I like the redundancy of natural gas. So far, in less than 40 years, I have been kept warm for multiple days on 3 separate occasions by having access to gas while the electricity did not work. Also, I was able to keep cooking.
One of the states in the article is Oregon too, where I have family that just a few weeks ago lost electricity for 4 days, but were able to use an electric generator to keep the air handler going and gas to heat the the house and cook.
I fear heat pump only heat will fail exactly when I most need it not to.
My ex-wife had a two-day power outage last month (it was only a few hours at my apartment) during a cold snap. She has gas heat, but the problem is that the heat gets circulated by fans¹ which are powered by—electricity.
She had to get a hotel room for the night because she wasn’t comfortable sleeping with the gas fireplace on.
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1. I would guess that thermostats also powered by electricity not working would add to the complication.
Of course, but gas utility supply means a much smaller generator is needed just to operate the fans and thermostat and much less on-hand fuel is needed to operate the generator.
Natural gas is just a very convenient and very dense source of energy when you need it most.
In the entirety of my life, most of which has been in the Chicago area, I have never seen a home with a generator for the fans and thermostat of a home. For that matter, the only home generator I ever saw was one my grandfather bought which he only used once to see if it worked.
They're pretty common where I live (SE Michigan) because the electrical grid is quite a bit less reliable than the gas distribution network. To the point where 5-10% of customers in the service area lose power in any given big storm.
We have an (almost[1]) all electric house. A year ago we lost power for six days. Last spring we had a generator installed. Over the summer we lost grid power for five days but the generator worked flawlessly the entire time.
I don't like having gas for a number of reasons and if the grid was more reliable we would never have bothered, but, for us, it's just so much more reliable.
[1]: We have two HVAC systems that service different sides of our duplex-ish house. One side is a ground source heat pump, the other is a 95% efficient gas furnace.
Yeah if my heat were 100% electric I’d have to install a wood heating-stove to feel like I wasn’t being irresponsible. Or maybe get a couple portable kerosene heaters.
I think a sensible option, if you live in a place where electrical grids goes out for a couple of days fairly routinely, would be a transfer switch and a generator. If sized well enough you could use it to run a resistance heater (the cheap portable type) to keep one or two rooms warm in an extreme scenario.
If you warm up a few rooms to comfortable then it's hard to imagine the rest of the house being at freezing temperature. It's going to be some sort of gradient. But sure, this is a concern/consideration.
One of the states in the article is Oregon too, where I have family that just a few weeks ago lost electricity for 4 days, but were able to use an electric generator to keep the air handler going and gas to heat the the house and cook.
I fear heat pump only heat will fail exactly when I most need it not to.