Going electric

[mouse]

Our natural gas furnace is at the end of its lifespan and we’re thinking of going all electric. First quote (the others are booked a few weeks out) said they recommend a dual system with electric furnace for backup because although we don’t get many winters in the teens, when it happens it’s going to suck. Anyone have experiences with this? Pros or cons?

[Susie]

I don't have any experience, and wouldn't be interested in switching to electricity for heat without some kind of backup.  I live in an area that has deep, long, cold stretches in the winter, and with power failures becoming more common and longer in duration due to extreme weather events/climate change, I sleep better at night knowing I have a "Plan B."  Winter outages are legit dangerous.  Our last house had a woodburning fireplace that I considered the heat of last resort, since electricity is needed for various components of the gas furnace/etc.  Our current house is all gas (furnace, fireplace, water heater, range, oven, clothes dryer).  

We're on a waitlist for a Generac whole house generator for June 2022.  Once we have that, there's a lot I'm more comfortable switching to electric.  I will feel much more free to have electric appliances for the renewable energy benefit, knowing I have the generator to cover me in emergencies.  The generator takes away the "what if we have an extended/dangerous temp/duration power outage" justification to keep a gas heat source, gas cooking source, etc.  Even so, I don't see us ever using electricity as a primary heat source; I don't think it's common in cold winter areas.

[wildrice]

I guess I do? We have all electric. We have a heat pump and there is a backup indoor method that kicks in if the heat pump stops working. We actually did have this happen last winter, and it ended up that the heat pump compressor needing replacing. It seems...fine? I don't know. This is my first time in a house with a heat pump and we've been here about 1.5 years now. Other than that issue, it seems to work just like any other heater and I am not noticing any increased costs, though I don't have a lot to compare it to locally - we haven't lived anywhere in this state with gas heat. I will say my overall energy costs here are similar to what they were in our old state with gas heat.

The backup heat worked fine, and although I thought it was going to make our electric bill crazy, it really didn't. I want to say the bills were like $20-30 more per month during the period when we were running only on backup heat (long story, it took forever to get the compressor replaced so I think we were at 2-3 months of backup heat!). Our normal bills are like $120-130 so that wasn't a tiny increase but it's not like they doubled or anything.

I guess that's not a ringing recommendation, but it's not a deterrent either - it's heat, I can't get too excited lol. I don't see any reason to avoid it!

[Deleted]

My current house and my last house are both all electric, as in, gas isn't even an option unless you have a propane tank on property. My last house had a Heat Pump and it was awful. It could never keep up on the really cold days and the electric back-up was extremely expensive when it had to turn on. My current house has electric baseboards which I actually love. We have separate thermostats in each room so it is very customizable (H and I literally never turn on the heat in our bedroom because we prefer it very cool to sleep). The only downside is that the baseboards do dictate furniture placement, but overall, that's not a huge deterrent.

[rubytue]

Where do you live? How cold are your winters? Heat pump only was fine growing up in TN. Our house in MD had heat pump, and it struggled in cold snaps, or was super expensive when it when into the electric backup (which was coiled heating elements). It was much better once we put in a pellet stove, which helped keep our basement and first floor warm. Then we’d run the fan to circulate the warm air.

Personally, I would want a fueled backup heat if you lived somewhere where it stayed below about 35 for days or weeks at a time.

[atarianna]

We had all electric for a year and it was terrible. I equated the emergency heat (electric backup furnace) to trying to heat the house with a blow dryer. It cost us $400+ a month for 3 months of the winter and never really felt warm.

Now we have a 16 seer heat pump with a propane furnace backup and I love it. The heat pump is perfect for chilly weather down to about 25° and the furnace will kick in if below that. We also have a high efficiency wood stove that heats 3000sf, so we don’t use the propane much at all.

[memenee]

Where I live, all electric houses are very rare and when I do see them,
They sit on the market, and we are in a very hot real estate market. I’m told it’s very expensive to heat a big house with electricity. I don’t know how true that is but most houses here are gas. What is making you want to switch to electric?

[mouse]

We live in Portland Oregon, so generally fairly temperate. We’ll go years without it going down to the teens or significant snow accumulation.

Two units we’re considering (Bosch and Daikin) the manufacturers claim will go down to -4 and 5 degrees without needing the backup heaters. One vendor was calling the backup heaters an “electric furnace” but we’ve since learned that it’s essentially a heating coil plus a blower (basically a large hair dryer).

We have a smaller home (1500 sq ft) so not too much to heat anyway. I run hot, so I usually like it around 67 in the winter.

We’re also not the market that’s going to require a gas stove as a selling point. We have electric coil currently, might upgrade to induction once it needs replacing.

