Heat house with electricity? Practical???

[Muse]

I bought my drafty (I guess) 110 year old 2 story house 20 years ago after having lived as a renter here for 17 years. There is still a rusty old disconnected heater in the crawl space from I'm supposing 50-60 years ago. So, it hasn't had central heating since that was disconnected.

This is Berkeley, CA. It rarely gets below freezing here. The coldest nights in recent years have been around 36F.

In winter is gets cold in the house, of course, this morning was probably average in my kitchen for winter, ~52F around dawn.

I'm proud of my small carbon footprint. Yes, I could have gas central heating installed. Don't know the parameters, what best system would work here, how much it would cost to install, how much it would cost to heat the house to 65F or whatever.

Right now, maybe 40% of the house is closed off to through air-flow, not air tight, but flow is majorly impeded by doors. That 40% of the house is probably 2-4F cooler than the kitchen, downstairs bathroom and my not-big upstairs bedroom, where I use an overhead 250watt heat lamp and occasional boost from a ~1200watt space heater if I'm using the room. At night, I don't heat the room.

Solar is big in CA. There are incentives. My PG&E bill is around $100/mo.

Is using electricity now a carbon reduction win or is my electricity probably just from natural gas basically?

The roof of my house is friendly to solar, a large section of roof faces the sun. If I install solar and a battery storage system is it feasible to heat the house with that? Wouldn't that keep my carbon footprint low?

 

[herm0016]

heat pumps are prefect for your climate. they use very little electricity for the amount of heat they output. electrical resistance heating is 100% efficient. watts of electricity in to watts of heat out. heat pumps use less watts than the watts of heat output. effective efficiency over 100%

if you have ducting, i would consider using it with a heat pump. I assume you have A/C? what kind of unit? heap pumps can provide cooling and heat in the same unit. if no ducting, i would do split systems in the rooms you use the most.

i thought Berkeley was banning the use of nat gas? for us, it gets to 20 or 30 below 0 a few times a year, we have a 120k btu boiler, and our elevation and required higher water temp for the system in my old house makes the condensing boilers only about as efficient as a 86% old school boiler. and even the best heat pumps can only provide heat down to 10 degrees or so outside temp.

we installed a 3 zone split system to cool our bedrooms in the summer, our electric bill was the same as using 2 window units before, and we run the split system probably 50% more time than we did the window units. they really are very efficient.

and yes, most of your electricity is probably from nat gas.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Electric heat could double your monthly bill if you use it much. CA is too restrictive for simple options like a wood burner. Not sure about NG or LP.

A new heat system will probably cost less to operate than whatever was put there so long ago.

'Green' option is GeoThermal, but it costs a lot of green to install.

 

[Muse]

I thought heat pumps were a gas thing! They're electricity? Shows how little I know!

AFAIK, there's no ducting here at all right now. There was a grate in the downstairs dining room, over where that old rusty heater sits in the crawl space. That grate was removed and replaced with a piece of plywood.

A/C? None! However, I have a window A/C I installed personally in my bedroom. I rarely turn it on. Maybe 3 times a year for an hour to cool my bedroom during a heat wave. It makes a LOT of noise. Instead of using A/C in my bedroom during the warmer months I have (next to the A/C unit in that window) a couple of 200mm "silent" (nearly so) computer fans I can turn on from my bed. They blow cooler night air into the room, which improves sleeping conditions, lowering the room temperature ~5 degrees after a time.

Berkeley is banning natural gas AFAIK only for stoves in the kitchen in new housing. Which is silly, but Berkeley! Wood burning fireplaces are banned too, but there's one in my living room. I use it once in a while. It does NOT heat the house but does heat ME when I'm sitting in front of it. I don't do that much. I have an over abundance of wood for it, but it leaves a smell in the living room/dining room area that I don't care for. That smell goes away in a day or two, though.

