Sorry David, but the term "rosy" has a connotation of not being real world. Why do you think I would assume otherwise? I do not get it.
I too love RMI. I am glad you share my respect for all the solutions they propose. I apologize if I misunderstood you. They want everybody to go electric. I do too. you said that was a "rosy" scenario. You then said you were going to follow a different path. What, exactly did I miss?
Regarding heating in the winter, my wife really likes our wood pellet stove.
You do not understand how radical that statement is.
When we got the house, it also came with electric baseboard heating, so the understanding was, we would be using that, and the wood pellet stove would get torn out eventually. But she agreed to give it a try, and we ended up never using the the baseboard heating, only using a couple plug-in electric space heaters for a few hours about a dozen times when we would wake up to find the stove had gone out in the middle of the night.
Oh, I understand how "radical" it
seems to most people, all right; So does Amory Lovins.
Amory Lovins on Energy Efficency Breakthroughs (real world 90% plus waste reduction) that seem hard to believe:"Only puny secrets need protection; big discoveries are protected by public incredulity."
JD, I have never had a baseboard spaceheater in my present 70' X 14 ' extremely well insulated and energy efficient Pine Grove Manufactured home. It came with a kerosene fired furnace. That furnace was a cash cow for the maintenance people that had a "silver" or a "gold" contract which included the "inspection" annually and lowered rates for (Help! NO HEAT!) home visits in a winter emergency. Those contracts were ignored by yours truly. Those contracts, as far back as the year 2000, were a MINIMUM of $200 a year. Those contracts DID NOT include fuel costs or routine electrode replacements, though they did include labor. BFD. They would punish you for not taking their contracts by charging you $90 just to come to your home in winter (NO HEAT!) BEFORE parts and labor. And THAT was if it was during a weekday during the day. Nights and weekends were, OF COURSE, extra.
I considered that highway robbery.
I still do. I shudder to think what that pack of furnance maintenance crooks charge now.
And then there were those nice folks from Rowley Fuels who wanted my social security number so they could establish an account for me where coulld pay within 30 days of receiving the bill so I did not have to pay when the Kerosene was delivered. I had been their customer in the home I had rented right next to this one (before this one existed) for two years. I was not having any of that. So, I continued to pay on delivery with a check, even though it was a hassle when the weather was really bitter cold and snowy.
Since you do not understand how
not having white privilege works, I won't bore you with details about how every dumbassed ignorant local yokel here is NOT asked for a social security number to be billed monthly for his fuel.
Any IDIOT can tell that the fuel company MUST be paid, or they won't keep providing you with fuel. So, you can pretend Rowley fuels was acting reasonably if you wish. They weren't. As I said before, since you have never been in my shoes, you cannot understand how clever Vermont style prejudices are directed towards brown folks like me and my wife. You and I have been down this road before. Believe what you will. I willl not argue with you. The irony for Rowley Fuels' selective social security requests Vermont fun and games "procedure" is that the dude with the "right color" that bought that trailer after I left eventually stiffed Rowley Fuels (I observed fuel deliveries when no one was home. The guy would leave the bill at the door). I know he eventually stiffed them because one winter (a few years later) the Rowley Fuels truck showed up at his home three times within a month after fuel delivery, without delivering fuel. No one would answer the door. A few months later a different outfit delivered the fuel. LOL
Now I will return to the cost issue.
After the cost of Kerosene went to the moon (around 2003), PLUS some ungodly gauging by the furnance maintenance people, I decided that the furnace was not economically practical, when compared with small electric heaters.
Some background is in order. I had baseboard space heaters a long, long time ago in a two story Colonial (5357 Fortuna Parkway, Clay, New York - you can see it with Google Earth) I owned when I worked at Syracuse TRACON (1978-1982). They've got a pool now. I didn't, but I planted those trees 🌳 🌳in the back
. I also planted two blue spruce 🌲🌲 in the front as wind breaks but the new owners chopped them down around 2002 👎. I supplemented that incredibly expensive (
0.11 per kWh back THEN!) electrical heat with a couple of cords of wood (
I would buy annually as logs and saw and split myself) with fireplace heating.
Before anybody jumps in and tells me how fireplace heating is "inefficient" because you actually lose more heat up the chimney than you get from the wood while you are faked out into believing otherwise by the radiant heat from the flames, let me explain that I had an insert in the fireplace with pipes and and tempered glass doors. The heatilator gizmo convected cooler air from the family room into the pipes that fed the air out the upper part of the unit back into the room.
I know how to make a fireplace efficient, even if most people don't. I know how to avoid creosote issues and chimney hot spots too.
