If you are asking

Can you convert an air handler with electric heating strips to natural gas.

The answer would be no.You would need a gas furnace

Yes you can mount a furnace in the attic and abandon the in floor ducts.

If you have attic access that is and can easily get a gas line and electric to the attic space you could have to conversion done

Probably be the best way to do it

Sounds as if a gas furnace is already there but not presently in use. Have a competent contractor determine if a dual fuel kit will accomplish your goal.

The million dollar question is - do you have NG service to your house already? If not - there is no way to guesstimate cost - could be zero, could be $10000 (or impossible). In my area, no one is all-electric if they have NG in their neighborhood (but then again no one is getting discounts for being all-electric). And my area is a lot warmer than Ohio.

You can probably add a furnace to your existing setup. Doing so and putting the furnace in the attic would require a decent chase to the air handler (are you 2 stories?). That chase would need to be built - that is the challenge. The ductwork is not a big deal - you just need a passageway to do it (ie chase). The attic maybe the easiest spot anyway since you will need a chimney (or exhaust) of some type. A ranch should make it a piece of cake.

I do not have natural gas already. To run a line from across the street 90 feet to my home will be $2500. I do live in a ranch. I like the idea of having it up in the attic but what modifications need to be made to my current ductwork? Cold air returns in attic, other ducts in the slab (which I'm sure is a source for huge amounts of heat loss).
Thanks for your advice.

what are your electric bills currently for the coldest months? Right now natural gas is pretty cheap. You might be better off continuing to stay with your heatpump and spending extra money insulating and making the rest of your house efficient. Even with .12 cents per KW you should have reasonable heating bills with a heatpump. I was doing some experimenting over the weekend when it was 15 degrees outside and my heatpump ran constant but was able to maintain 68 inside no problem. I have gas as the backup. I must admit gas is nice for when its very cold and when sleeting/snowing and heatpump is going into defrost alot.

Keep in mind if you choose to get gas you will be paying $20 per month even if you don't use any gas. Thats the monthly service charge. That can buy $240 of electricity over the course of a year. Thats worth mentioning I think.

You should have compact flourescent bulbs. A large user of electricity in all electric houses is the hot-water tank. You might want to upgrade your hot water tank to a heatpump tank.

Whoever is getting $1500 electric bills isn't running a heatpump for sure and they have probably have hot-tubs or other high electricity things going on. Maybe they have an indoor garden -lol.

amy

it should be noted that because of your location/winter climate, it would not be recommended to install a high eff 90+ condensing furnace in an attic.

you need to really understand your options, upfront costs as well as fuel costs before you rush in and make hasty decision.

BTW, who is your electric provider, what do you pay now in KWH and what is the proposed rate increase?

IMO

My former house had a gas furnace in a closet between the kitchen and family room. There should be no safety issue as long as the furnace has enough air for combustion.

I'm wondering why no gas furnace in the attic in cold climates. It should be noted that an 80% furnace in attic would still be far cheaper than electric resistance as a backup.

$2500 is worth it IMO. The maintenance charge can be more than made up with gas hot water. $1500 is a bit steep per month- are you paying $500 now and it will be triple?

There are serious disadvantages to having HVAC ducts outside of the envelope of the house (in the attic). The inevitable leaks will depressurize the house in addition to the more obvious pumping of air outside. If possible, keep the ducts inside. I don't know about ducts in the slab.

You are contemplating rather large changes in your house. It would be worth it to find a good energy rater.

As always, lots of good comments. A little more details.
Current cost per kwh: .06
Average kwh per month: 700
Winter months average kwh: 1,400
My bill for Dec was $100. That is with the all-electric discount. Once they remove the discounts, that rate is expected to triple.
Though I did not have an energy audit on my home, I did get an infrared camera inspection last winter and made numerous improvements focusing on the cold areas. New doors, increased insulation and proper ventilation up in the attic and completely tore down three walls to have cc foam insulation installed. That made a huge difference. Though I suppose I could always improve. Two years ago I had a high efficiency wood burner added and use that quite often to heat the house when the temps drop below 20 and the heat pump can't keep up.
Later this week the local natural gas company is meeting with all-electric homeowners to sell them on the cost benefits of gas. All electric homeowners in my area have seen home values drop by as much as 25 percent as people have heard the horror stories over the triple increase. Numerous homes on my street remain unsold because of this very reason.
If the cost is scheduled to triple and I see little room for reducing consumption, how do I determine if converting to gas is a wise investment? Is it wrong to bite the bullet just to maintain property value?

who is your electric company? I'm in ohio too and we have first energy. I don't have all alectric discount. My total price for electric is between .11 and .12 per KW hour.

If your price were to triple then you would be paying .18 per KW. That would be like east-coast or Cali expensive. Who said it would triple? The gas company?

1400 KW's per month during winter isn't terrible at all for an all electric home. You could probably shave a considerable amount off that by finding other ways to to conserve electricity. Consider changing all light bulbs to compact florescent. Maybe consider a heatpump hot-water tank. Alot of electricity is used for straight electric element hot water tanks.

A cheap way to reduce your heating load is blown cellulose in your attic if you have an attic space.

Remember, gas company charges $20 per month service fee if you have dominion. I think its more for columbia. That can buy alot of electricity or upgrades over the course of a year.

If the cost is scheduled to triple and I see little room for reducing consumption, how do I determine if converting to gas is a wise investment? Is it wrong to bite the bullet just to maintain property value?