 

[herm0016]

with a split system, you can have wall mounted heads in each of your most used rooms, and one unit outside. they will heat and cool with electricity about as efficiently as possible. our 3 head system, Mitsubishi hyper heat ( you don't need hyper heat) cost about 12k. the non hyper heat version was 2k less. other manufactures are cheaper, and its possible to self install if you are so inclined. you may be able to get some rebates from your power company or city for "replacing" your old heater. we got a $500 rebate.


wood burning is not allowed in new homes, and you have to remove or block them up if you remodel more than 50% of your square footage here.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

When I assume control, I'll mandate all homes have wood burners.

 

[Muse]

When I assume control, I'll mandate all homes have wood burners.

I just made a little fire in my fireplace for the first time in weeks. Wore an N95 particle mask... guy I know said it's a serious health hazard, the particles, so... Didn't put on anything thicker than about an inch, put the screen back in place, split the living room

My sister (3 miles away) had a wood burning heater thing professionally installed in her living room a decade ago or so. After a while, removed it for a more conventional gas heating system. She's moving to Maui in the summer where I figure she won't need a heater (Kihei), I wouldn't! But she'll probably have one.

 

[herm0016]

you should not be getting much smoke into the home if the chimney is drawing properly.

 

[Muse]

you should not be getting much smoke into the home if the chimney is drawing properly.

It's probably not. Maybe I can clean it? I'm not noticing smoke inside but it doesn't take much to produce a smell. I have a very sensitive sense of smell. At least I think so, have no way of knowing just how sensitive, but it's sure not absent!

 

[herm0016]

cleaning can help, making sure the flue opens all the way can also help. getting the fire hot quickly is best, so you may not be producing all that much heat with small wood, i use a small starter block, and usually have a couple logs at least 2 or 3 in dia. with some kindling to start. use logs up to 6 or 8 inches in dia, split in half once it is going.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I like the smell. It's one of the reasons I use wood.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Heat pump is the way to go, you get heat & cooling out of them.
They make ductless units. They are more expensive and seems to typically need two or more.

I have a ducted Bosch heat pump I am very satisfied. I live in the northeast and as of Saturday last week I have burned less than 1/8th a tank of oil. My system provides heat thru the heat pump until temp drops below 20 degrees, then it hands off to the oil furnace.
We keep the house a constant 68F sometimes 66F overnight & sometimes 70F on Saturday or Sunday.
We have solar it’s electric demand has not outstripped our production on a yearly basis. December we drew from our over production credit but the panels were covered with snow for about two weeks.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Here’s my baby right now providing heat
**I know, I need to wash the window sill
***Going to stain the deck again in the spring

 

[herm0016]

wrong thread

 

[Muse]

cleaning can help, making sure the flue opens all the way can also help. getting the fire hot quickly is best, so you may not be producing all that much heat with small wood, i use a small starter block, and usually have a couple logs at least 2 or 3 in dia. with some kindling to start. use logs up to 6 or 8 inches in dia, split in half once it is going.

Not sure I have a flue! That would be a control right there inside? Outside, well, there's the chimney and at the top a brick chimney outcroping (vertical) and the top 1-3 bricks have come off! There was a chimney cap type thing that came off some years ago, and I have it in the yard. I've been meaning to repair that top and put the cap thing back on.

The tiny fire I made today is unusual, I usually make a bigger one, sometimes using "logs" up to 5-6 inches thick. I cut my logs real short, largely because I very often make a smaller fire and longer logs would over extend.

To start I put a little paper down on the iron fireplace stand at the bottom, put some twiggy kindling on that, slowly building up by tossing on thicker and thicker stuff as the fire gets going.

I like the smell. It's one of the reasons I use wood.

It may be the wood I'm using, it's all from my two very old and slowly dying plum trees.

 

[lxskllr]

If you wanted "green" heat, wood is it. It's pretty much carbon neutral. If you have an open fireplace, an insert(basically a wood stove) will provide *much* better heat than an open hearth.

 

[Muse]

If you wanted "green" heat, wood is it. It's pretty much carbon neutral. If you have an open fireplace, an insert(basically a wood stove) will provide *much* better heat than an open hearth.

Burning wood is "green" heat? That's news to me. How can that be? Doesn't it release CO2?

I can get an insert for my fireplace?

I do have quite a lot of wood from my plum trees. Of course, if I burned it daily through the winter I'd run out, but there's wood around!

