My parents home in southern New York is in need of a new heat and hot water system. The oil burner, tank, and water storage tank are over 50 years old, and need to be replaced.
I'm looking at various options for heat and hot water, from oil heat, natural gas, solar thermal, or heat pumps. Heat pumps are almost totally unfamiliar to me, although they seem like old and common technology in other parts of the world (Japan and Europe).
Anyone have Solar panels on their roof(PV or thermal)? Anyone know anything about heat pumps? Any Solar installers in the Paizo universe?
Note: The house has approx 20% shade, which puts us right at the edge of taking advantage of the government rebates and such. Also, we currently have several wood burning stoves that produce the vast majority of the needed heat in the winter, although I'm hoping for something that takes up the slack on cold mornings.
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Hard to make a recommendation - so much of whether or not something is price effective is based on energy costs / subsidies of where you live.
Take a gander at a natural gas rinnai tankless unit for your hot water heater. A lot of newer appartment buildings around here are using heat pumps for cooling, but no single unit homes that I know of.
My apartment is heated by IR panels. Can't really recommend them, don't work as well as a space heater and cost more.
Hard to make a recommendation - so much of whether or not something is price effective is based on energy costs / subsidies of where you live.
Take a gander at a natural gas rinnai tankless unit for your hot water heater. A lot of newer appartment buildings around here are using heat pumps for cooling, but no single unit homes that I know of.
My apartment is heated by IR panels. Can't really recommend them, don't work as well as a space heater and cost more.
Natural gas is very tough to price because I can't get any kind of answer on how much it would cost to run a line to my house, or how much the monthly hook-up fee would be. I would probably rather do gas then oil, but I'm hoping for some kind of solar option first.
Hmmm, IR panels seem odd.
"According to US Department of Energy reports, 52% more efficient than electric baseboard and 33% more efficient than an air-to-air heat pump"
I have read that heat pumps are something like 250% more efficient then electric resistance heaters... I'm going to have to find some more concrete numbers.
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The IR panels aren't working because they are mounted on the ceiling pointing down at an uninsulated concrete foundation floor. Basically the cold floor is absorbing all of heat instead of heating up and radiating it out.
Most of the rural folks around here use either a large propane tank (saves running a line, but is unsightly), or a pellet stove.
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Speaking as an engineer, I'd avoid solar. I love it as an alternative, but not as a lead source of heat or hot water. Although that also depends on where you live. For places with plenty of sunshine, it might more feasible. Solar would also probably be costly for install and upkeep.
My recommendation would be gas or electric. They're more dependable. I've got has heat in my home, and an electric hot water heater. Both work very well.
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Oh, one of the systems I've seen is a glycol heat transfer system. It doesn't replace your hot water heater but uses solar collectors to heat a glycol line that then warms water before it goes into the water tank. Glycol doesn't freeze so don't have to worry about winter.
Come to thing of it that might have been the heat pump you were mentioning. I was thinking of a ground source heat pump.
I would not recommend basing it on fossile fuels - the prices are going one direction only: up.
Solar energy very much depends upon where you live and what directions the surfaces have you can use. PV is not a good idea unless you have lots of sun hours, because it is not very effective otherwise, and can be dangerous if going defective (there are stories about igniting PV panels, and the firefighters not being able to help because you can´t turn the system off). Getting hot water from thermal systems can work, but probably only as an addition to other heating.
I noticed a trend recently towards heating with wooden pellets - it is a regrowing fuel, and the modern solutions seem to be quite effective. These pellet heating can be small (for one house) or big (heating whole city areas).
Wind energy can be an idea as well, but you need a lot of space there (you would not want to have the thing right beside your house.)
I don´t know much about ground source heat, but it seems to work quite well also, from what I´ve heard.
Depending on where you live and how your housing situation is, it can vary wildly.
I'm in a hurry so this will be scattershot.
I grew up in a house with a solar water heater. Not photovoltaic; I think it was like the glycol system that Robert Hawkshaw mentioned (perhaps exactly that). It wasn't enough by itself, but it was handy for keeping monthly costs down.
I'm intrigued by tankless water heaters, since I know from physics that they could be much more efficient. (It takes tons of energy to heat up water one degree, and there's no such thing as perfect insulation.) But I haven't researched them.
The house I'm in now has central air and a heat pump, with a supplemental electric furnace for mid-winter. It works very well, but it has to be calibrated correctly: it takes heat from outside to heat inside, so it frosts up when it's really cold out, and the defrost cycle has to be set right or the electric bill can be ginormous.
