Comments by "Chaos Corner" (@chaos.corner) on "Home Electrification: There's not a lot to do, and it doesn't have to be hard (Part 1)" video.

@PaulN504 Also, for a while, electrical service was pretty much just for lighting and low power stuff. For many people, electric dryers would not have been an option.
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@RS-ls7mm Even if it doesn't fail, companies these days are offering "lifetime support" where the "lifetime" can be as little as four years (or maybe less) from the date of purchase. IoT stuff is troublesome in its own right. Always pick stuff that can work standalone and, if possible, is ancillary to more simple equipment.
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Have you documented this anywhere? I'm interested.
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I have electric/rechargeable lawn equipment and while I like it in theory (much lighter, no issues starting), the batteries don't last as long as I'd like, are expensive and have lost a bunch of their life over 4 years. Also, 40V is not quite enough for a push mower. I had a wired push mower and didn't like it at all. It was wheeled though. A hover mower might have been OK.
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@Magnum_Express Lots of places banning wood stoves (California is one, I think). They may be more "green" but their emissions, especially smoke, are through the roof.
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@alexcrouse Nice enough. I know there's one out there that tries to learn what each current source is. Don't know if anyone is working on an open-source version of that.
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And then they need to upgrade the upstream infrastructure and the production capability. Buy yourself some nice warm blankets...
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@TechnologyConnections "those raw materials remain intact throughout the whole of their lifespan" - That's what we call a tautology.
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Yep. We had 5 days out a few years ago in the winter. The gas made it livable enough to where we could stay in the house and keep the fridge in good shape by occasionally plugging it into a car inverter.
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@anonamouse5917 Yes. Alec normally is all about the numbers but I think he's betraying a deep anti-gas bias in the way he just guessed and asserted stuff there. 5 days was because there were a lot of people out and they do each repair in the order of number of people it hurts. We thought we were with the rest of our street but it turns out we're on some weird connection from elsewhere and the damage on that only took our house out.
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@joep5170 Yes. I'll be looking for an 80V next time around. Though I may see if I can upgrade mine. It might be a standard motor fitment and there's space for spare battery (though it's not wired).
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I have one. It actually cuts in below 40 where the heat-pump efficiency drops off. Well, the thermostat gets an estimate of the temperature from the web but there's a module you can put in the unit itself that would get the actual temperature. I did a comparison and the gas raises the temperature of the air by about twice what the heat pump does but the heat pump does fine in regular use.
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@MrNeptunebob This one does pretty OK. No cold air from the vents. It does make weird noises sometimes though. I don't think it's changing modes as it mostly seems to happen when it's just the heat pump range.
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Ah, demolish the old houses to build new ones and use more energy and generate more CO2 than would ever be saved from the improvements. It's the green way! You're right though, lots of houses being bought to be torn down and have two or three (or more) built on the land.
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@Croz89 Case by case but typically it makes sense to get the lifetime out of a home, possibly with some efficiency upgrades. It's not like there's not a call for new housing anyway without having to demolish old. Building new is very energy and emission intensive.
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@Croz89 Most of the post-war housing stuff will be built to standard that can be upgraded though. My parents' house was such and was upped with cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and double glazing, for example. I understand the prefabs were already pretty good, being built from solid concrete. But by all means, run the numbers. I believe you'll find it less enticing than you'd think.
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@Croz89 If you mess up most things, there are bad outcomes. That's not a reason not to do it. Just do it right. Yes, it's not going to be as good as new construction but that's not the measure. The measure is how it compares with all the resources and emissions of demo and construction. FWIW, I live in an even older house now with even worse insulation than my parents. Heat pump works fine. Lower bills would be nice. They'd have to be a damn sight lower to be worth a 200k rebuild though.
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@Croz89 You'll find a few, I'll grant you but what you'll mostly do is end up subsidizing the construction industry, much like cash for clunkers did for the motor industry.
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@Croz89 I'll just add that I don't think the cavity wall insulation was the biggest win anyway. Double glazing the windows and insulating the loft space were probably the biggest gains. Two layers of brick and an air gap are not that bad. I'm not sure they're building the inner walls with brick anymore in the UK.
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It's random around here. I live in the city so have both but there's lots of places around that are fairly remote and while everybody needs electricity (and there's probably government regs about them having to supply it), gas becomes a case of whether it's worth laying the pipes.
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@davidshaw9993 We have 2 100 amp panels. There are also bits from the original knob-and-tube wiring in the basement.
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@ivanskyttejrgensen7464 Yes. It takes a long time for improvements like that to pay for themselves and if you move before they do, you get back a fraction of what you paid in increased house price. It can improve quality of life though.
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@omega4711 Weak.
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@gionova1 Electrical use is definitely going up and has been for the last century. My parents' house had one or two electrical sockets per room. That wasn't enough even before I left home in the 80s. TVs, PCs, VCRs, phones, well, the list goes on.
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@Narinjas Heat pumps don't get that hot. I like my food cooked.
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@m.k.8158 Sure, it does not necessarily mean that. But that's what's happening. Computers are more efficient but people used to not have them. Then there's all the parasitic power use that's going on and things used to turn off, not just be in standby. Heat pumps are better than resistive heating at least though. Monitor energy requirements are definitely less, thankfully but PC power requirements seem to be ever increasing, especially when it comes to PCs used for gaming. I bet the same is true for gaming consoles.
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Meanwhile, people are being told not to charge their electric cars. I like gas. I'll keep it as long as I can, thanks. My furnace is dual fuel. Heat pump for when it makes sense and gas for when it does. By the way, we'll always need oil for plastics. Natural gas is a side-effect of that. Better to use it than just burn it off at the well.
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@Veylon Still are for RVs.
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Rechargeables are getting pretty close. The battery capacity and price is the big issue. I'd say go for at least 80V too.
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Any idea on the reasoning behind that? I can't imagine exploding tanks is that much of a thing and the CO risk is similar. Leaking tanks?
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I like my battery tools but the batteries are expensive, don't last as long as I'd like and started losing a lot of their life last year.
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@MasonJarGaming I bet you have a list of people who've crossed you too.
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