Tag: electric

January 6, 2026 – The Oregon Coast is a Heating Climate

January 6, 2026 /

This is one of those gems that gets found when you rent before you buy. As an aspiring coastal dweller, I know that it rarely gets above the mid-seventies in the summer. There are often times that when it is near 100 in the valley where I currently live, it can be in the 60s and sometimes even raining at the coast. I have no qualms about what the cooling capacity is needed for comfort at the coast and I would have expected that the heating question is solved in spades.

After we made our offer and toured a second time, I discovered that our new house really has inadequate heat. The picture above is one of two units in the living space on the main floor. The problem that I have observed is that it takes up to 24 hours to get the living space comfortable and that is because a lot of the heat goes up the stairs (mind you, this is with all of the doors closed).

It has been almost thirty years since I have lived in a unit with electrical resistance heating. They are pretty common in rental units, I put them in my own ADU. In fact, I used a double sized unit in the living area of my 650 square foot space. You can see why I am skeptical that two of these will be enough for 1200 square feet.

It will make a difference when we are living there and not trying to heat a space from 45 to 70 in a couple of hours for a quick overnighter. Our New Years stay was our first multiple night stay and we installed one of those weather stations to try and get a handle on how long it actually takes. I would say a good day to get comfortable.

I won’t say that we cannot live with it, because we can and we will. As long as things keep up, it will be alright. The worst case scenario is I have propane, kerosene and space heaters if needed. My wife won’t like it and those will mess with the Feng Sui of the home but we won’t have to be cold. Adding mass such as furniture will make a difference in the operational duration of the heaters. I have observed that they pretty much run from the time they are turned on until we shut off the lights to leave in an overnight stay in an empty house.

Let’s not get too rash until we move in and see how it goes. While the climate is always cool, fortunately it is rarely severely cold. It will occasionally snow and by that I mean once every couple of years. Temperatures below freezing is a couple of times per year but not extended days on end. I am looking at my temperature while I am writing this and it is 32 degrees here and 40 degrees at the lake.

Electrical resistance heating is cheap to install but very expensive to operate. Hence why it is seen so often in rental units. The landlord never has to reap the consequences of the installation decision. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. I do think it is ideal in small spaces particularly interior ones. Those would be things like bathrooms, laundry rooms and occasional bedrooms. I don’t love them for bedrooms because of the potential fire hazards and they are a poor substitute for a furnace. They just don’t have the power to heat things quickly and have to run a long time, think spinning dollar signs as they operate.

Think about it this way, two of those heaters can be put on one standard 20 amp 110v circuit (yes, there are lots of different models this is one example). That is 2000 watts of of electrical consumption. Our heat pump is on a 60 amp 220 volt circuit. Whether it uses all that power or not it has a potential to consume 13,200 watts of power. Doing that math, that is 13 individual resistance heaters. The unit cost of those heaters are currently $167 each meaning the overall materials cost is roughly $2,200 whereas a full size heat pump furnace is at least $10.000, not counting duct work.

I don’t have time to go into all of the technical details today however heat pumps pull heat out of the air and into a carrier fluid over a coil to be blown throughout the house. Only when the outside temperature is cold (less than 35) does a resistance coil kick in to add supplemental heat. This is why operating a heat pump is significantly more efficient than electrical resistance heating because you are mostly using electricity for a fluid pump and two fans.

Heat pumps are not the only technology choice. The advantage of heat pumps over furnaces is that they offer cooling in the warmer months with the same technology. In our case, an all electric home, it seems like an obvious choice without having to connect gas or find a place to put a wood/pellet stove. To further subdivide the category, a mini-split is a certain type of heat pump that doesn’t use ducts (think hotel room). They also tend to be at least half the cost of a traditional heat pump without the footprint or infrastructure.

End Your Programming Routine: In our future, I actually see two things, one is propane and the other is a mini-split. I will talk about the reasons why in some future post. I know that electricity is going to be expensive but so is retrofitting this house and we are tapping pretty hard on reserves to do all of the inspection items like replacing the sewer line and new porch railings. All told, we are about $15,000 in repairs to date and we haven’t sold the house yet. Wait and see is not just practical, it is also necessary.

January 18, 2023 – How Hot is Hot Enough?

