ime one of the upsides of gas is that as long as you have gas or electric your home has heat and cooking capability
also I’ve never had a gas outage. presumably they run those underground? whereas I’ve lived in places where you were, at some point, definitely going to have the electric out for hours
…how is your heat set up? Is that from having a gas stove?
I have an electric stove and a gas furnace (also a gas dryer and water heater), and I would have said the exact opposite: one of the *downsides* of gas is that your heat needs *both* gas and electricity to work, and fails if either is missing.
(Not that gas has ever been missing, true, but “works when electricity is out” is like the *one* major advantage combustion-based heating can have, and it can’t even fucking do *that*. It had one job! What am I paying all this carbon for, if not that?!)
(I can*not* fucking wait to get a heat pump and some hybrid solar.)
huh, TIL. has this always been the case? most of my lengthy power outage memories occur the late 90s / early 00s and the furnace might have been old at the time.
maybe the kerosene space heater people are right after all
What am I paying all this carbon for, if not that?!
my understanding is that vs resistive heating you’re not paying carbon, since gas furnaces are extremely efficient. heat pumps can change this equation, yeah
My furnace is from 1990. I doubt it’s very efficient; it should, however, give pretty accurate results regarding “what things were like in the late 90s”.
We had a 16-hour power outage in late December a few years back, and it got pretty cold in the house. (Though the downward slope over time was shallower than I would have expected: I guess our insulation is better than I thought.)
I’m not sure what you mean about not paying carbon relative to–oh, are you assuming the electricity is *also* produced by burning gas? We’re mostly nuclear and hydro around here, though with a minority of natural gas.
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>>maybe the kerosene space heater people are right after all
I’ve thought about it, but I’d rather not risk it. My current plan for extended cold-weather power outages is to set up a family-sized tent in my kitchen (the only large enough open space for it) and pile on the insulation.
My furnace is from 1990. I doubt it’s very efficient; it should, however, give pretty accurate results regarding “what things were like in the late 90s”.
right, given that furnaces are often quite old it’s possible the furnace in question was from 1970 or something like that.
but also maybe it just never got that cold, the longest outages I can remember were in the summer. there were some fall / winter ones but as I remember it they were less than a day.
are you assuming the electricity is *also* produced by burning gas
not gas necessarily, but yeah that was assuming fossil fuels. typical furnaces are very efficient at turning fuel into heat, as heat is normally the waste product of energy generation and the only trick is to extract as much heat as possible from waste gases that you want to pipe out of the house. whereas with electric heat the waste heat at the power plant is, well, wasted.
but yeah if you have hydro that’s not at all the case.
I’ve thought about it, but I’d rather not risk it
yeah this was mostly a joke. I’ve been around a few kerosene space heaters and they smelled, which I took as a bad sign in addition to fire risk. I don’t think I’d buy one if I had the option of using an electric one.
as an emergency survival plan I’m willing to consign myself to living in cold weather clothes for a while, which I have anyway for cold weather activities
>>given that furnaces are often quite old it’s possible the furnace in question was from 1970 or something like that
I’d heard that furnaces tend to fail after about 15 years, suggesting our 31.5-year-old furnace is staggeringly ancient. I figured a 1990 furnace would give a decent sense of the state of things circa 1997, since it was halfway through its life expectancy then.
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>>#I don’t actually own a tent at present but yes if you have one even a tent not meant for cold weather stuff will do a lot
I didn’t actually *know* we owned a tent during the 16-hour outage, and Mom apparently didn’t think of it. Shit like this is why I want to inventory the basement and attic.
(she says she inherited it from a retiring Girl Scout leader, and never got a good opportunity to use it for our own troop)
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