They can pry my cave fire from my coal dead hands.

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brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,849
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ALBANY — A group of businesses, trade associations and labor unions filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the legality of New York’s ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new residential buildings — a central pillar of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for green energy.

Electrical delivery on the grid is much less reliable than natural gas or oil. Seems like a bad idea in cold weather states regarding heat.

Your gas furnace isn’t very useful when the power is out.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,728
6,755
126
I like fire.
Maybe Prometheus then, but I was wondering if woods toves were a variety of slithy toves, but in any case with a BurnItDwn should definitely not live in a forest or gyre and gimble in the wabe. Fires there can light your ass.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,366
16,635
146

ALBANY — A group of businesses, trade associations and labor unions filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the legality of New York’s ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new residential buildings — a central pillar of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for green energy.

Electrical delivery on the grid is much less reliable than natural gas or oil. Seems like a bad idea in cold weather states regarding heat.
As others have said, gas does shit all for you without power unless you intend on asphyxiating yourself by burning the stove burners indoors.

You're better off hanging out in your car with the heat on and the garage door open.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,022
4,643
126
Your gas furnace isn’t very useful when the power is out.
I got this on sale (much cheaper than the sale price listed in the link below) and it runs my gas furnace just fine when the power is out. It also runs my fridge, freezer, and office all with 100% uptime for short to moderate power outages (office so that I have light and a functional router/modem even with power out). Storage is the second half of the green energy plan. I get 30% tax savings on top of the sale price because it is over 3000 Whr.

It certainly is with a low power output gas generator.
That works too.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,366
16,635
146
I got this on sale (much cheaper than the sale price listed in the link below) and it runs my gas furnace just fine when the power is out. It also runs my fridge, freezer, and office all with 100% uptime for short to moderate power outages (office so that I have light and a functional router/modem even with power out). Storage is the second half of the green energy plan. I get 30% tax savings on top of the sale price because it is over 3000 Whr.


That works too.
Am I doing the math on this right, one of those 'unstacked' would give me around a half hour of power, in a household at somewhere around 1500kwh/mo right?
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,022
4,643
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Am I doing the math on this right, one of those 'unstacked' would give me around a half hour of power, in a household at somewhere around 1500kwh/mo right?
Note: that is a pair that is best used together. The top item is an inverter that converts AC to DC and DC to AC. It does not have any storage itself. The bottom item is a 3072 Whr battery. While the battery could be used by itself, it would only be for DC powered items so it's functionality is minimal.

You are using roughly 2083 W of power on average (1500 * 1000 / 30 / 24 = 2083). Usually it is best to not use more than 80% of the power of a battery (LiFePO4 batteries like this one can go up to 100% and down to 0% but it isn't recommended to do that long-term). So, that battery has a more realistic 80% * 3072 Whr = 2458 Whr usable capacity. At an average use of 2083 W, you would consume that in 2458 Whr / 2083 W = 1.18 hours.

This particular battery isn't really useful for a whole house battery. Whole home batteries start at ~$10k and quickly go up in price from there. Check out Bluetti EP800 / EP900, Zendure SuperBase, LG Energy RESU16H, Generac PWRcell, SunPower SunVault, Blue Planet Energy Blue Ion HI, BYD HVL 12, HomeGrid Stack'd, Qcells, Sonnen SonnenCore, Lion Sanctuary, or the Tesla Powerwall. Honestly, a good gas powered generator is the better route at those prices.

The "portable" battery that I linked is really mostly good for just a few circuits in your house. I hooked it up to a 6-circuit transfer switch (although I only am using 4 of the circuits). For that I get 3 days without the furnace and 1 day with the furnace running on a significantly cold day (I also added a second battery but not a second inverter). https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07BK63MQN

I also have solar panels that can extend that range, but you can never fully count on them. For example, the winter storm that covered much of the US in mid January dumped snow blocking most of the solar energy. And it froze solid such that I didn't want to hammer at the ice and risk damaging the panels.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,366
16,635
146
Note: that is a pair that is best used together. The top item is an inverter that converts AC to DC and DC to AC. It does not have any storage itself. The bottom item is a 3072 Whr battery. While the battery could be used by itself, it would only be for DC powered items so it's functionality is minimal.

You are using roughly 2083 W of power on average (1500 * 1000 / 30 / 24 = 2083). Usually it is best to not use more than 80% of the power of a battery (LiFePO4 batteries like this one can go up to 100% and down to 0% but it isn't recommended to do that long-term). So, that battery has a more realistic 80% * 3072 Whr = 2458 Whr usable capacity. At an average use of 2083 W, you would consume that in 2458 Whr / 2083 W = 1.18 hours.

This particular battery isn't really useful for a whole house battery. Whole home batteries start at ~$10k and quickly go up in price from there. Check out Bluetti EP800 / EP900, Zendure SuperBase, LG Energy RESU16H, Generac PWRcell, SunPower SunVault, Blue Planet Energy Blue Ion HI, BYD HVL 12, HomeGrid Stack'd, Qcells, Sonnen SonnenCore, Lion Sanctuary, or the Tesla Powerwall. Honestly, a good gas powered generator is the better route at those prices.

The "portable" battery that I linked is really mostly good for just a few circuits in your house. I hooked it up to a 6-circuit transfer switch (although I only am using 4 of the circuits). For that I get 3 days without the furnace and 1 day with the furnace running on a significantly cold day (I also added a second battery but not a second inverter). https://www.amazon.com//dp/B07BK63MQN

I also have solar panels that can extend that range, but you can never fully count on them. For example, the winter storm that covered much of the US in mid January dumped snow blocking most of the solar energy. And it froze solid such that I didn't want to hammer at the ice and risk damaging the panels.
That's pretty much exactly what I figured. I don't know enough about the math behind the scenes for this stuff, would be nice to see something akin to a whole home UPS that wasn't some crazy shit liquid cooled chrome tipped musk battery, or something that looks like it was dredged out of a Russian wreck yard. Something in between that was just a hands off workhorse.
 
Jun 18, 2000
11,208
772
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I also have solar panels that can extend that range, but you can never fully count on them. For example, the winter storm that covered much of the US in mid January dumped snow blocking most of the solar energy. And it froze solid such that I didn't want to hammer at the ice and risk damaging the panels.

How much power would you get from them if you could have brushed off all the snow. Assuming it's still cold and gray.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,022
4,643
126
How much power would you get from them if you could have brushed off all the snow. Assuming it's still cold and gray.
On a good sunny January day, I'm getting ~30 kWhr of solar power. On a cloudy January day I'm getting 5 to 6 kWhr of solar power. With snow + clouds, I was getting 0.2 to 0.5 kWhr. For a comparison, on the average January day over the last 6 years, I use 21.2 kWhr. Bitter cold days use more and warm days use less of course.

Since I pay 6.3 cents/kWhr in January, the snow cost me ~$0.36 per cloudy day. Not really a monetary issue. If it were sunny then the snow would have cost me ~$1.87/day. But, then the snow would have melted off quicker too.

I should break this off and make a separate solar thread one day when I have the time.
 
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