Where were we? Right, the kerosene furnace is more thermodynamically efficient than electric heating (WHEN MAINTENANCE, LABOR, PARTS AND BUSH FUEL PRICE SHOCKS ARE IGNORED).
As of 2004, after a winter where a (Help! NO HEAT!) rather expensive maintenance guy almost killed us by setting the electrodes so poorly that some unprejudiced Vermonter with a conscience on the street (DAYS LATER!) stopped and warned us that our stack was all black and billowing black smoke (NO, complaining to the maintenance people did not help. NO, they did not reimburse us for the cost of that visit.
YES, we had to pay for ANOTHER visit where a different dude set the electrode gap properly.
). I said, THAT'S IT! I'M DONE WITH THIS CRAP!
We went electric with portable heaters. 
We heated more ourselves than all 980 square feet of the home.
Yeah, it's not as comfortable as the WASTEFUL PIG HABIT of keeping he house toasty, which is the customary American way. Yeah, I used to do that. Yeah, it should not be done. Yeah, we need to reduce ourselves. Yeah, though it turned out to be
more efficient (used LESS ENERGY) than the Kerosene CRAP furnace, I switched so I could save MONEY, not energy.
We do not DO long baseboard space heaters. They are STUPID. They are INEFFICIENT. If you have them, THROW THEM AWAY.
JD, you are a permaculture guy. I suggest you take a HARD LOOK at WHERE those wood chip pellets, that you THINK are coming from waste shrups of shavings or whatever, are REALLY coming from. THAT IS, they are DESTROYING old growth forests for those "efficient" wood pellets! If your supplier has sworn on a stack of Bibles that they do not get their wood from virgin or old growth forests, they are LYING to you.
Now, with the Vornado use a phenomenon that they poorly understood in the past, a type of air swirl is created that electrically heats with much LESS energy than before.
Go 100% ELECTRIC ZONE Heating, JD. If you can get that juice from solar panels, so much the better, but stop using wood for heat and/or gas for cooking. It's BAD for the biosphere. It provides profits to people that do not give a rat's ass about future generations.
The only one that can claim a lick of sense in continuing to burn wood for heat here is David B. because he harvests it himself, PERIOD.
Anyone that tells you that hydrocarbon heating is more energy efficient than ZONE electrical resistance heating is cherry picking convenient facts and ignoring inconvenient realities of the VAST amount of energy required just to GET THAT HYDROCARBON FROM THE WELL TO THE REFINERY TO STRIP OUT THE OXYGEN TO THEN GO THROUGH THE CRACKING TOWERS TO THE STORAGE TANKS TO THE TRUCK TO THE SUPPLIER TO YOUR HOUSE where, of course, Amerikans bask in high energy density/enthalpy of hydrocarbons for heat and poo-poo those ugly, inefficient, fire hazard, baby killer (you get the idea) electric heaters.
The fact that ONE furnace requires MUCH MORE energy to manufacture than that needed to manufacture the TOTAL amount of ZONE electric heaters you will need for about FIFTY YEARS OR SO, is somehow not part of the "efficiency" calculations.
The fact that ONE furnace costs MUCH MORE MONEY than the TOTAL amount of ZONE electric heaters you will need for about FIFTY YEARS OR SO, is somehow not part of the "cost" calculations.
The FACT that electric heaters are maintenance free versus furnace ANNUAL maintenance inspection costs plus $100 (plus $) winter visits for NO HEAT and labor and parts, are not part of the "cost comparison" calculations.
Finally, there is one DETAIL that I love to bring up. If the igniter/electrode assemply is not tuned EXACTLY RIGHT, you don't get complete combustion. The electrode gap gets out of spec regularly. Most people don't get it adjusted (unless black smoke is billowing out your stack, of course
) more than once a YEAR, if they are thorough. Many have them checked only when the smoke looks strange, NOT even annually.
THEREFORE, any
fossil fueler that parades the enthalpy of Kerosene as a justification for using that hydrocarbon CRAP over electric resistance heating is pushing ERRONEOUS energy density figures. Those Infernal electrodes start losing spec within two months of having their gap set. I KNOW. I watched my stack often (experience is the best teacher.
). Those electrodes WEAR from HEAT in the combustion chamber of the furnace. Those electrodes have to be changed.
You NEVER have to change an electrical resistance on an electric heater unless your dog ate a portion of it.
Burning Kerosene is STUPID. Using electric ZONE small heaters with Vornado swirl technology is SMART.
