Debate of the night: Gas or Electric?

[carynb]

There are aspects to this whole "building a new place" thing that are really hard to figure out, y'know? M & I got into quite the discussion, last night, on the Gas or Electric debate. The furnace and fireplace are going to be natural gas, and I'm planning on having a natural gas line run for a BBQ, too, but I balk on doing the same for the stove and the dryer.

A gas stove cooks quicker and hotter, and having a gas stove also means always being able to cook during a blackout (as does the gas BBQ, I guess). Gas prices, are to me, however, a lot more uncertain that electricity prices. Gas is more efficient, and possibly cheaper in the long run - but is it better environmentally? Besides, gas just makes me uneasy. That, I know, is crazy - the gas is there, already, for the furnace, the fireplace, and the BBQ. But gas burners means the possibility of simple carelessness causing a fire, and that doesn't happen - as much, anyway - with electric. I'm seriously waffling on the gas stove, but I'm starting to think it's likely that's the way I'll go.

Then, we got into it about a gas clothes dryer. I really, really don't want to run gas to the second floor of the house. It's bad enough that I'm running it to the first floor. And that comes down to straight fear, I know. A gas dryer would cost a little more, up front, but it seems to be much more efficient.

How unreasonable is that fear? I keep having visions of my nice new house exploding into a fireball because I've made some silly little mistake. CO monitors will be installed, so I'm not really worried about us dying in our sleep because of carbon monoxide poisoning. My real concerns are fire, and long-term costs, both to my pocketbook and to the environment. Anybody know of some good, impartial research on the true efficiency of gas vs. electric for appliances? I found one guy who'd done the math on the difference for dryers, and I've saved a copy of his spreadsheet to fill it in with local utility figures, but I have no idea how good his assumptions are.

Comments

[halfabee.livejournal.com]

I love our gas dryer. Clothes don't come out baked, even light stuff mixed in with heavier stuff like jeans. One limitation for gas dryers is the exhaust pipe can only be so long and has to be metal. (OTOH while the vent for an electric can be longer, the longer the vent, the worse it dries).

However, one thing to ask about is the size of your gas service. IIRC, typical house service is sufficient to handle only so many appliances. You don't want to starve your furnace because you have both the dryer, stove, over & fireplace going at the same time. There's also some piping rules for upstream/downstream.

And whether a gas appliance needs power depends on how it's pilot light (or equivalent) works, and whether it needs a vent fan. I wouldn't be surprised if many modern gas stoves won't work without power.

To me, a gas stove is a bigger fire hazard than any other gas appliance due to the (typically) exposed flame. I don't really regard natural gas to be any more of an inherent risk than electricity or water.

[carynb.livejournal.com]

However, one thing to ask about is the size of your gas service. IIRC, typical house service is sufficient to handle only so many appliances. You don't want to starve your furnace because you have both the dryer, stove, over & fireplace going at the same time. There's also some piping rules for upstream/downstream.

In order to get both the fireplace and the BBQ - let alone the stove - I have to upgrade the gas line, actually. (Go from 1/2" to 3/4" pipe from the curb, I believe). So I was already planning to do that. *g*

I'll have to check and be sure that they can run the gas to the second floor (and what it'll cost) for the dryer - if I have to re-locate the laundry to the basement, that's a very strong point in favour of electric.

I don't know why the natural gas thing freaks me out so.. Maybe because I didn't grow up with it, I guess.

Thanks for your input on this - I didn't know you guys had a gas dryer.

[mycrazyhair.livejournal.com]

Gas prices, are to me, however, a lot more uncertain that electricity prices.

While this has been true in past, I don't know that it will necessarily be true over the next ten years. We've been living on borrowed time on the electricity front for quite a while now (i.e. prices have been lower than market, due to government action). This can only keep going for so long.

As for safety, as long as you have qualified gas technicians installing everything and don't try to Do It Yourself (which will obviously be the case), gas is safe.

[carynb.livejournal.com]

Heh. This was the crux of my argument with Mike, actually. I was saying that natural gas is a limited resource, and the prices are almost undoubtedly going to go up, and up a lot. And then he'd point out that, in real terms, so is electricity - it takes about a decade to build a new power plant, so the power we have now is the power we have for the foreseeable future. Counting on the price not going up because we can always make more electricity is probably not a valid assumption.

I am intellectually aware that gas is safe - you don't hear a lot about gas causing fireballs in random residential areas, I know. It is an irrational fear, but that doesn't make it any less a fear, y'know? I think it may have to do with not growing up with gas into the house. Everything in NF was electric. *g*

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

Gas is not "clean" but it is usually cleaner. On the one hand, smelly coal is burnt at Nanticoke, used to power steam turbines that generate electricity rather inefficiently, which is then sent through high-voltage wires, with some entropic loss, until it gets to you. Methane is still a hydrocarbon fuel, but it does generate the least carbon dioxide and no other nasty pollutants. Gas is a byproduct of oil mining (moreso at the Tar Sands); it's very hard to store long-term, so in places where it is produced in surplus, like Canada, if people don't buy it, the excess just gets burned or vented anyway.

Nuclear power is in some ways much cleaner, but it has huge incidental capital costs (i.e. you end up paying for it in tax dollars), safety concerns cause plant shutdowns, and the construction cycle is so long-term that new power demands can't translate to increased nuclear power production, so new energy needs mean more coal being burned.