Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Gas Heat vs Heat Pump

Space heaters imo on thermostats. They use very little gas and will run you out. If it gets really cold I will run the fan to circulate the air.

^^^^^ what he said.

Mine runs all night too, actually wakes me up. Have to turn it down
To sleep and then run it all day to catch back up on temps. New house and
Unit has been maintained.

I use both. If the power goes out due to ice/ weather it’s nice having gas.

Fed tax credit for insulation, doors and windows as well as for some hvac types.
Id put me in a large gas blue flame wall heater ($200) for emergencies when power is out then id hit getting it sealed up and insulated good.
My house isnt all that well built and has single pane builder grade windows. All its ever had is a heat pump with a gas wall heater like mentioned.
You wont run around naked with a heat pump like you can with a gas furnace but to me its ok.

Up to $2000 or 30% tax credit for qualified heat pumps of 15.2 seer 2 or higher. TVA also has active rebates up to $1500 for qualified heat pumps.

It’s fairly common right now that my homeowners are qualifying for the $2,000 tax credit and getting a check from TVA within a few weeks for $1200-1500.

TVA also has rebates for doors, insulation and windows, but they aren’t near as lucrative. Same for the federal program. It’s better than nothing, though, and every little bit helps.

The hottest thing going right now in terms of bang for your buck is Ductless Mini-Splits. If someone has a bonus room, add on, man-cave or etc. that they want to condition. I can get them $2k in tax credits and $1250 from TVA. In most cases that leaves the homeowner with a net investment of around $1750+/-, if the tax credit benefits them, on a fairly normal installation.

I will NEVER have a heat pump again. If you like cold heat it's good, and when the emergency heat strips come on you will think that the hands of the meter are going to overrev.

Look in an outside wall to see if it's insulated

Funny, just this year we’ve installed somewhere between 150-200, not a single customer has called complaining of high utility bills or cold air in the winter. I’ll have to send an email blast to them all to let them know to expect cold heat and high utility bills. 😁

Don't need to send me one . I'm guessing physics says all things being equal ( humidity ) , 70 degrees Electric , 70 degrees Gas is the same.

I doubt your exterior walls are insulated.
When I built my house 25 years ago, I checked the US Department of Energy based on wife’s uncle’s recommendation…he had one of those cushy jobs at Alabama Power Company that did energy recommendations for builders.

I was surprised to see that back then they recommended a higher “R” factor for Bham, Alabama than they did on Columbus, Ohio….its harder to insulate from hot than cold was also enlightening.

They recommended R23 for exterior walls and R30 for roof. 2x4” walls cannot accept larger than R13, and R19 mashed in there lessens R19 insulation to like R9 if it is compressed…R13 is better not compressed.
To have R19 walls, I would have to have 2x6” exterior walls.

In the roof, I paid to have 30” of blown insulation vs about 10”-12” that they normally put in. Tip the insulation guy enough, and he’ll blow it as thick as you want.

In upstairs knee walls, I put R19 paper backed roll insulation, then drove nails and used steel wire to hold R30 rolled insulation outside of that.
I was able to count ALL of the additional insulation against taxes due to then current insulation/energy saving tax credits.
I also was told by a Power Company manager AFTER I had built my house…they didn’t like to tell people about tankless hot water heaters because they were so efficient, the power company would go bankrupt….he said electric hot water heaters and AC units accounted for 90% of their revenue.

I insulated like a maniac, and have all electric Ultra-High Efficiency Trane HVAC units, with budget billing my whole house power bill is less than $250 per month year round.

The crazy investments on insulation and energy savings have paid off many times over. I’m amazed at houses less than half the size of mine have $400-$500 months in the summer (HVACS NEVER kick off), and they have $250 electric bill in the winter with $3-$500 gas bills.

My suggestion: See what tax credits are out there for upgrading to new insulated windows, gut the interior walls and add insulation, then resheet rock, add installation in attic, add vented eaves and top of roof vents or even power vents to roof. Swap to Ultra High Efficiency HVAC Units. You may get all of that counted off on taxes, and your energy bill would be stupidly low.

When you drive through Jasper on an icy morning, notice how some houses have frozen roofs, and older houses do not. They aren’t insulated as well.

Also I can build a fire in our wood fireplace, set upstairs and downstairs HVACfans to run (variable speed high efficiency units will run on low…and the house is toasty warm with the meter barely moving.

Yep. Get the insulation up to more modern standards. Then add a high efficiency heat pump backed up by gas. I updated a home that was built in 1938, and have been very pleased with a dual fuel system. No issues over the last 4 years.

Heat pumps= what a friend on mines brother in-law calls cool heat. Gas all day long

Not knocking your business, but it seems like the government and TVA are having to pay folks to put in heat pumps. And they know they will get their money back when the bills come in

It’s the same with the gas industry, 600 dollars to switch your electric waterheater or 350 to keep your gas one. And I think there are better incentives coming

If you're building new in Scottsboro , there's some great incentives for NAT gas . Even get some $ for stubbing out for a grill.

Gas companies have incentives too. They just aren’t as lucrative for the homeowner as compared to what electric companies offer. On the federal level, of course they aren’t going to incentivize Gas.. gas is the devil to our administration.

Power or gas companies want as many customers as they can. That’s just business and they play the long game.

On TVA’s hand, however, their power grid is stretched thin. They think that upgrading to high efficiency HP options verses the old HP’s, upgrading windows and insulation will help them buy time until new power is built and in supply.

I don’t know how the rest of the state is, but this corner of the state leans heavy toward heat pump already. We rarely ever convert anyone from gas to electric, or electric to gas and we probably install Heat Pumps at a 5:1 to gas units.

I’m not sure what laws have changed, or what energy savings initiatives have expired since 1996…but when I was renting our first house, it was on a road front that had natural gas already plumbed through the community.

The natural gas company would “give” you a gas hot water heater if you had an electric heater and swapped over to gas…and vice-versa with electric if you would swap from gas and buy an electric hot water heater from the power company’s store.