Other people are going away for the (US) holiday weekend, barbecuing, hiking, whatever. I'm hauling gravel. The garden show is a month from yesterday. The countdown is on! I'm terrible about taking "before" photos but trust me this is a big improvement. And why yes, that is an electric #heatpump on the right there in photo 1. 5 stars. Would recommend. #gardening #PNW #inmygarden
Now the heat pump planning permission is approved, I have an installation date. Install will start 22nd July. I need to order some new home batteries. I think I will add another 9.6 kWh. That means we will have 19.2 kWh.
Planning permission was granted for the heat pump. That has been a bit of a mission. Octopus will be calling tomorrow to plan the installation. Likely to be July or August.
My landlord installed a heatpump / electric combo water heater last month. It has a wifi connectivity feature that supposedly lets you schedule the water heater.
I was excited to be able to turn it off during peak times (4 to 9pm) and at night and set it to high efficiency mode when needed.
We all know that PG&E is a private utility company which participates in stock buyback, unjustified rate increases coupled with unrealistic compensations for their CEO.
I know they don’t have me best interest in mind yet I cannot opt out if them scheduling my water heater…
My only option is to turn off the IoT and delete the app.
Are appliance manufacturers are colluding with utility companies ?
So once again, as a tenant, I can’t do anything. My landlord probably got some tax deductions, and we’re stuck with either a dumb water heater or a collaborator spyware smart water heater…
At least it should theoretically be cheaper than gas but with the way the rates are increasing, I need to do the math
Don’t buy an #EcoTerra or at least download the #EcoNet app beforehand to see how shitty it is.
I like this new comparison feature in #OctopusWatch v5. I don’t have an #HeatPump, but added it out of interest. Version 5 is not out yet, I am beta testing.
The inverter #heatPump, which refuses to operate at temps below 40F, has still been pretty useful this pnw winter. But what if it could charge up a room-temperature phase-change thermal battery running on solar electricity in the daytime? Radiator full of wax plugged into the window unit or hung off the inside of it... 🤔
You work in IT and want a job where you can really save tons of CO2? Vamo, a heatpump startup, is looking for people to join their IT-team to help them connect heatpumps to the cloud!
What is a #HeatPump clothes dryer doing with 240V 30A just like a resistance heater unit? Is it going to try 4x as fast or just rarely draw more than 5A? I was thinking that change might free up a double-pole circuit in the panel, but no? Could it at least share with the heat pump water heater?
Over a month ago I promised a blog on my Heat Pump and Solar Panels and Battery Storage.
I've finally hit "publish" (well, actually "rsync" but whatever)
It may, or may not, answer any/all questions you have about this. If not, maybe ask me here and I'll try to reply and forget to include that in a future update.
We just received our "jaarafrekening". This is the final yearly invoice sent by our energy company. They are about to pay us €252, and we will continue to pay them €5 per month next year, just like last year. i.e. overall our energy company is paying us about €200 for last year's electricity. Everything in our home is powered by electricity. No gas connection. No wood burner.
Nothing that we've done to achieve a negative energy bill was especially expensive. In particular, our installation of a air-air heat pump and a couple of extra solar panels cost far less than several of our neighbours paid for the wood burning stoves they've installed, which stink up the neighbourhood all through winter.
We also don't have to buy wood to burn.
People concerned about the cost of heating with gas buy woodburners at a higher rate than heat pumps largely because they have no idea about the relative costs. If they knew, perhaps we could have clean air.
I'll write a comprehensive blog post at the end of March about energy consumption, costs & emissions due to the heatpump vs. gas this winter. I can tell you already that we using a lot less total energy now.
To summarise: In the worst case, our CO2 emissions are reduced by 95% vs. burning gas, we have no heating bill at all any more, and our home was warmer than before.