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Posted by Bubba on December 7, 2007, 9:29 pm
>Recently bought a house in the Seattle area, built about 1980. At the time
>the house was built, there was no gas in the area. The house has a heat
>pump, which is nearing the end of its life. Natural gas is now available in
>the area. I'm wondering if I should go with another heat pump, or natural
>gas. Since about 80% of the electricity here is hydro, it's relatively
>cheap, about $.08/KWH. I don't know what the price of the gas is per cu',
>but I could find out. Is there a way I could get a rough estimate of how
>much natural gas I would consume to heat the house, based on the electricity
>used for this purpose? There are a lot of confounding factors, the relative
>efficiency of the 2 units (old heat pump vs new nat'l gas furnace), the fact
>that I also use electric to heat water, etc. (can probably find some rough
>figure for factoring this out) the relative costs of each type of
>replacement (I would add AC to the gas furnace, so I'm guessing the gas/AC
>unit would cost more to buy initially than the heat pump, especially if I
>have to shell out for the gas line to be run). Coming from the midwest,
>electric heat was always seen as significatly more costly than natural gas,
>but I don't know if this is still the case just in general, and particularly
>if it would be true given this region's relatively low electric rates. Any
>helpful comments appreciated.
>
>TIA,
>
>Dan
>
Here. Lets confuse you just a bit more.
Whats wrong with a 95% gas furnace with a heat pump instead of the
usual straight cooling only?
Ive got it and love it. Gives you a bit more ability to play with the
fuel prices. Takes only a Honeywell Vision Pro stat (and outddor temp
sensor) to control it all.
Bubba
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