Oil heating is an issue because of the potential of leaks, I don’t know that there’s a huge preference beyond that. We’re also planning on hanging on to the house, either by living in it or as an investment property.

Why?

Well, safety is an issue. There’s been recent studies that gas isn’t as clean-burning as they claim (especially with cooking, but still). Small leaks while they won’t kill you, might have significant health effects. Even levels that your average CO2 sensor might not pickup. Plus, even if small, I really don’t like the possibility of explosions.

The carbon footprint is a serious concern to me. We’ve got mostly hydro and wind power locally. I think there’s one coal plant left in the state, and it’s due to be decommissioned. Electric is a much cleaner option for us. Frankly, the practices of the natural gas companies for extraction disgust me. Plus, they’re not telling the truth about the cleanliness or safety aspects. They’re currently gearing up to fight our environmental regulations and last term defeated a cap & trade bill. Fuck them. I want out.

[mouse]

Small vent: I hate relying on vendors to explain the advantages and disadvantages of products. Surprise! The ones they sell are the best. And also getting different prices for the same product depending on who I call, or pushed into maintenance plans for extended warranties, etc. I will not weep when there is market correction for these practices.

[SusanBAnthony]

We live in an area that is really cold for multiple months (usually Nov-Mar have below freezing for sure and Dec-Feb are frequently below zero).

I just don't trust a heat pump in our climate and the people I know who heat with all electric spend a fortune. So for us it doesn't seem feasible to go electric.

[icedcoffee]

Around here (Maryland) electric heating is crazy expensive. As a comparison, same house two blocks away. We have gas and they have electric. Very cold month the electric house bills were over $900 and our electric and gas bills combined were $200.

[scm1011]

In our old house the third floor (where all our bedrooms were) was heated exclusively with electric heat. Aside from being super expensive, it was SO DRY. Like if I was lazy and didn’t fill my humidifier I’d wake up with a bloody nose kind of dry. Just something to keep in mind.

[wildrice]

Nov 9, 2021 7:04:36 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

In our old house the third floor (where all our bedrooms were) was heated exclusively with electric heat. Aside from being super expensive, it was SO DRY. Like if I was lazy and didn’t fill my humidifier I’d wake up with a bloody nose kind of dry. Just something to keep in mind.

Yes, this is one thing I forgot. Our house has huge humidity swings - like we went directly from running a dehumidifier to turning on the heat and now needing a humidifier. I don't really get why but the house was often at like 25% humidity in the winter last year. I didn't have nose bleeds but always had a bit of a sore/tight throat, which was really fun last year with COVID concerns. It's better with humidifiers but still runs toward the dry side.

I am glad I didn't read this thread before buying my house. Our bills have honestly been fine with all electric so IDK what is normal but I wouldn't necessarily assume your bills will be outrageous either. 

[Deleted]

Nov 9, 2021 14:29:38 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Nov 9, 2021 7:04:36 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

In our old house the third floor (where all our bedrooms were) was heated exclusively with electric heat. Aside from being super expensive, it was SO DRY. Like if I was lazy and didn’t fill my humidifier I’d wake up with a bloody nose kind of dry. Just something to keep in mind.

Yes, this is one thing I forgot. Our house has huge humidity swings - like we went directly from running a dehumidifier to turning on the heat and now needing a humidifier. I don't really get why but the house was often at like 25% humidity in the winter last year. I didn't have nose bleeds but always had a bit of a sore/tight throat, which was really fun last year with COVID concerns. It's better with humidifiers but still runs toward the dry side.

I am glad I didn't read this thread before buying my house. Our bills have honestly been fine with all electric so IDK what is normal but I wouldn't necessarily assume your bills will be outrageous either. 

Same to the humidity swings. We have to run a dehumidifier in our basement during the warm months otherwise it gets super musty. We finally set it up to drain in to the sump pump pit because it was such a pain in the ass to empty the thing once, sometimes twice a day. Then it's the opposite in the winter, if we don't at least run a humidifier in our main living area, we all walk around shocking each other and ourselves. 

I really think it's going to depend on what type of electric heat you have. We had forced air with a heat pump back up in our last house and it was extremely expensive. Our current house we have electric baseboards and even though the house is bigger, our bills are only about 1/3 of what they were in our last house. 

[mouse]

Interesting. I will ask about the humidity. Portland/PNW is famously damp, so I was viewing that as a bonus.

Our average winter low is 37, so barring the rare cold snap, we should be able to use just the heat pump most of the winter.

This is actually kind of reassuring to me. Despite the fact that most of the rebates are for staying with gas. Ugh.