gas boiler installed and maybe will electrify in 20 years if it’s competitive then.

I’d have even paid a small premium ($3-6 thousand? Sure! But not well into five figures) to go air-to-water, but not 2-2.5x as much to buy into a possibly hard-to-service (due to lack of experienced techs with non-standard equipment, not because the equipment itself is a problem).

The UK is so far ahead of the US in air-to-water that it’s crazy to think we share a planet.

Because of this, a mini split is becoming a very common DIY project, the tool kit goes for $250 on Amazon, from what I understand you'll get a better install doing it yourself because you can purge the lines for the recommend 24 hours.

Purging the lines is done to eliminate moisture and other non-compressibles. The 24-hour standing vac test is a way (but not the only way) to prove a lack of leaks.

Particularly if you're going to flood with nitrogen (as the pros commonly do) and do a positive pressure decay test, there's absolutely no need to take overnight IMO. Taking overnight is a compensation mechanism that DIYers use to avoid buying the N2 bottle/regulator (which the pros already have because of their need to braze every so often).

I think DIYers can get as good a result as the pros, but I don't think the 24 hour vac test makes for a better result than a methodical pro will get.

> That’s the problem: it often doesn’t. I’d have an air-to-water heat pump heating my house today if the quotes I got were remotely cost-competitive with a replacement gas boiler.

Factor in the expected cost rises of natural gas and suddenly the economics change. Russia's invasion of Ukraine permanently killed the 5ct/kWh we had in Germany, the upcoming CO2 surcharge in 2024 will increase the price even more, and on top of that a lot of natural gas (and helium!) production is an often enough even unwanted side effect of oil production... so as the oil consumption of the world goes down, the availability of gas will drop as well.

My grid is not quite 50% natural gas powered now with oil-burning plants making around 30% during peak demand days in the winter.

Changing from local, first-party burning of natural gas to remote, third-party burning of natural gas doesn't isolate me from increasing gas prices.

> Changing from local, first-party burning of natural gas to remote, third-party burning of natural gas doesn't isolate me from increasing gas prices.

It doesn't, but the percentage of fossil fuels used to generate the electricity powering your heater is only going down as solar, wind and other forms of renewable electricity generation enter the field, so the effects of price hikes there will get lower and lower over a very short timeframe. Even nuclear can't compete against that any more on price, which is why just last week a project got shuttered in the US.

For obvious reasons, there is perfect anti-correlation between the months with the highest solar generation potential and the months with the highest heating demands on my house.

So what, that's what wind, water and geothermal are for. And even then, solar isn't completely out of the picture - as long as it's not pitch black from a storm, panels will still run 10-30% of their rated capacity.

Part of the price of gas to your home is also the infrastructure. At least around here, that cost is based around how much gas you use. So when gas usage goes down, but the cost to maintain infrastructure stays the same, they raise those prices too.

And as gas prices go up, I do expect more people to look at ways to reduce usage, whether that be electrification, or even just more efficient gas appliances. That'll be a feedback loop to lower usage, raise prices, which gets consumers to lower usage.

We have similar setup here as well (and I think that makes sense). I pay about $10/mo for the meter and then the gas is split into supply (the gas) and distribution (the transport). On a random month last winter (Jan 2023), distribution was 55% of the variable part of the bill and supply 45%. Last month, supply was $0.63 of a $32.54 variable part of the bill, owing to very little usage and a supply cost of only $0.0233/therm.

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