[elil17]

If you have a resistance electric furnace, that is essentially true. With gas, you add the electric generation and distribution losses, which is a pretty big difference. It does cost more to run an appliance than to heat with gas.

[ezzaf]

If you account for the electric generation and distribution losses, you should do the same for gas.

"It does cost more to run an appliance than to heat with gas."

That's highly dependent on the appliances involved and the price you pay for each fuel. For me, a heat pump is much cheaper to run. You really need to calculate it for each individual situation.

[elil17]

Heat pumps and electric furnaces are not the same thing

[moffkalast]

It's always been funny to me that throughout engineering people chase like 1% efficiency improvements from like 20 to 21 or 35 to 36 and it's usually a big win when achieved... meanwhile resistive heating has an efficiency of 100% and it still manages to absolutely suck.

[elil17]

It only sucks because of generation and transmission losses. If those didn’t exist (not possible), electricity would be much cheaper and they would be on par with or better than natural gas furnaces

[ClumsyPilot]

Gas boilers produce NO2, and other nasties - they do affect air quality in your house

[kwhitefoot]

How do they affect the air quality indoors? Don't modern (less than fifty years old) gas boilers have balanced flues so that they take in air from the outside and exhaust the combustion products outside too?

Surely properly installed gas boilers always did that even without balanced flues too.

[abakker]

My experience (sample of one) is that they don't. They're supposed to, but VOCs are definitely higher all winter running heat than all summer running air conditioning. Natural gas combustion is at best _mostly_ exhausted.

[riceart77]

> My experience (sample of one) is that they don't.

There is something very very wrong with your equipment (or you're measuring something else not having anything to do with the heating equipment - more likely). A high efficiency furnace has a sealed combustion chamber, the entire thing runs in a circuit vented to the outside - combustion air comes from the outside and it is vented to the outside. If it is not airtight sealed from the indoors, it is broken. Even a mid-efficiency furnace with a non-sealed system will vent 100% of the flue gas outside.

> Natural gas combustion is at best _mostly_ exhausted.

Bullshit for any modern equipment (ie installed in the last 50 years).

[elil17]

It could also be that outdoor AQ is worse around you in the winter because everyone is running their boilers, and then that outdoor air ends up inside. I can't test it because I have a heat pump, but I would be curious to know what happens to your VOCs if you turn off your boiler at a time when your neighbors are still running theirs.

[abakker]

My meter here in boulder, CO reads effectively 0 VOC outdoors all year round.

[riceart77]

Mid-efficiency furnaces are still commonplace in the US, and they don't have sealed combustion systems - they get combustion air from the indoor space, but they vent 100% of combustion products out. High-efficiency furnaces in the US made in the past 30 years or so use sealed combustion with intake and outtake to the outside. (North American high efficiency furnaces older than about 30 years were not necessarily sealed).

But yes, the GP is full of shit. Maybe they have some other non-induced vented gas burning appliance (ie a hot water heater or gas hob), or their measurement equipment is faulty.

[ClumsyPilot]

> But yes, the GP is full of shit.

Or you live insulated from shitty alliances and low income life.

A friend's husband was killed by a faulty boiler, carbon monoxide poisoning. In 2015 I lived in a house where boiler ignition didn't work and you had to reach inside with a lighter. That unit was definately not sealed.

UK only required consenser boilers since 2005, the ones before that used to air from inside your house.

[kwhitefoot]

Condenser boilers and balanced flue are separate concepts. The house I bought in 1978 had balanced flue gas heaters but they were not condensing. Condensing boilers are an efficiency measure. Balanced flue boilers have been available in the UK since the mid sixties.

[ClumsyPilot]

All I can do is share personal experience of living in rental properties in UK, and if these boilers were really sealed, my acquaintance wouldn't be dead.

Whether most boilers are prehistoric, or it's just years of neglect, I don't know.

[sidewndr46]

At least where I live in the US if you want a ventless natural gas heater you can just go buy one. It's not something I'd recommend.

[sidewndr46]

But if we're going with the "heatpumps are more than 100% efficient" that everyone brings out, then running my computer to work & heat my room is far above 200% efficiency.

If I'm running my computer to use it & it keeps me warm, there is no way turning on a natural gas heater is going to reduce my costs.

[elil17]

Heatpumps are more than 100% efficient refers to a technical specification measure called efficiency, which is watts of heating per watt of energy input. For space heaters, electric furnaces, and your computer (/many other appliances), it’s always 100%. For modern gas furnaces it can be 90%ish (but the difference in electricity and gas prices mean that gas furnaces are still cheaper). For heat pumps it’s typically between 200% and 540%.

If you have a thermostat in your home, any appliances you use will reduce your heating usage because the thermostat will automatically decrease how much the furnace runs. So, yeah, it’s not wasteful to vent your computer exhaust outside in the winter, but no one’s doing that. On the other hand, it’s not worth it to run appliances you wouldn’t otherwise run unless you have an electric furnace, in which case it doesn’t matter.

[riceart77]

> So, yeah, it’s not wasteful to vent your computer exhaust outside in the winter, but no one’s doing that.

Uh, come again? If I am using my computer anyway - why would I exhaust the waste heat outside if I have to heat the indoors anyway? That is wasteful.

[elil17]

Oops I meant to say it is wasteful - typo

[sidewndr46]

Sure but why limit ourselves to "which is watts of heating per watt of energy input." Wouldn't "amount of useful work per watts of energy input" be OK? So if I am putting in 100 watts constantly to my PC I am getting 100 watts of heating & 1 unit of computing. Which is more than 100%