I have done ALL the math on furnaces. They are NOT cost efective. The defenders of that hydrocarbon burning CRAP will argue until the cows come home about hydrocarbon high energy density/enthalpy and the "horrendous" efficiency losses using a resistance to heat with entail. They will yaba-daba-doo about how electricity is mostly produced by burning hydrocarbons, as if the OBVIOUS solution to that was not simply getting MORE electricity from Renewable Technology, NOT keeping on with the hydrocarbon horseshit!
I am SICK AND TIRED of the DUMBASSED GAME the proponents of this insane, unsustainble clusterfuck called hydrocarbon based civilization keep trying to play by defending the abysmal stupidity, as well as totally unjustified INEFFICIENCY, never mind the POLLUTION added on, of this SUICIDAL use of hydrocarbons. These IDIOTS are quiet as DEATH about the 174,000 PLUS gasolene fires in cars each year PLUS the 500 or so deaths each year, just in the USA, from CO poisoning CAUSED by using hydrocarbons for heat.
CO poisoning is the nation's leading cause of accidental poisoning deaths ☠️. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 500 people die due to CO poisoning annually. https://sf-fire.org/carbon-monoxide-facts
INSTEAD, these hydrocarboon hustlers wail and moan about those electric space heaters burning down houses and killing all those poor people that didn't use hydrocarbons to heat their home, like all good
Germans Americans should. 😇
BULLSHIT! Vornado, and other types of top notch small area electric heaters have all sorts of failsafes now. They use air swirl fluid dynamics physics (NEW scientific knowledge pioneered by AMORY LOVINS!) that vastly improved efficiency. In addition, there are some other high tech type electric heaters, that, though above my budget, are even more efficient.
Yeah, I know I'm not going to convince that pack of stubborn hydrocarbon loving mules here of going fully electric. I get that. They are married to the past. That past is killing us. They DO NOT get that. I do.
The only downside, which I DO NOT consider a downside, but some bright bulb here certainly may consider it as a downside, is the water pipe risk of freezing. The furnace has ducts under the floor, next to the water pipes. The ducts, though insulated, stlll lose some heat that keeps the pipes well above freezing. So, since we switched to all electric nearly 15 years ago
, we have to open the faucet a bit during the two most bitterly cold months here (January and February).
Anyone that claims hydrocarbon heating is more efficient than electrical resistance heating is married to the past and quoting inaccurate figures from old electrical use technology, as well as furnace efficiency figures based on complete combustion, something that does NOT happen for ten months out of the year, in addition to all the other vast amount of energy required to get that crap to your house.
Amory Lovins HAS DONE ALL THE MATH. Electric heating is NOT "radical". Electric heating is the only truly sustainable way to heat, as long as we get that juice from Renewables. See below how the Rocky Mountain Institute has PROVEN that
electrical resistance heating is the tecchnology everyone should embrace NOW. The Innovation Center redefines how occupants experience and control their individual comfort. Integrative design eliminated mechanical cooling and reduced the heating system to a small, distributed electric-resistance system.
Most buildings rely on blowing hot or cold air using large combined HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems to maintain a set temperature, which wastes energy and actually has little impact on how comfortable a person feels. In contrast, the Innovation Center addresses all six factors that impact individual comfort, requiring dramatically less energy.
Six Factors that Influence Comfort
The Innovation Center’s comfort strategy is guided by the following factors, which were delivered according to listed design strategies:
Air velocity: Fans overhead, USB and standing fans, and fans in personal heating and cooling chairs
Surface temperature: Superinsulating windows and envelope, thermal mass, bio-phase-change materials in walls and lightshelves, predictive preconditioning by charging thermal mass with a night flush, and personal heating and cooling chairs
Air temperature: Natural ventilation, operable windows, distributed, radiant heating mats in floors, and aggressive heat recovery (90% efficient) to preheat ventilation air
Clothing level: Adaptive dress code for staff and event attendees
Metabolic rate: Stand-up desk options
Humidity: Not actively controlled
Technologies to Deliver Comfort
Several technologies are used in the Innovation Center to deliver thermal comfort, using the least amount of energy possible including:
Electric floor mats provide targeted, radiant heat to occupants and are only used on the coldest mornings.
Personalized heating/cooling chairs provide occupants with individual thermal controls by delivering heating and cooling directly to their body with only 14 watts in heating mode, and four watts in ventilation mode.
Personal USB fans that plug into computers for each occupant. Good airflow, (>120 fpm) enables air temperatures to be four degrees F warmer without making occupants uncomfortable.
High-efficiency ceiling fans that use only two to 30 watts depending on speed settings, exceeding ENERGY STAR requirements by 450–750%
https://rmi.org/our-work/buildings/pathways-to-zero/scaling-zero-net-carbon/rmi-innovation-center/thermal-comfort/
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