Thoughts on the End of Gas Boilers
Three years ago, after 50 years as owners, we sold our TripleEl Eichler and moved to Charlottesville, VA.
I still pay attention to the Eichler Network website and have some thoughts on heating with electricity.
Has anyone put effort into heating water in an induction boiler. It can't be rocket science to apply the principles used in a clearly more efficient induction cooktop to the designing an induction water heater/hydronic boiler.
I don't have the bandwidth to do the web searching, but I urge someone to explore the possibility.
John Baum
Charlottesville, VA
Yes there are options!
-- Hydronic or air-to-water heat pumps take the place of the existing gas boiler and use electricity very efficiently: much more so than induction.
-- Mini-splits are another popular option that provide both heating and cooling, and allow for room by room control of the temperature. This does not replace the boiler though, in this case, it would obviate it and the radiant system would not be used.
Granted our home is not actually an Eichler but instead a one-off custom MCM built in 1966 that shares many of the design "features" of Eichlers: that said, back in 2018 I had the the twin Becket diesels that were original to our house pulled out -- as well as the condensers for the Slimline ACs that were slammed under the blowers in a truly epic furnace hack. In their "place" I had mini splits were installed in various rooms: and we have never looked back. (Where "place" is a relative term, as I no longer have a crawlspace full of giant ducts and instead just runs of small tubes arranged in an orderly fashion.)
I did a ton of research before that project as since we're above San Jose the combined heating/cooling plus ability to run off our solar/power wall is awesome. The only down side is it was not really feasible to put one/two units in the crazy great room.
If you're bored and want to see project photos and the like, I even wrote about it on the ranch blog: https://purgatory.org/2019/11/08/getting-off-the-diesel-part-1/
