4.7 million Americans heat their homes with heating oil. Heating oil is essentially diesel (same fraction of distillation). Its going to be a cold and expensive winter for millions of Americans.
I was super lucky to replace my oil furnace with a heat pump a couple of years ago, before prices of heat pumps and oil skyrocketed. I used to pay $600-700 every three months in the winter just on heating oil (I had a very inefficient 1950’s oil furnace in my poorly insulated 1940’s home).
Now I have air conditioning and heating without spending hundreds of dollars. I wonder how much it would cost to fill the oil tank now.
I’m really happy you were able to make the jump! I’m really worried about a whole bunch of my distant neighbors this year. Prices continue to climb, wages (and employment) continue to fall. Its good to hear you dodged this particular bullet. Were you able to take advantage of any of the tax breaks or incentives from your utility provider to pay for part of your upgraded HVAC before the current administration yanked them?
I’m also very worried, as my neighborhood still has a lot of people using oil furnaces, primarily those on fixed incomes. Their situation is pretty dire, to put it lightly.
I was able to, yeah. It definitely helped me afford it. It’s really sad that they got rid of it, basically ensuring that some people will be living in cold homes at some point this year. Those credits were good for everyone except for the oil companies: heat pumps help save on power bills (being one of the few > 100% efficient heating methods), they can reduce electrical grid stress if people move to heat pumps from resistive heating, and they help reduce pollution. It’s just another way this administration and the oil companies are hurting everyone.
I was able to take advantage of the tax credit too to help pay for my heat pump. It allowed us to completely turn off natural gas service at our house which saves us hundreds of dollars a year for our situation.
The discontinuation of the tax credit for energy efficient homes is particularly bad because these type of programs typically gain more adoption the longer they go on as more people are made aware of them. There are likely people only today discovering these programs existed after they were discontinued by trump very early.
Heat pumps jumped in price? I just installed one myself for $450 all in (wiring, disconnext box, breaker, unit itself, concrete for the pad, etc.) for a 12k BTU unit in my living room.
It helps if you can understand the difference between heat and temperature. Heat is the total thermal energy in a system, and temperature is the average thermal energy in a measured sample.
Example. If I have a known quantity of air, I can measure its temperature, and from that information I can determine how much heat is in that air. If I compress that air into half the space, the temperature will go up, but to total heat in the system will stay the same.
Heat flows from high temperature areas to lower temperature areas, and the greater the temperature difference is, the faster if flows. So if you take the air in our example, and put it in a refrigerator, it will eventually cool down to the same temperature as the refrigerator. If you then expand that air back to the original volume, you’ll see a drastic reduction in the temperature, but the overall heat won’t change.
So if you want to get heat from a colder source, all you need to do is compress that air first, which will raise the temp, move that higher temp air into your house, where it will warm up your house and cool off, then move it outside and let it expand again, where it will fall below the temp of the outside air, and it will warm up again, and you can repeat the cycle.
As long as it above 0K outside, you can (in theory) transfer energy. Heatpumps meant for cold weather climates use a different gas with a lower boiling point than those meant for hot weather climate (aircondition). But other than that, they work exactly the same.
You can them however you want pretty much. They can heat the water plenty enough, and if you choose the right one you won’t notice any difference other than a lower powerbill.
The element can cool the air below zero. They have to play games if it gets to the due point of the outside air to keep from frosting up however.
Also, there is an efficiency hit, as the temperature differential gets larger. This is why ground sourced, or even water sourced are more efficient in colder climates.
Do you understand how an AC unit works when its hot as tits outside? I cant remember the specifics but its air pressure. One way makes it hot, the other makes it cold. Just reverse it for whichever situation you need it to be
Red 4 is just diesel with coloring for taxation differences. This fuel will see the exact same price hikes as road diesel or heating oil because its the same chemistry under the coloring.
formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide,
I would doubt that current residential heating oil storage and combustion systems are compatible with the noxious nature of these two to operate as a direct replacement in a home.
Really? Damn. I really want to try some alternate fuels to see how well they do.
And are you confusing “red 4” for some branded stuff? I’m referring to the red part of the NFPA 704 diamond.
Now that I think about it, pyrophoric fuel would work even better than the stuff I mentioned, right? Like, you could load some elemental potassium into an oil heater, and you won’t even need to turn the thing on. It would basically fuel itself.
Oil furnaces are really simple machines. Just a pump that sprays fuel into a chamber and an igniter. Ethanol at the right concentration might work, but suitably heated vegetable oil might also work.
4.7 million Americans heat their homes with heating oil. Heating oil is essentially diesel (same fraction of distillation). Its going to be a cold and expensive winter for millions of Americans.
I was super lucky to replace my oil furnace with a heat pump a couple of years ago, before prices of heat pumps and oil skyrocketed. I used to pay $600-700 every three months in the winter just on heating oil (I had a very inefficient 1950’s oil furnace in my poorly insulated 1940’s home).
