The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is developing new rules that will prohibit the installation of electric resistance heating equipment in new residential construction in New Jersey. The Department of Community Affairs would enforce the ban through denial of a construction permit.
http://www.nema.org/stds/fieldreps/codealerts/20051024nj.cfm

IMHO, I do NOT think this measure will pass.

NJ's electrical needs will continue to soar - with or without electric heat. The rate at which homes are being built is the root cause. Granted, elec. heat can cause the demand on a condo unit to be 150A (instead of 100A), and while that is a significant increase at 120/240V - is it really that significant at 150KV?

NJ will NEED more generating plants.

Just my 0.02¢

The first thing that came to my mind was electric baseboard -- I don't know why anyone would want to use that given NJ's utility prices but ok.

As I think about it there can be electric strip heaters in heat pump units. How about space heaters like you'd find in a bathroom? Some people also use smaller electric heaters for areas that need supplemental heat like a foyer or mud room.

Ron,

As an AHJ here in NJ that is news to me. I know that we have that energy code in this state that was started awhile back. I would have to back into the energy code to see if it applies to electric heaters.

Harold,
See the link. It's new legislation.

Ron:
Thanks for the heads-up. As Harold said, "it's news to me" also.

I have it printing now, and e-mailed the link to a few friends.

Personally, I can't recall the last 'all electric' house I saw. I'll read the info ASAP.

Thanks

John

... This is simply preposterous!!! What are they gonna ban next,...incandescent light bulbs,because they're not as efficient as fluorescent?? This is insane...what about areas in NJ that can't get gas for heating,.. I know of a cul-de-sac in Bergen County where there is NO gas,and EVERYTHING is electric.. Looks like they're lobbying for a pay-off.. Someone's palm is gonna get greased... Graft,..it's a way of life I guess Disgusted,
Russ

It would seem that it was lobbying by the oil or propane industry?
I have no idea, but just a guess.
That's how selectivity became a requirement in Article 700 and 701 loads, the Bussmann folks knew this was a slam dunk for their product type.

That's pretty much what's been done here in CA, so I wouldn't be too surprised.

There are some watt/inc for watt/fluor allowances, but that's about it. Expext table lamps to become very popular

What will stop people just getting the house permitted and built, then going back and adding the electric heat afterward?

Paul:
'Evening, my friend, long time, no type.

Honestly, nothing can stop work after the zoning/permit/inspections/approvals/CO. I 'see' this happening, not a lot.....but.

IMHO, as long as the service is adequate for the load being connected....

I have not had time to read the whole thing yet, but enforcement will be tough. After all a 'man's home is his castle', and it can get pretty chilly in your castles, right??

Take care
John

As mentioned further above, electric rates of around 13 cents/ kilowatt hour will pretty much stop everyone from even considering doing this. Seems like a non issue.

Are electric clothes dryers included in this?

This has been the law in CA for quite a while. Most people did not even know it was a law because nobody in their right mind would want to pay the utility bill for electric resistance heat in the amount needed to heat a house. We see suplementary portable units here and there, but no permanent installations. Natural Gas, heating oil (monitor style units), and propane work just fine at a fraction of the cost.

A comparison of costs between NG and electric will make the economics obvious. Let's assume we need 100,000 BTU's per hour, and we are using a modern condensing type furnace with a 94% effeicency.

NG= 100,000BTU x (1/0.94) x (1 therm/100,000 BTU) x ($1.25/therm NG) = $1.33/ hour

Electric (100% Eff)= 100,000 BTU x (1KWh/3414 BTU) x ($0.12/KWH) = $3.53 /hour

It costs 2.6x to heat with electricity. Prices are off the latest PG&E bill.

Mike

Mike:
Thanks for the formula, 1KW+ 3414BTU's

John

BTW:
Used to tell people 'electric heat is the cheapest to install, initally or retrofit; but you WILL pay in the long run'

Based on the 'news' of rates for oil & NG that the dooms sayers are predicting, who knows

Using Mike's numbers, quick math $1080 for 30 days (24/7) for gas, and $2880 for elec.

John

A CO..which requires heat.
For that matter, the plans would NEVER even be approved w/o sufficient heat plans.

The cost to install a gas/oil/LP system and then rip it out and re-install an all elec. system borders on the insane...but hey, this IS NJ and waterfront CONDOs are going for $5,000,000 (with ALL electric utilities ~ that's the job I am on now)...so who knows???

If you have natural gas piped in that is a good number, although I understand gas will see a 50% hike this winter. Propane is already going out of sight here in Florida.
Folks with propane pool heaters are going with a "heat pump" electric. I got a less than one year old propane unit for $1000 off of the price of a new one because the owner was switching.

Nat Gas/Propane is going to go up in the next couple months, at least 40%! This may or may not make electric heat a better bet. Where does your power come from? In my case, it's about 43% nat gas(according to PG&E). So, the KWH rate is going to go up as well if you have a lot of nat gas in your power content.

Florida may be a special circumstance but we use a lot of space heating for a particular room. That is hard to do with gas or oil.
As energy starts getting more expensive I think we will see people using more bathroom heaters to knock the chill off when we get out of the shower while the house as a whole stays cooler. For us it is just a case where the house is cold when you wake up but it will warm up naturally during the day. I probably only use "central" heat 3 or 4 days a year but my wife uses the radiant heat in the bathroom almost every morning, (even in the summer .)

[This message has been edited by gfretwell (edited 10-26-2005).]