January 18, 2023 /

Recently, I noticed a problem. It seemed like the first five minutes of the shower was hot and then it went lukewarm. I didn’t think that I was imagining things so I started to ask some questions. Did my wife take a shower before me? Are the kids here? And the answer was no. Hmm, seems like we might have a problem with the hot water heater.

I looked at the date on the water heater, it was dated 1994. So, that is 29 years old folks. The common stated lifecycle is 10-15 years. That means that when we bought the house, we were at the end of the expected duration. But, that is crazy, as long as the tank is not leaking (meaning rusted throughout), then there should be some serviceable parts and some way to check it.

Electric water heaters have two elements at top and a bottom. I surmised that there was a problem with the bottom element because there was some hot water. A quick aside on how water heaters work. Because of the temperature gradient, hot water is on top and cooler water is on the bottom. As you draw from the tank, hot water comes off the top while cooler water is added to the bottom. This actually pushes the hot water out. Time to test things out.

First, take the covers off of the tank. This exposes the elements and thermostats (one per element). Then, with a multi-meter set to resistance (that is the ohm’s symbol omega, sorry I cant add special characters) put the lead on each wire terminal and measure. The expected result depends on your particular element but I was expecting around12 and 13 ohms. From the picture, you can see that the top element measured 13.4 and the bottom measured 0.7 ohms.

If you remember you basic physics and circuits, 1 ohm is a broken circuit. What is likely happened that the element is all gunked up with mineral build-up. But, the element could be burned out and the circuit is completed with the mineral build up, at least that is my speculation.

Had I gotten two good resistance measurements of the top and bottom elements, I might have turned my attention to the thermostat. In theory, those could be tested too, but it is more complicated and I didn’t do it so I am not going to talk any further about it. I am going to attempt to replace the elements.

I say attempt because I hope that I can get the bottom element out. There is a lot of corrosion around the element and who knows what the inside is looking like. I will probably look at the top element and will make a decision as I get there. The replacement I ordered comes with two elements and is billed as a ‘tune-up’.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are interested, stay tuned to follow up on this project. What I am trying to get across today is that things like this are not out of reach of the average homeowner. A little knowledge of how a hot water heater works and what is possible can lead to saving a lot of money. I don’t know this for a fact, but my guess is that a plumber would replace the whole thing because after all, it is three times older than it’s expected life.

October 19, 2022 – Electric Yard Tools

October 19, 2022 /

I will be honest, I have had a long held prejudice against yard tools that are powered with a cord. Things I have used would be things like chainsaws, hedge trimmers, string trimmers and leaf blowers. I can now add rototiller to the list.

It’s not that these items don’t work, they do. And quite frankly they are often times significantly, more inexpensive then the cordless relatives. I guess my opinion stems originally from a Black & Decker hedge trimmer that my dad has owned my entire life. This was something we usually had to deal with once a year as kids. And multiple times the cord was cut because you are thrashing around in the brush and the cord gets tangled in the brush and around other plants.

With the advent of battery powered yard tools and my older age, I am starting to change my opinion. For one, I don’t own enough property or do enough work to justify gas powered tools. The truth is, I don’t do enough yard work to replace my gas tools with battery tools (or even own either type of them). My Stihl chainsaw has been really good but other things like lawnmowers and trimmers gum up, crack up or fail due to lack of use.

The nice thing about electric is that there is very little maintenance required, so it is ready to go when you want it. Whereas, I am often wondering if my gas powered equipment will start or run every time I go to use it.

Last year, when I was cleaning out my father-in-laws stuff, I took his electric cultivator. I forgot that I even had it until I was trying to figure out how to get some ground worked up quickly to do some overseeding. I have to say that I was pretty impressed at how it did. My mom has had Mantis tiller for years and I really thought it was worthless from what I have used.

Yes, the cord was in the way but based on my usage pattern, the small inconvenience is worth not trying to do it by hand. This is definitely not something I would have ever purchased, however maybe this is the kick in the ass to get a proper garden in next year. It is getting my juices going.

End Your Programming Routine: For homeowners or occasional users that are close to a power source, having a corded tool is highly preferential to not having anything at all. For this category of user, I think the battery powered tool is probably the best compromise on most yard tools. Only serious, frequent users would benefit from gas tools. If that is you, then you probably already know all of this. But, reconsider the stigma corded tools, I know that I am.