If you watch the Weather Channel, whenever one of the bad winter storms hits, or hurricanes, tropical storms, etc, you’ll see that they always have a graphic showing how many “customers” are without power. Customers does not equal people, but residential and commercial units consuming power. As ’empty nesters,’ we count as one customer, but are two people. When the first tropical storm/category 1 hurricane hit the Lone Star State earlier in July, the Weather Channel was telling us about how long customers in Texas were dealing with near 100ºF temperatures with no sparktricity for air conditioners. Primarily distributed by overhead wires, electricity is our most vulnerable to the weather utility.
More homeowners are opting for heat pumps, once thought to be ill-suited to cold Northeast winters.
by Frank Kummer | Monday, July 29, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT
For decades, Scott Nelson’s Oceanside Service has been installing traditional residential cooling systems and gas-powered furnaces in Jersey Shore communities such as Long Beach Island.
Within the past few years, however, the Allenhurst-based contractor has seen a big change: More homeowners are opting for heat pumps, once thought to be ill-suited to cold Northeast winters. The switch is fostered by warming winters, more efficient heat pump units, and federal and state incentives.
“We give everybody the option,” Nelson said, referring to a traditional system versus a heat pump. “And 8 out of 10″ have been buying heat pumps.
Heat pumps are having their moment, boosted in recent years by federal tax credits and other incentives that align their cost more closely with traditional fossil-fuel powered units, while also being highly efficient.
And there it is! You, the taxpayers, are on the hook to buy HVAC systems for Other People! And the homeowners in “Jersey Shore communities such as Long Beach Island” are much wealthier than the typical taxpayer in Flyover Country USA. In June of 2024, the median sale price in Long Beach Island, NJ, was $2,250,000, up 32.4% from the same time in 2023.
The momentum could grow with the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last week of $4.3 billion in grants for projects in 30 states aimed at reducing climate change and air pollution, fostering environmental justice, and accelerating a transition to renewable energy. Pennsylvania received nearly $400 million, and New Jersey and a coalition of other states received nearly $250 million, all funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as part of the Biden administration’s agenda.
The grants will be used to fund various programs, including those that encourage a switch to heat pumps such as Pennsylvania’s Priority Climate Action Plan.
So, even more of your taxed-away dollars — or that money borrowed from investors and repaid with interest — being given to Other People.
Our HVAC system, a circa 1995 heat pump system, was destroyed in the 2021 flood, and the $6,100 it cost to replace it came from our pockets, not the taxpayers. Remember that $6,100 figure; it will be important later. How much moolah is Uncle Sam giving to people wealthier than you? Skipping down a few paragraphs we find:
Heat pump installations can quality for federal tax credits valued at up to 30% of the cost paid for the unit, or up to $2,000 per year, for air-source heat pumps. There’s a rebate up to $8,000 for an ENERGY STAR-certified electric heat pump for space heating and cooling.
Pennsylvania anticipates using money from the Infrastructure Act to offer rebates starting in 2025 for heat pumps installed in low- to moderate-income households.
Further down, readers are told that the up-front costs for a heat pump are about $15,000, versus roughly $8,000 for a gas furnace. I guess that my $6,100 wasn’t so bad, huh?
Philadelphia has plans to try and push heat pumps, but has 440,000 mostly brick rowhomes, with an average age of 80 years. Many have insufficient electrical service to power a heat pump system. My heat pump system has not one but two 220-volt, 50-amphere circuits, one for the exterior condenser unit, and another for the blower unit in the crawlspace, which includes heating elements for the ’emergency’ heat cycle. With our ‘backup’ heating system, a propane fireplace, we’ve never needed to use the ’emergency’ heat cycle. A modern, 200-amp circuit breaker panel is needed for installation of a heat pump system, so many of the Philly rowhomes would also need an electrician to upgrade that before any heat pump system could be installed.
There’s more than just that, though. As Frank Kummer, the article author noted, many Philadelphia houses, particularly the rowhomes, “still have boilers that use radiators and baseboard heat. Those likely would need ductless, mini-split heat pumps.” While it is possible to mount mini-split units on interior walls, doing so is more complicated, and more expensive than mounting them on exterior walls.
This is a program that is nothing more than welfare for the already well-to-do. The heat pump systems do have tax credits, but that doesn’t mean that homeowners can simply stroke a check for $15 grand, and be able to wait for their tax credits. While some rowhouse neighborhoods like Fishtown are gentrifying, and might have some better-off homeowners who would consider heat pumps as they remodel, it’s more difficult to see how the working-class people in Philly’s working-class neighborhoods could do so. If their gas furnaces have to be replaced, it’s still cheaper for them to replace with new gas furnaces than heat pumps, as Mr Kummer’s article tells us.
And so I go back to the beginning, and how electricity is our most vulnerable to the weather utility. If you live in a Philly rowhome, and the power goes out on a bitterly cold February day, whether you had a heat pump based system, or your old natural gas fired boiler for radiators, both would be out. But a low-end home generator from Lowe’s or Home Despot can provide enough 110-volt, 20-amp power to run your natural gas furnace, while you’d need a substantial generator, providing 220-volts to run your heat pump system.
I have no objection at all to people being able to choose what kind of heating system they want; I do find it objectionable that the government has its snotty nose in these decisions, and that the feds are providing what amounts to welfare for already prosperous people.