 

[lxskllr]

Wood releases co2 that was captured when the the tree was growing. You burn that tree, another one grows in its place, and carbon=0. Fossil fuels release co2, but there's no mechanism to recapture it in any useful time frame, so it ends up in the atmosphere as excess.

Burning wood releases particulate pollution. That can be a real problem in place with unique geography like Los Angeles. The smoke will just hang over the town, as can be seen with traffic smog. Other places it's not such a big deal. Wood burning has fallen out of favor as a primary heat source most places, so a few people burning wood won't be a significant source of particle pollution. I also like the smell in reasonable quantities. Up to you how you feel about that aspect. My thoughts are you don't get much cold, wouldn't be burning much wood, and not many other people are burning wood either. The pollution is negligible.

An efficient insert will get a lot of heat out of the wood you have, so you wouldn't have to burn as much to get benefit. It'll cost money of course, but it'll never break down during a power outage, and if you get one that extends into your room(mine's like that), you can even cook on it.

 

[Greenman]

I bought my drafty (I guess) 110 year old 2 story house 20 years ago after having lived as a renter here for 17 years. There is still a rusty old disconnected heater in the crawl space from I'm supposing 50-60 years ago. So, it hasn't had central heating since that was disconnected.

This is Berkeley, CA. It rarely gets below freezing here. The coldest nights in recent years have been around 36F.

In winter is gets cold in the house, of course, this morning was probably average in my kitchen for winter, ~52F around dawn.

I'm proud of my small carbon footprint. Yes, I could have gas central heating installed. Don't know the parameters, what best system would work here, how much it would cost to install, how much it would cost to heat the house to 65F or whatever.

Right now, maybe 40% of the house is closed off to through air-flow, not air tight, but flow is majorly impeded by doors. That 40% of the house is probably 2-4F cooler than the kitchen, downstairs bathroom and my not-big upstairs bedroom, where I use an overhead 250watt heat lamp and occasional boost from a ~1200watt space heater if I'm using the room. At night, I don't heat the room.

Solar is big in CA. There are incentives. My PG&E bill is around $100/mo.

Is using electricity now a carbon reduction win or is my electricity probably just from natural gas basically?

The roof of my house is friendly to solar, a large section of roof faces the sun. If I install solar and a battery storage system is it feasible to heat the house with that? Wouldn't that keep my carbon footprint low?

Mini splits are going to be your best bet as you will only heat the areas you use. It would make a lot of sense to evaluate the entire envelope at that time. If the house hasn't been updated, the walls and ceilings aren't insulated at all. I believe PG&E still does the evaluations for free, and they used to offer subsidized upgrades, check with them. You'll also need to see if your electric service will handle a mini split system, a lot of those old places only have 50 or 60 amp services, depending on other loads, you may need to upgrade.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Mini splits are going to be your best bet as you will only heat the areas you use. It would make a lot of sense to evaluate the entire envelope at that time. If the house hasn't been updated, the walls and ceilings aren't insulated at all. I believe PG&E still does the evaluations for free, and they used to offer subsidized upgrades, check with them. You'll also need to see if your electric service will handle a mini split system, a lot of those old places only have 50 or 60 amp services, depending on other loads, you may need to upgrade.

Now this is a professional opinion

 

[BoomerD]

Our house, like almost every other house around here, only has electric wall heaters.

Cadet 240/208-volt 700/900/1600-watt Register In-wall Fan-forced Electric Heater in White RMC162W - The Home Depot

Safe, durable and powerful, the Register fan-forced electric heater provides excellent warm air flow, quickly warming up to 200 sq. ft. The horizontal, register-style grille blends seamlessly into any

www.homedepot.com

They work well enough, I guess...but they're expensive to run, tend to make a room either too hot...or too cold. Doesn't seem to be a sweet spot.

We're thinking about a dual head mini-split. We don't really need A/C here...it rarely gets over 80F, and we almost always have a nice ocean breeze...but 90+ isn't unheard of, so.........
THE local electric utility usually has rebates of $800-$1000 for them...but, of course, there are requirements on the hardware...and it has to be installed by a contractor on their "approved list."