Try to look at your total annual heating cost. Lets say it is $1000. You then have to make some big assumptions, mainly how much of that is for back up strips and how much is HP. You also need the COP average for your HP (you could use 3). I would guess that 30% of your electric would be strips. Then you need your NG cost - $1 a therm is usually pretty close.

Plugging that in goes something like this
NG - $1 per 100,000
Strips - $4.75
HP - $1.75

Prior usage was strips - $300 or 200 therms; hp - $700 or 1100 therms. So total was 1300 therms.

So NG would be $1400 a season vs $3000 for electric. Lots of estimates. Obviously it depends significantly on how well your current HP is doing. How old is it and what Seer is it? The better it is, the closer electric will be. Dual fuel becomes a lot less helpful at $.18 a kwh so I wouldn't even worry about that. NG is cheaper than a HP even with a COP of 4.5 which probably only happens above 55 degrees. Don't forget to throw in $240 onto the NG bill for connection charges but also don't forget you can save that in water if you install a gas hot water heater.

I think is is fair to guess that around $.14 a kwh is the breakeven point for NG and HP. But climate changes that as does how efficient the HP is (and the NG furnace). The colder the climate, the lower that goes and yours might be $.10 if it is really cold and your HP is less efficient.

As far as putting the furnace outside the envelope (and some ductwork) - that is a consideration but a relatively minor one (IMO). My energy audit suggested about 5% in my climate, yours would be still less than 10%. You wouldn't have significant leaks so the pressure changes aren't a big deal. Sure - a whole network of bad leaky ducts in unconditioned space is a problem, but a single insulated, mastic sealed duct to a furnace is not. You probably already have your return ducts in unconditioned space so don't stress about putting the furnace up there. But also know that it would be pretty darn safe in your house too.

neohioheatpump
The Illuminating Company said the rates would triple. Back in the 70s when a lot of area all electric homes were built, they promised a low, lifetime rate to entice buyers. Now 40 years later, they realize the rate doesn't cover their cost and they're dropping the program. I live in a city where there are thousands of homes that are all electric. We've had numerous meetings, etc and people are very concerned about property values and the mayor doesn't want to see the tax values to decline. There have been numerous class action lawsuits filed and one of the last things Strickland did before leaving office was to convince the PUCO to reinstate the low rates until after this winter.

I've changed all my light bulbs to the CFLs..which are useless outside in the winter. And I have at least 20 inches of cellulose in the attic on top of fiberglass. I'm convinced my attic is as buttoned up as it gets. The heat pump hot water tank is a good idea and I'll be looking into that.

david_cary
Thank you so much for the figures. That's exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate the very detailed and clear explanation. Lots to consider.

Thank you everyone.

amyspaetzle - I'm familiar with these stories. I'm in Ohio also near cleveland and I have the illuminating company. The illuminating company is part of of First Energy. I don't have the all electric discount. I never did. I pay about .11 to .12 per KW.

I don't think they are going to make you pay MORE than everybody else.

If you've been paying only $100 per month for electric to heat your home and water in the winter time and use everything else electric, thats a bargain. If your price doubles, it would be $200 for winter. Thats not bad.

If your looking to have a $100 gas bill for the month of January in Northeast Ohio I don't think its possible unless your heating a very small space or your sharing walls as in a condo or apartment.

I honestly think the money you would be paying to run the gas line to your house and the $240 per year gas service fee would be better spent on heatpump water tank and paying for electricity. You can probably find some reasonable contractors if you shop around to install the heatpump water tank. They even make retro-fit heat-pumps water tanks. The brand is called air-tap. These go onto your existing all electric hot-water tank and create the hot water using the heatpump. Saving over 50% in electric.

Sounds like your attic is well insulated along with your house. You wouldn't be able to consume only 1400 KW in winter if it wasn't.

Just a counter argument - NG will be cheaper and probably always so compared to electric heat and any heat pump running below 25 degrees or so. The fact is, an increasing amount of electricity is generated by NG, so if NG spikes, electric probably will follow. It doesn't make a lot of sense to burn NG to make electricity to travel to your house, to then do something NG would do better. Now heatpumps change that reality a lot but not in really cold weather.

Neo - we probably will agree to disagree. Hot water heat pumps in a cold climate don't make sense to me. They really shine in Florida and are worth the extra expense there - but when you are heating a house, it just doesn't justify the expense. A hot water heat pump has to cool the space it is in - so you literally can be cooling the space and then having your heat pump heat it back up again. Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? Now - if you have the right space (ie unfinished basement) that is well insulated from the rest of the house, it does help. But - let's not forget that the hot water heat pump won't heat the water as fast as other methods and it is far more complex than NG (or electric).

If you are in your house for the long haul, I'd get NG. It will payback eventually no matter what.

I hear what your saying. All I know is that currently the poster is managing to heat her house with only 1400 KW per month. Even with expensive electricity that wouldn't be too outrageous in cost.

Even though heatpumps aren't as efficient under 25, I notice an interesting phenomenum > heatpumps can manage to maintain temperatures at surprisingly cold tomeperatures running non-stop without getting into auxiliary. Running non-stop I've seen heatpumps maintain nice inside temperatures even at 15 degrees outside (ofcourse not during a snowstorm).

I have natural gas and a heatpump. I gotta admit, natural gas is nice when its cold. Its nice because you can turn your t-stat down low and recover the temperature pretty quick. I don't like paying the $20 service fee. In our climate (december,january, february) its a good argument to have natural gas but the poster is managing to heat their home with a heatpump with only 1400 KW. Why would they want to switch that.

I've heard of venting the cold-air from heatpump water tanks outside the house or to a garage. My water tank is adjacent to the attached garage and that would work pretty easy.