this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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I live in a progressive state in the US and currently renovating a house. Holy crap they all fight me tooth and nail telling me what a horrible idea they are. Nothing but problems, always break, oh my goodness what if the power goes out, the grid cannot handle the load so don't do it. These old timers need to go away.
...then your gas or oil heater doesn't work, either...
Their point is use a small generator to power the gas heater where as a heat pump is 'impossible'.I mention a whole house battery is in my 5 year plan to which they laugh and say your house will burn down. I don't have the patience. I told them I'm an electrical engineer specialized in battery systems and to let me worry about the lithium fires. That shut him up fast.
I designed my heating system around a fairly efficient non-condensing NG boiler that takes 40W for the fan. I can run it and the circulators off my battery bank no problem, and handle a sustained power failure. But only because of the natural gas.
I've been integrating a water-water GSHP into it to provide summer cooling and a supplemental heat source from my solar panels. It works well, but in my climate (Rural Canada) I would be insane to completely remove my gas boiler IMO. Heating demand is just way too high on the sort of days where the power goes out. I've been working on plans for a wood boiler but insurance has put their foot right down on anything that burns wood in the last couple years.
Here in Canada we can't get lithium at a reasonable price so I have 10kWh of lead-acid (which as you know is actually 5). Doesn't go very far on a cold winter day with 4 hours of sun and snow on the panels!
On the upside I haven't had to hook my generator to my house in years, I'm really happy with my "grid-independent" system.
During last winter gas heater servicing I told the plumber to set the unit to 50°C heating water output so I could check if the heaters would get warm enough with a heat pump. 1,5 hours of discussion about old buildings and heat pumps resulted till he complied.
It was just a test setup that could be reverted any time.