One thing to keep in mind is that you want them to be happy, and they might be happier with something that they're more comfortable with, and they might be more comfortable with something that they're more familiar with. So, a pellet stove (but flexible like Andrew R said) might be the best option for that reason.
Also, resistance heat is actually pretty efficient. I thought that heat pumps only saw a big energy efficiency advantage over air conditioners? Didn't really research it, though; it's just what came with the house.
And finally, whatever you do, try not to get tied into a single source of energy. When a resource becomes supply-constrained, the primary result is that prices become spiky, which is horrible for people on fixed incomes. Either natural gas or electric would be fine for supplementing wood; but electricity is nice for being able to be generated in many different ways.
A air/water (or water/water if they have got a well deep enough) would allow them to still use their central heating conducts, radiators, etc.
They have a energy efficiency advantage over any other electrical based heating. Each kW invested is augmented by the heat pumped outside.
Depends on the climate : such a heat pump quickly lose efficiency below -5 °C (that is 23 °F for you). Best used as a secondary heating, for half-seasons, not for midwinter. Can be coupled with a canadian well, to pump air already warmed in the ground.
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I grew up in a house with a solar water heater. Not photovoltaic; I think it was like the glycol system that Robert Hawkshaw mentioned (perhaps exactly that). It wasn't enough by itself, but it was handy for keeping monthly costs down.
I also grew up in a home with solar hot water (glycol). The Colorado winter sun is usually sufficient to heat water up to 90-100 degrees. Pretty easy to get it up to a comfortable temperature from there.
I'm intrigued by tankless water heaters, since I know from physics that they could be much more efficient. (It takes tons of energy to heat up water one degree, and there's no such thing as perfect insulation.) But I haven't researched them.
I've researched them a little but have no hands-on experience. It seems they are extremely efficient, but take a little practice getting used to. Point-of-use heaters would make an excellent pairing with solar hot water.
And finally, whatever you do, try not to get tied into a single source of energy. When a resource becomes supply-constrained, the primary result is that prices become spiky, which is horrible for people on fixed incomes. Either natural gas or electric would be fine for supplementing wood; but electricity is nice for being able to be generated in many different ways.
Ideally they would remodel as renewable as possible, for their own energy security if nothing else. But of course that costs money, and you have to anticipate the length of the return on your investment. How long will your parents own the house? If they plan on being there a long time, it may be worthwhile to invest in solar water, PV, even wind. Otherwise it may be best to just get really efficient appliances.
You mentioned they have 20% shade. If they have the money they should consider a sunroom for passive solar heat gain. A properly designed sunroom can keep the summer sun out and let the winter sun in--a significant heat supplement.
It would also probably be a good idea to evaluate their insulation. The roof is the most crucial for keeping summer heat out and winter heat in.
Check with several contractors and try to get a referral from someone you know. Contractors follow the 80/20 rule--80% of them suck.
Oh, yeah, insulation. From what I know, american houses do have quite low standards there for the most part. Looking at windows, doors, walls, the roof and the lowest floor for possible improvements can work wonders for the energy costs.
That reminds me, a heat leak detector can be handy -- we have a Black & Decker model -- even if all it does is convince you that you're not leaking enough heat to explain your electric bill, so something else must be set wrong. ;)
The quote came in for the heat pumps, and it seems awful expensive. I can't justify spending that kind of money on something that I would probably use less than a dozen times for heating, and a dozen times for cooling each year.
The Solar Thermal part looks like a good option however. With the NY rebates and such, the price is reasonable, and I think it is a solid option for hot water (augmented with a electric assisted 80 gallon tank).
But that still leaves heating the house sometimes. The wood stoves heat the place very well 90% of the time. But for those other times such as cold mornings, or if everyone leaves the house for a couple of days, I need something else to kick in. The place already has hot water baseboards with the current oil burner, so I'm thinking of using those and having some sort of propane boiler to heat them.
On demand water heating is an interesting option. I don't know if it makes sense for use with the baseboards, but it might be an option for use with the domestic hot water.
I'm also not sure if it would make sense tying the Solar Thermal with the baseboards somehow.
"Contractors follow the 80/20 rule--80% of them suck." Hey, my father, brother, and I are all contractors! I only suck like 70% of the time! But seriously, I do see some scary stuff done by past guys. I think a lot of it is people (including the workers themselves sometimes) thinking it is unskilled work, and trying to get stuff done super cheap. But yeah, I've seen some amazing craftsmanship, and lots of total crap. PRO TIP: Inspect deck railings before leaning against them. It is amazing how many are held on by finish nails!
Remodeling isn't much of an option. The insulation does need a little improvement, but I can do that fairly well myself, and due to the age of the oil burner, I'm really trying to get that underway as soon as I can.