My house in Missouri that I lived in has a heat pump.
L liked and the bills were small.
It is now a rental. It got a new heat pump last month.

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:

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Originally posted by Mary Anna:
Our all-electric house, built in 1963, had a heat pump.

Interesting. I didn't know anyone used them that far back. From what I can find on the 'net, they became popular after the oil embargo in the 70's.

She nursed that thing along for decades, finally replacing it shortly sometime in the early Aughts. It had a slow coolant leak and the A/C guy was willing to look the other way and keep filling it until he wasn't able to get the right kind of coolant. (Because...you know...those leaks were chewing up the ozone.) Otherwise, it still worked like a champ.

From Many Anna -

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nd so I persevere, cooking over an open flame as if we haven't progressed since Prometheus gave up his liver for us.

The saying is, "now you're cooking with gas!"

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Originally posted by piqué:

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Originally posted by Mikhailoh:

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Originally posted by piqué:
I would never live in an all electric house. Very expensive to heat. And a gas range is a necessity. We'll be converting both our hot water heater and our range to gas.

You’re laughing now, but that sticker is very popular inside of the fuel filler door of diesel (Rolling Coal) pickup enthusiasts on Facebook. You know these guys - they call the valance on the front of their jacked up trucks “Prius Catchers”.

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
You know these guys - they call the valance on the front of their jacked up trucks “Prius Catchers”.

And you know what the rest of us call those jacked up trucks?

tinypeniswagons

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Originally posted by pianojuggler:

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
You know these guys - they call the valance on the front of their jacked up trucks “Prius Catchers”.

And you know what the rest of us call those jacked up trucks?

tinypeniswagons

Saw one of those with a large COMPENSATING sticker in the rear window.

We saw one double-parked in a Tesla charging station, with the charger pulled out and stuck under the hood.

I guess it was supposed to be funny? Not so funny when you were counting on getting a charge from there.

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Originally posted by Nina:
We saw one double-parked in a Tesla charging station, with the charger pulled out and stuck under the hood.

I guess it was supposed to be funny? Not so funny when you were counting on getting a charge from there.

His buddies think he is the smart one.

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Originally posted by CHAS:
His buddies think he is the smart one.

Always had and liked a gas stovetop. Control, baby. Maybe you can get that with other types too, but I'm happy for now.

Converted, expensively, from oil heat to gas about 10 years ago, when oil heat was expensive; don't know if it is any longer. But it was also very dirty...fittings would clog, and you'd have to have the service guys in all the time, and it always needed general cleaning and close monitoring of pressures. And of course, in the middle of winter the heat would go off because the tank was empty before the scheduled refill. Bye to all that.

I've only seen one oil heating setup and it was a hot water system.

Kim spent her first two years after college volunteering with Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Portland ME. She lived in a big apartment with 6 other volunteers on a very, very tight budget.

When we visited there we found the apartment was super cold inside - like 50. They hadn't been running the heat much because they were afraid of getting large bills. They hadn't gotten any bills but were concerned nonetheless.

I went down to the basement and had a hard time figuring out what I was seeing. The oil tanks were a very strange shape and there was only one boiler for all three units. How did they split the cost?

Turns out they had a copy of the lease and it said the landlord pays for the heat.

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Originally posted by RealPlayer:
Always had and liked a gas stovetop. Control, baby. Maybe you can get that with other types too, but I'm happy for now.

Converted, expensively, from oil heat to gas about 10 years ago, when oil heat was expensive; don't know if it is any longer. But it was also very dirty...fittings would clog, and you'd have to have the service guys in all the time, and it always needed general cleaning and close monitoring of pressures. And of course, in the middle of winter the heat would go off because the tank was empty before the scheduled refill. Bye to all that.

When my house was built in 1952, the builder installed an oil furnace. It was the way to go back then. No Gold Medallion for us!

About 15 years ago, the burner rusted through and I finally had the furnace replaced. But it still didn't seem very efficient. Then I was having filter clogging and finally it just stopped running. Turned out the tank was leaking. I had the tank replaced. I think I was leaking more oil than I was burning. Between that and putting some insulation in the attic, my annual oil bill went from about $3000 a year to $800. And down to just uneventful annual preventive maintenance visits.

When they replaced the furnace I asked about changing to gas. There is a gas line across the street and another one up to the lot behind me. They estimated between $20K and $30K to run a gas line to the house (including permits and inspections and repaving the street). They suggested it was not worth it... break even would be at least 20 years and that would depend heavily on the future price of oil.

No doubt when I sell and my house gets replaced with a McMansion, they will run a gas line.

The smart people in this neighborhood have NG-powered whole-house generators.


I grew up with electric stoves. I first encountered gas when I was in college. I did appreciate that it starts heating immediately and the heat changes immediately, but I never got the hang of how high to set the flame for various things. On my electric stove, fry an egg at 5. On gas, every one was different and there were no markings on the knobs.

I've had two gas stoves and I've used Quirt's in Massachusetts. None of them will cook at a low simmer.

Trying to cook something like spaghetti sauce slowly is a miserable experience of tomato-y spatters, which is an extra-special thing on a gas stove, because you can't just lift the pot and wipe up a spatter. It's stuck down there under a heavy grate that's too hot to lift, plus it's underneath two other burners and perhaps you are using them, too. So you get to watch the spatters bake themselves onto the stove while you cook. Yay!

My previous gas stove (a very high-end model in 1990) had this problem AND it tended to go out when I tried to cook on low, giving me nightmares about gas seeping into my house and killing us all through asphyxiation or explosion. One of its burners liked to clog up, too. Also yay!

My current one has had the benefit of thirty years of progress, so it has different burners for different heat levels. The lowest one is acceptable for simmering most things, but I still make spaghetti sauce in an electric skillet, where I have firm control of the heat.

I had a Thermador cooktop for almost 30 years. It had two burners with an Extra-Lo simmer setting; the flame cycled off and back on. I replaced it about a year and a half ago with a Dacor cooktop. Two burners have really low settings but the flame stays on all the time.

Both of them did/do a great job with a very low simmer, including spaghetti sauce.....

I haven't seen ranges with the kind of precision settings that these two manufacturers have figured out.