How reliable is natural gas delivery?

[Von Rheydt]

geothermal heat pumps still require energy (electricity).
In the event of an emergency situation, electricity is the
most likely utility to fail. Some sort of backup power source is
required. A backup generator is the most reliable option
from the perspective of preventative maintenance. Diesel is a
very good option for predictable delivery (propane similarly but offers no real advantage). Natural gas is one of our most abundant energy sources. The only problem is that without devout infrastructure, it doesnt get delivered to your home.

Yup, electrics will fail. Mainly because in an emergency situation or breakdown of society the workers will not go to "The Office" and fail-safes will shutdown operation.

I used to be a Police Representative on a county emergency planning committee. We had all the scenarios laid out for us by the people that ran the various utilities telling us how long things would operate and when they would shut down or simply fail function.

Natural gas used to be good in the UK. We have a national distribution pipeline network that takes it from storage tanks to homes. The problem now though is that the UK used to have its own gas from the North Sea ........ now we buy it from Russia, so they control the on/off switch.

With heat pumps I would use a self standing power production supply such as a wind turbine or photo voltaic panels - if you live in the hills and have flowing water you can install a small hydro electric generator. That way you are totally self sufficient and not reliant on external provision.

[rob_s]

As mentioned above, how reliable natural gas delivery is will depend in large part on what area you're in and what kind of disaster you're preparing for. An earthquake is much more likely to affect the underground pipes than a hurricane.

I worked on a project a couple of years ago where the owner was considering changing the spec'd diesel generator to natural gas. As it turned out we were too far down the path to go back, but the information we got was interesting. Durring the busy hurricane seasons of a couple of years ago they had essentially zero failure of service. Some localized single-customer failures in isolated incidents but nothing widespread.

If you go this route, my suggestion would be to be conservative with what you choose to power due to the potential cost issues of running the thing mentioned above. You don't need to run the entire house, and I wouldn't bother trying to. Refrigerator, possibly the A/C, and the GFCI circuit in the house. My rationale for the GFCI is that it will limit your usage. If the TV doesn't have power the kids won't turn it on but you can use the outlets in the bathrooms to charge whatever you need and/or run an extension cord where you need to. I know that the experts caution against extension cords as a trip hazard but if you're not 90 years old I think this is a non-issue.

[LOKNLOD]

This is venturing into my lane a bit. I am in the natural gas industry, although my company is in the midstream gathering/transmission business versus the distribution network side of the business.

The natural gas system is pretty reliable, and being mostly underground is much more robust to natural events than the electrical system. Of course that can be dependent on where you live, as others have said. I would imagine serious earthquakes could do some major disruptions to underground utilities. Barring the "big one" however I think you'll see your gas service outlast your electrical service in most any situation.

Now if the world comes unscrewed, all the infrastructure will fail anyway, so if there was an option to convert it to diesel or propane for an extended outage, that would be very beneficial.

I agree with Rob about not trying to power everything at once with the back-up, but in the name of maximizing versatility, I would still recommend being able to feed your breaker box with the generator, and then using the circuit breakers in the home to control what does or does not have power (that may have been what Rob was referring to doing, sorry if I misunderstood). That way if you choose to hole up in one room or another, you can send the power here or there at the flick of a switch. If you hard wire only to a few outlets or circuits, even if they're well-planned, it may cause a problem later when the room you planned on holing up in becomes the one that has a hole in the roof, etc. No matter what, be sure and have a method to prevent back-feeding the generator power into the grid. Not only is that a waste of your energy, it's a hazard for crews coming to make repairs.

[hickuleas]

Get a Generator in naturaul gas. In the event of natural gas delievery problems just switch to propane. This only requires changing the regulator from approx 3.5 inches of water colum to approx 11 inches. You also need to change the orifice on the gas valve. Basically identical to switching a furnace from one fuel sorce to another.

[motorolahamm]

pretty reliable, mainly when i eat to much chilli or spicey food: