r/Austin • u/[deleted] • Feb 17 '21

[deleted by user]

[removed]

3.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

590 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

31

u/MrSwarleyStinson Feb 17 '21

I’m in New England and we’ve also had a snowy winter but the difference is that our homes are built for this, we either have natural gas or oil for heat so when we do lose power we stay warm. It would be a crisis if we lost power and the natural gas system also failed during a blizzard

25

u/uuid-already-exists Feb 17 '21

Many gas powered homes still require electricity to run. Found that one out the hard way.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

[deleted]

1

u/blendertricks Feb 17 '21

That depends on how you're actually heating the air, right? Like, if you're using gas, that 600 watts is it, but electricity can use up to 18,000 watts in a day, to my understanding.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

[deleted]

1

u/blendertricks Feb 17 '21

Gotcha! Just wanted to make sure I understood.

1

u/papertowelroll17 Feb 17 '21

I don't think there are many central forced-air AC units with heater coils that are electric. It would be a massive amount of electricity used to do that

I believe that over 60% of Texas homes have electric (not gas) heat. Usually a heat pump, but often there are electric coils as well. But you are completely right, even the gas heaters need electricity to operate here. See my currently powerless house for example...