Nat Gas VS Electrical

HVAC_Ryan

We're going to be building a garage this spring/summer, and I was hoping to pick the plumber brains out there.

I'd rather not run Nat Gas out to it, would it be beneficial to use an electric boiler/Water Heater? Is it any more efficient? Does the lack of stack losses make up for the cost difference in delivery?

Environmentally: Most electricity in Alberta is produced via coal burning. Is the environmental impact of this type of electrical power greater than the production and use of Nat Gas?

What are your thoughts?



Local Rates:
Electrical - $12/Kw
Nat Gas $9/Cubic Meter

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KillerToiletSpider

The price you pay per unit doesn't matter, gas is almost twice as efficient as electric in almost all applications.

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Reilley

Define efficiency:

The ratio of the output to the input of any system.

Electric is 100% efficient in that all of the energy used is converted into heat. Aside from power used to operate a blower which isn't relevant in this situation.

N.G. is at best 95%? efficient in that it produces gases / byproducts.

The question here is not efficiency but cost and environmental impact.

I don't know the cost of N.G. / electricity in Alberta so you'd have to calculate it. In terms of environmental impact, I'd personally go with Natural Gas as opposed to coal electricity.

bwalley

Electric resistive heat is the most expensive form of heat.

Natural gas will be less expensive and more efficient than electric.

Electric is not 100% efficient, nothing is 100% efficient.

Reilley

Care to explain how NG is more efficient than electric?

rbsremodeling

Care to explain how it isn't??

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bwalley

What kind of contractor are you?

To make electricity you have to produce heat (except hydrodynamic) most electricity is produced by burning a fuel either coal, oil or natural gas, then it heats water, spins a huge turbine that spins the generator and makes electricity.

Then the electricty gets converted back into heat in a water heater.

With a NG water heater, you burn the fuel and heat the water.

Call your local utility company and ask them what is more efficient, NG or electric to produce heat, $100 says NG is.

We Fix Houses

NG historically has been more efficient than electric. The marketeers will tell you that. But only to a point depending on its price. Twice as efficiant as electric ? Yes...but only reletive to historic NG prices beyond 3-4 yrs ago. NG has not been more efficiant as electric in the past few years. Possibly equal ?

Remember the NG price shock of a couple of November's ago ?? During the past 3-4 yrs the price of NG has been at 3 - 4x its historical cost. This is referred to as pre Katrina levels /rates. The pre Katrina rate was about $4.00 MMbtu and went up to about $14.50 MMbtu only a few months ago peaking when gasoline was at its highest.

Now NG is back down to about $4.00 MMbtu and a good buy compared to electricity at the moment. I'm even using my NG heat more.

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/com...rgyprices.html

There's an abundance of NG in North America. T Boone Pickens says so.......Over the long term, 10 yrs or so NG will be more efficiant. There will be some price shocks.

Don't want to run NG ? What about Propane and a hanging unit ? Ask your dealer for yrs of price history and verify on the www. They'll provide the tank and run the lines for very little charge. Alberta, they may even sell or lease you an industrial type heater. Ask you NG co. what they can do. You need to bring up on the phone your considering PG and KW for them to offer you anything.

Aggie67

Deriving space heat from a home's electrical system is the most inefficient thing going. A fossil fuel power plant will produce electricity at your outlet with an efficiency of 34%, on average. That means only 34% of the energy in the power plant's fuel will be delivered to your house in the form of electric power at the outlet. 66% of the energy in that power plant fuel is lost. On top of that, nothing in this universe is 100% efficient. The 2nd law of thermodynamics covers that. So you lose a little more between the outlet and the device.

Compare that to the efficiency of a NG heater, where today you can find furnace units that use 95% of the energy in the heater's fuel, and only 5% is lost up the chimney.

You should compare install cost versus operating cost versus impact on the environment (if you choose to). I think you'll find natural gas might be a little more expensive to install, but you can run it cheaper, more efficiently, and more environmentally friendly than powering electric heat from a fossil fuel power plant. But you should really look at the costs.

bwalley

Efficiency is one thing, economics is another, but I don't see how it would ever be cheaper to heat with electric resistive heat over NG.

Reilley

You guys are way off topic.

Efficiency in the terms of output to input, not generation, not cost. If NG is at best 95% efficient it is not as efficient as electricity.

I am not saying NG is more expensive than electricity. I am not saying NG production is more detrimental to the environment than that of electricity. I am not even saying that the OP should use electric (see my original post). I am saying that in terms of efficiency, which is The ratio of the output to the input of any system, electric heating is more efficient. I wouldn't recommend electric heat or hot water to anyone; BUT it is more efficient. Anyone who argues with that is wasting their breath.

bwalley, I am a GC. Yourself?

Aggie67

I think we all have good info. As with any energy related issue, it depends on where you draw the dotted line around the system.

We didn't talk about heat pumps, either. I've got a Friedrich in my bar here at the house that the vendor claimed had a 200%+ efficiency. That's a crock. No such thing as efficiency and a heat pump, but I didn't want to debate engineering with him. Even so, my unit's performance is all over the map, depending on the outside air temp. But it's always more "efficient" (defined as COP) than the Seaboard radiant electric heater that's in here, which I decommissioned when I moved in.

So we're all right, in our own way, just depends on how you define the system.

It's just that I'm righter.

SmithBuilt

www.eia.doe.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls

Put your local costs in and you can compare.

Aggie67

Now that's a spreadsheet.

SmithBuilt

I put my local prices in and nothing compares to a Heat Pump, ok maybe coal. I see a new marketing tool for my HVAC guy and me as an electrician (panel upgrades).

We Fix Houses

Gimmee a "hell yea" on that one.

bwalley

There is a difference between a heat pump and electric resistive heat.

I think it is cheaper to heat with NG than a heat pump.

SmithBuilt

Yes I know there is. But where I'm located (and you) the strips hardly ever come on. I know that's not true up north. Keep in mind I'm referring to today's HP not the old 1970's inefficient unit.

Try keeping an open mind on this. Prices have changed over the past few years. I would have agreed with you 6 years ago when NG was cheap, but now you need to put pencil to paper and see for yourself which is cheaper in your area.

One bonus for heat pumps here and most of the country electric rates are regulated. Unlike other fuels.