Re: OT Electric or Gas furnance.

Posted by MarkB on September 30, 2003 at 18:25:25 from (64.79.81.239):

In Reply to: OT Electric or Gas furnance. posted by Chances R on September 30, 2003 at 16:22:51:

Without knowing where you live, it's impossible to say if a heat pump is a good idea. Also, "heat pump" covers a lot of territory. I assume you're talking about a standard unit that looks like a central air conditioner. There's a big difference in the efficiency of one of these units and one of the high-priced systems that use buried piping or well water as a heat sink/heat source.

With regards to the rising gas prices, what your A/C guy forgot to mention is why gas prices are going up. Demand for gas is going up because almost all new electric generating plants are gas turbines. It's a lot more efficient to deliver gas to your home and burn it there than to deliver it to a generating plant, burn it to generate power and send the power over transmission lines to your home. That's why it will ALWAYS be cheaper to heat with natural gas than with a heat pump.

Now if you use propane rather than natural gas, the cost difference between a heat pump and a furnace is not nearly as great. But it's still going to be cheaper to use propane in most parts of the country.

I had a house in coastal North Carolina that I heated with a heat pump. Actually, that's not quite true: I heated the house with a kerosene heater, because the heat pump did not deliver comfortable heat. If the auxiliary heat is off, the air coming out of the ducts is only a few degrees warmer than room air, so it feels like there's a cold draft going through the room. When the aux heat kicks on, it feels more comfortable but it really makes the meter spin.

Seriously, if you have natural gas coming into your home, install one of the new high efficiency gas furnaces and you'll have no regrets.

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