Comment by manmal

14 hours ago

Certainly not gas or oil, which are still cheaper to heat with than heat pumps.

Modern heat pumps are cheaper than oil for heating just about everywhere. They're cheaper than natural gas in most places, unless electricity prices where you live are particularly high.

  • Yes, and many places have high electricity costs. And btw, those are hard to foresee, so if you make a long term investment into a heat pump that is supposed to last 20-25 years, you have no idea how electricity prices will affect you. That's obviously true for gas and oil as well. I do concede that my original point was too blanket-y.

    I have a heat pump btw., with COP 4.5 (below ground). Costs me EUR 2.5 - 3k per year to heat the house.

  • in CA my natural gas is far cheaper than the heat pump sadly

    • In western europe today, I spend €10+ per day to heat my home (17 degrees mind you) with a gas powered boiler for radiators. I can run my mini-split on 18 degrees all day for a couple of euros. I moved here from the US in 2022 right after the full scale invasion of Ukraine so natural gas prices skyrocketed overnight.

      I don't really understand what the aversion is to forced air climate control here other than "it's not as comfortable" which from what I've gleaned from other people is taken to mean noise/moving air/humidity. Coming from the southern US, I find all of those points to be a non-issue for me. I've slept with a fan on my entire life, so if I can shave off 50% of my heating costs for a few decibels of fan noise, sign me up!

      1 reply →

Hm? Around here oil was never been in the same (low) order of magnitude. Those who installed oil heaters many decades ago regretted it quickly. And it's been illegal to use them for a couple of decades as well now. Gas has never been an option in my region, there's no infrastructure for that. We have used gas in Japan until now, but even that we'll be phasing out (I live in two places)

  • > Those who installed oil heaters many decades ago regretted it quickly.

    That really depends on the oil heater, no? You can't compare a heater from the 70s with a modern one. That's like saying I don't drive modern cars because cars in the 70s were unsafe and stank.

  • I’m in Japan too. Could you name the model you ended up going with? My heating bill in the winter is insane.

    • The model is not yet decided, we're in the finalizing stage with the building company. What we have been focusing on is a well insulated house, unlike the old one which has no insulation at all.. if we tried to heat that it would not only be extremely expensive, it's impossible to even heat the small bathroom with an electric heater. So instead you kind of get used to it. Took me a year to stop feeling like I was freezing, at 4C in the bathroom on February mornings. We have been using a gas heater (plug in the floor) in certain places on the ground floor, but we limited that as well. So, with an insulated, small house, we believe we will be able to keep the costs down, using heat pumps and heat exchangers, plus solar and battery (using the car battery).