 

[PowerEngineer]

Given the current political climate in California I would be hesitant to invest in a new gas heating system.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/busines...lators-clear-way-for-natural-gas-14900008.php

And it is not just California:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...onsider-ban-on-natural-gas-for-new-buildings/

Given the direction being taken, who can say whether or not gas heating in existing buildings will ne next?

I agree with the suggestion that you contact PG&E to see if they will provide you with free evaluation of your home's needs. I'd go for the insulation upgrades first and then consider a ductless heat pump system.

 

[Scarpozzi]

in 2009, I moved into my current house. It had a 1973 central air unit and had a coil heater on the air handler...so basically, it was an electric heater with a fan blowing air across the hot wires. My electric bill was high and the house was pretty cold once Winter came.

My last house had an air conditioner and a gas furnace with an air handler and I really missed having gas heat. I wasn't sure how well the heat pump would work. I don't live far up north, but there's a huge difference in the feel of the heat that comes out of a gas furnace. It heats up instantly and I think it heats the faster than electric systems. Because of this, I ended up ordering a dual fuel system from American Standard. It paired a 15 SEER Electric Heat Pump with an 80k btu, 98% efficient natural gas furnace. The thermostat kicks over to natural gas when the temp drops below 40 degrees (this can be changed to whatever). Most heat pumps fail when they operate too frequently below 30 degrees and can't exchange enough heat....so they basically burn out. With this setup, you don't have to worry about hearing the heat pump straining if the temp gets down cold enough.

Read up here:

Dual Fuel Heat Pump Reviews, Cost and Buying Guide 2023

Dual fuel heat pump systems have the lowest operating costs of all standard heating and air conditioning systems, especially where winters are very cold. In short, they produce the lowest winter energy bills. Dual fuel, or hybrid heat, systems feature a heat pump and gas furnace instead of the...

www.pickhvac.com

In your case, if you have mild winters, you can probably get by with an electric heat pump and supplement with electric space heaters, but the installation costs of adding the gas option isn't much more, but it is something else to maintain and worry about breaking. I'm really happy with the system and would definitely do it again. Mini splits are a good option, but aesthetically, not my favorite. I have one in a new space I added....went with Mitsubishi, got a 1200btu unit and it does well...just slow to adjust the temp. The outside unit is VERY quiet.

 

[zinfamous]

heat pumps are prefect for your climate. they use very little electricity for the amount of heat they output. electrical resistance heating is 100% efficient. watts of electricity in to watts of heat out. heat pumps use less watts than the watts of heat output. effective efficiency over 100%

if you have ducting, i would consider using it with a heat pump. I assume you have A/C? what kind of unit? heap pumps can provide cooling and heat in the same unit. if no ducting, i would do split systems in the rooms you use the most.

i thought Berkeley was banning the use of nat gas? for us, it gets to 20 or 30 below 0 a few times a year, we have a 120k btu boiler, and our elevation and required higher water temp for the system in my old house makes the condensing boilers only about as efficient as a 86% old school boiler. and even the best heat pumps can only provide heat down to 10 degrees or so outside temp.

we installed a 3 zone split system to cool our bedrooms in the summer, our electric bill was the same as using 2 window units before, and we run the split system probably 50% more time than we did the window units. they really are very efficient.

and yes, most of your electricity is probably from nat gas.

A/C in Berkeley? HAhahahahahahahahahahah!

OP, the units I lived in around there always had one or two single wall-panel gas heaters. They were direct-feed, so they had their own pilot that you'd have to remember to re-light during the cold ~week of the year.

This was fine for most spaces, and you probably don't need it for the whole house--maybe the bedroom, but definitely the living space. I wouldn't see a need to heat a bedroom there. There is no Berkeley temperature that a single down comforter can't handle.

 

[zinfamous]

If you wanted "green" heat, wood is it. It's pretty much carbon neutral. If you have an open fireplace, an insert(basically a wood stove) will provide *much* better heat than an open hearth.

generally a no-go in the Bay Area: many days of the year have no-burn ordinances (smog).