Now I have air conditioning and heating without spending hundreds of dollars. I wonder how much it would cost to fill the oil tank now.
I’m really happy you were able to make the jump! I’m really worried about a whole bunch of my distant neighbors this year. Prices continue to climb, wages (and employment) continue to fall. Its good to hear you dodged this particular bullet. Were you able to take advantage of any of the tax breaks or incentives from your utility provider to pay for part of your upgraded HVAC before the current administration yanked them?
I’m also very worried, as my neighborhood still has a lot of people using oil furnaces, primarily those on fixed incomes. Their situation is pretty dire, to put it lightly.
I was able to, yeah. It definitely helped me afford it. It’s really sad that they got rid of it, basically ensuring that some people will be living in cold homes at some point this year. Those credits were good for everyone except for the oil companies: heat pumps help save on power bills (being one of the few > 100% efficient heating methods), they can reduce electrical grid stress if people move to heat pumps from resistive heating, and they help reduce pollution. It’s just another way this administration and the oil companies are hurting everyone.
I was able to take advantage of the tax credit too to help pay for my heat pump. It allowed us to completely turn off natural gas service at our house which saves us hundreds of dollars a year for our situation.
The discontinuation of the tax credit for energy efficient homes is particularly bad because these type of programs typically gain more adoption the longer they go on as more people are made aware of them. There are likely people only today discovering these programs existed after they were discontinued by trump very early.
Heat pumps jumped in price? I just installed one myself for $450 all in (wiring, disconnext box, breaker, unit itself, concrete for the pad, etc.) for a 12k BTU unit in my living room.
Which one did you get? One of the Mr Cool ones?
I have a few. Two from Senville (Midea rebrand) and a third from Cozeware (AUX rebrand with Tuya controller).
This was the most recent one from Cozeware. Got it for $354 after tax for their 12k BTU unit.
Took about ~$100-150 for the lineset covers and other supplies.
I don’t understand how the heat part works when it’s below freezing.
It helps if you can understand the difference between heat and temperature. Heat is the total thermal energy in a system, and temperature is the average thermal energy in a measured sample.
Example. If I have a known quantity of air, I can measure its temperature, and from that information I can determine how much heat is in that air. If I compress that air into half the space, the temperature will go up, but to total heat in the system will stay the same.
Heat flows from high temperature areas to lower temperature areas, and the greater the temperature difference is, the faster if flows. So if you take the air in our example, and put it in a refrigerator, it will eventually cool down to the same temperature as the refrigerator. If you then expand that air back to the original volume, you’ll see a drastic reduction in the temperature, but the overall heat won’t change.
So if you want to get heat from a colder source, all you need to do is compress that air first, which will raise the temp, move that higher temp air into your house, where it will warm up your house and cool off, then move it outside and let it expand again, where it will fall below the temp of the outside air, and it will warm up again, and you can repeat the cycle.
As long as it above 0K outside, you can (in theory) transfer energy. Heatpumps meant for cold weather climates use a different gas with a lower boiling point than those meant for hot weather climate (aircondition). But other than that, they work exactly the same.
How hot can this get my water, or are they only meant for forced air?
You can get heat pump water heaters, they can get sufficienrlt hot, but are kind of slow though.
Not necessarily, you can get air/water heatpumps that outputs way more than a normal hot water tank can handle. They are expensive though.
You can them however you want pretty much. They can heat the water plenty enough, and if you choose the right one you won’t notice any difference other than a lower powerbill.
The element can cool the air below zero. They have to play games if it gets to the due point of the outside air to keep from frosting up however.
Also, there is an efficiency hit, as the temperature differential gets larger. This is why ground sourced, or even water sourced are more efficient in colder climates.
Do you understand how an AC unit works when its hot as tits outside? I cant remember the specifics but its air pressure. One way makes it hot, the other makes it cold. Just reverse it for whichever situation you need it to be
People will die and it’s according to plan
Can that be replaced with stuff that has a red 4, like formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, and ethanethiol?
Red 4 is just diesel with coloring for taxation differences. This fuel will see the exact same price hikes as road diesel or heating oil because its the same chemistry under the coloring.
I would doubt that current residential heating oil storage and combustion systems are compatible with the noxious nature of these two to operate as a direct replacement in a home.
No idea.
Really? Damn. I really want to try some alternate fuels to see how well they do.
And are you confusing “red 4” for some branded stuff? I’m referring to the red part of the NFPA 704 diamond.
Now that I think about it, pyrophoric fuel would work even better than the stuff I mentioned, right? Like, you could load some elemental potassium into an oil heater, and you won’t even need to turn the thing on. It would basically fuel itself.
Oh apologies I though you were referring to red diesel (aka offroad diesel).
Oil furnaces are really simple machines. Just a pump that sprays fuel into a chamber and an igniter. Ethanol at the right concentration might work, but suitably heated vegetable oil might also work.