Greg,

We don't have natural gas in my area. You either have to use electric, oil, or propane. I myself have small electric bath heaters and they work great adding just a little more heat in a bath when taking a shower. I use oil fired baseboard heat through the whole house. 6 different zones but why raise up the temp of the whole zone when you are taking a shower? Actualy isn't electric heat 100% efficient? There is no waste going up the chimmney, is there? It is also the most expensive.

Greg/Harold:
Yes, electric heat has been said to be the most efficient, and yes, it can be energy efficient if the user understands the operation.

I have gas fired hot air, and use elec for 'spot' heating as you said.

As to heating a whole house, the 'user' has to be the decision maker as to the actual conrol of each area/zone.

Harold, I did a house a while back with 14 zones, gas fired hot water BB and radiant in some floors. Nice job, but it had to be $$$$

Depending on the expected increases in nat. gas/propane, and heaing oil, exact cost differences will be a 'best guess'

Pack-in insulation!!!
John

I live in NJ in a rural area where there is no gas available. I've got oil heat. For what I'm paying for 250 gallons this winter, Electric doesn't look quite so bad.

I will probably never want electric resistance heat but we get cold enough here that heat pumps can't work during much of the winter and that means I'm forced to go with Oil. I just would like there to be options.

Electricity doesn't have to be so natural gas dependent. We put millions of tons of a potential fuel source in landfills every day. But I guess I'm biased, here in Connecticut we burn 65% of our solid waste for waste-to-energy, the highest percentage in the country. Electricity is still expensive but it's a small step in the right direction.
Either we must cut demand or find other ways to generate power, or both. I vote for waste-to energy incinerators.

-Peter

A lot of folks in central Indiana are scrambling for baseboard heaters. Electricity here is cheap at .08-.09 per kwh. My supply house is one of 12 in a regional chain and they are selling 8' BBs like hotcakes. 97 went out the Indy branch this month alone. I heat with LP and paid $1.19 per gal in August on a summer fill-up program. 1000 gal tank will take me to April. LP is now at $2.47 and expected to go above$3.50. A lot of folks are suplementing their LP/Natural gas systems with baseboard electric.

I agree with Peter, waste to energy is probably the most attractive option. It is probably the most effecient "recycling" scheme out there other than aluminum cans.

The main aim has to be to reduce our consumption of energy. Not only is this good for the Planet, it's good for the Wallet, and makes us less reliant on unpalatable regimes, (which we don't talk about here).
Insulate your home as much as possible, because that shows the fastest payback. The main target is the roof. Even sub-tropical locations benefit from thermo-reflective foil insulation, as this cuts aircon costs.
Get the house as airtight as possible, with seals on doors, windows and other leak-sources, ( ie receptacles!), as this makes a considerable saving by reducing draughts ( drafts?). Don't forget to ventilate the house, though, as good sealing can cause condensation problems. I'm fitting forced ventilation on my remodel, using a heat exchanger to reduce venting costs.
It's difficult to insulate walls and floors effectively without remodelling, but double-glazing is a reasonable payback option if you choose the right product.
Lifestyle is important too. Get the family into the routine of turning off unwanted appliances and lamps. Personally, I 'dumped' the energy saving bulbs as their cost eliminated any payback. A lot of my aquaintances turn on every tv in the house and the computer as they get up in the morning, and most times no-one is using them. Turn them off- they suck juice even on 'standby'. Turn the 'stats down. A degree or two will be unnoticable, but will lop 10% off your utility bills. Fit IR devices on outside lights. Turn rads down or off / operate dampers, in unused rooms.
As to choice of system, the best payback in these times of high fuel prices has to be a 'heat pump'. Even in the colder parts of the world, heat is available for free down in the earth, typically you 'pay' for about 25% of your demand, the rest is free.
Heatpump souces are, in order of capital cost cheapness;-
Air to Air/ Air to water. Heat is extracted from the outside air and is exhausted chilled. These systems can adapt to existing systems, replacing your boiler, but often have an electric resistance heater for very cold periods, reducing payback.
Earth to system. Heat is extracted from the earth, either from a system of anti-freeze filled pipes laid in the garden or yard, or from a source such as a lake or river, or from a bore-hole. Bore holes can go 300 ft. deep, and I even found an American company selling a small gas-engined drilling rig on the net for weekend warriors! http://www.deeprock.com
Anywhere in the US and France, ( not sure about UK), no permit is required to bore on your own property, and you only need a couple of sq. ft. of yard. Again, the heat can be used with either air or water heating systems.
Since I had already got a nearly new oil burner-boiler, I have opted to retain it and concentrate on cutting the losses, with 8" minimum glasswool, triple glazing, etc.
If you compare energy costs, remember that electricity is 100% efficient, so even with resistance heaters it can be economic if you insulate to a high standard. Using off-peak tarifs helps too; Denise uses timeclocks to run the dishwasher and washing machine at night. We have 2 hours cheapo-electric at midday too, which helps.

Alan

ps. If you live in a city, please try not to drill through a subway or Metro system!

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 10-31-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 10-31-2005).]

Hey John, yep it's been a while!

It certainly happens a lot around here. People just refuse to hand over exorbitant amounts of money to the local bureaucrats to do something which has almost zero likelihood of ever coming to their attention.


That's about what we're paying in England on average at the moment (although on our "Economy 7" tariff we can get power at about half the normal rate for 7 hours each night)

It always used to be the case that electric heat was the cheapest to install but the most expensive to run. We've just seen news reports about heating oil having doubled in price over the last two years though, so how much longer that's likely to hold true remains to be seen.



Hadn't thought of that. So far as I'm aware there is no requirement to include heating in plans for a new house here at all. I can't imagine anyone building a home these days without including it, but that's another matter.




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 11-01-2005).]