natural gas

[Rogar]

I've had electric push mowers for many years without problems. Last year I replaced my first since technology has improved over the years and they are lighter and more powerful. I took the old one to Goodwill and they were happy to get it. I'm not sure what item your equipment dealer is talking about, but electric mowers are as common as gas at the local big box and only slightly more expensive, depending on brand and features. Not having to mess with gas and the fumes is worth the extra hundred bucks or so more to me. I also have an electric snow blower. It's quite functional, but in this case probably not as powerful as gas in big snows, like over a foot. I bought it to use during a surgery recovery and it did fine, but as long as I'm healthy would just as soon shovel.

I also have a battery powered electric weed eater, hedge trimmer, and leaf blower. They all do the job fine for my residential house and none have had problems. They are probably not suitable for commercial jobs. Just like cars I imagine the batteries do wear out and can be expensive. I've just not had that happen so far.

[jp1]

I did the following calculation before deciding to switch to a heat pump. In an average winter month we use about 50-55 therms of gas for the furnace. That's 5,000,000-5,500,000 btus, but since our furnace was 45 years old I multiplied that by 60%, to get 3,000,000-3,3000,000 of actual heat in hour house. We pay $2.36/therm currently so $118-$129/month.

The heat pump we were considering (now own) is an 18 efficiency 3 ton unit. 3 tons is 36,000 btu's. A 10 efficiency would mean it uses 1 kw for 1,000 btu's. 18 efficiency means divide that number by 1.8. Our unit will use 3.6/1.8 kw=2kwh to produce 36,000 btus. Dividing 3,000,000-3,300,000 by 36,000 I estimated we would run the new heat pump 83-91 hours/month on average. We pay $.41 (all in) for one kwh of electricity. If my calculations are accurate we should have dramatically lower heating bills in the winter. Even a high efficiency (we got a quote for 95% efficient) gas furnace would still be more expensive to run than the heat pump will.

The question of what's better for the environment nets out as follows. A high efficiency natural gas power plant is 60% efficient. One therm of natural gas converts to 29 kwh of electricity at 100% efficiency. So the power plant produces maybe 18kwh of electricity per therm. That's enough to run our heat pump 9 hours so it would take roughly 10 therms of gas to make enough electricity to run the heat pump for an equal amount of heat as we would get for 34 therms of gas in a high efficiency furnace. Even if the power plant is older and only 25% efficient instead of 60% efficient it would still only take 25ish therms of gas to make the electricity.

For us the electric plant efficiency is purely hypothetical since 100% of PGE's power generation is renewable, hydro and nuclear.

[Rogar]

That's pretty interesting jp1. The bit of follow up I did makes me think a heat pump would be worth looking into, seeing as how my AC and furnace are approaching their demise. There are quite a few variables to consider.

[catherine]

Definitely worth at least looking into, Rogar. jp, thanks for that analysis.. Interesting!

[Rogar]

The morning news here had a feature about Home Depot’s plan to have 80 percent of their residential yard tools electric by 2028. It does seem like the electric transition is getting some mainstream traction.

[JaneV2.0]

The morning news here had a feature about Home Depot’s plan to have 80 percent of their residential yard tools electric by 2028. It does seem like the electric transition is getting some mainstream traction.

Prayers have been answered! I spend hours each summer fantasizing about vaporizing my noisy grass-worshipping neighbors and/or their tools.

[catherine]

I'm dying to get an electric mower. DH swears by his riding mower for the large lawn in front, much of which we share with neighbors. But our little patch of "living yard" is small and carved out with stuff--gardens, firepit, table and chairs, etc, etc, and we use an old regular push gas mower for that. However, it's wonky--you have to start it a certain way and stop it a certain way because it's so old. I was thinking of getting an electric one that I could actually use when I want to (I have to ask DH to start the gas mower).

They run about 250-300 for the size I would need. I haven't asked DH because I'm sure he'll tell me in his Scottish/American accent that the gas one is "Fine, just fine." And he's the family lawn master, so I'll have to go with whatever he says.

[jp1]

A friend of mine lives in a house on a typical 1/8 acre 50’s suburban lot in Southern California. He bought a battery mower a few years ago and absolutely loves it. So much easier to use, maintain and store (it folds up and just has a small rectangle footprint) than the old gas mower he had for decades.

[Alan]

Battery technology has come a long way since I first investigated electric tools and appliances. I bought my first electric lawn mower over 30 years ago, along with a 150 foot extension cord so that it could reach the furthest point of my yard. Around that same time I got an electric chainsaw which also had to be plugged into an outlet in order to work.
Once the appropriate batteries became more powerful and cost effective, cords on those types of appliances went away. Today I have battery operated blowers, trimmers, power tools and chainsaws which not only work very well, but are convenient to use.
I still have a gas powered lawn tractor which I'll probably keep forever as long as it remains reliable, as well as a gas powered push mower which I'm open to replacing with a battery operated version someday. Now that I'm a senior citizen I prefer to ride while servicing my 3/4 acre yard, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[happystuff]

We are the same as Alan... have battery mower, blower, trimmer and even the same brand of hand tools! As each came with a battery (mower came with two), we have a several batteries that will all operate any of the above. It's worked out well.