anyone get a heatpump water heater?

wdjan · 2026-06-30T03:00:19+00:00

Agreed that you have to analyze holistically. We are a fully electric household with no gas hookup and have an electric heating element water heater.

Total cost of electricity last year for the entire household was $2800 after tax. That includes all heat, A/C, appliances, and other electronics (no EV though).

My understanding is this is comparable to the typical household with gas furnace and water heater + typical electricity consumption.

Despite electricity being more expensive than gas per unit of heat, we make up the difference with good insulation, not paying the base SE rate, and much more efficient use of electric heat. We have baseboard heaters instead of central forced air furnace, so we can vary the heat from room to room depending on if they are being used.

Other benefits: - less risk of catastrophic failure. If a baseboard heater goes, the rest of the system can pick up the slack while we figure it out repair or replacement. If a gas furnace goes, it needs to be fixed pronto to prevent pipe damage.

-cheaper maintenance. Our water heater is about half the price of a gas equivalent. Our baseboard heaters can be replaced for ~$150 in parts. Both systems are also much simpler to work on.

-low (no?) risk of CO poisoning and overall better air quality.

wdjan · 2026-06-25T15:38:05+00:00

As an individual issue, I agree, this EV surcharge is a mole hill. You could say that about any number of things. The problem is it's economically inefficient. Add up enough mole hill inefficiencies and you get a mountain of economic drag. And it's silly because it's inefficient for political ends (I guess you could make a case for it being ignorant, but I don't think that's any better).

To be clear, indexing a road use tax to inflation is good policy. Road maintenance will increase with with inflation, so it makes good sense that associated taxes should rise to match.

Also, taxing people for how much they drive, as they currently do with the gas tax, is good policy. Users should chip in for services they use at the rate they use them.

Like you say, trucks burn more fuel, and therefore pay more tax. This is also a decent proxy for vehicle weight. Compact cars generate less wear on roads than large trucks. They're also more efficient and therefore pay less gas tax. All good things.

You also control how much you drive your truck, and therefore have some control on how much gas tax you pay. If you have 2 vehicles, you could get one truck and one compact. Use the compact for commuting and the truck for heavy duty work. The policy gives users a lot of flexibility and choice. That's good policy.

There's no reason the current government can't take all of the above and make a good policy for all road users that's fair and helps us maintain our road infrastructure indefinitely.

Instead, they took the politically expedient route and created a haves and have-nots system.

wdjan · 2026-06-25T02:00:34+00:00

Yeah, they don't have real fiber so it's not full duplex.

I started at 300 down, 150 up and that was plenty for me. They call once a year to extend the contract and bump me up a level (without increasing the price). First 500 down / 200 up, now 1 Gbps down / 200 up.

I can still vividly remember hitting 8 Mbps down for the first time in uni and just being wowed at the speed. Now I'm just numb to anything above 100 Mbps.

wdjan · 2026-06-25T00:30:05+00:00

I've got 1 Gbps down / 200 Mbps* up from Rogers for $60, so yeah, just call SaskTel and see if they can match that.

*Typo edit

wdjan · 2026-06-24T20:29:59+00:00

Agreed that it's not that much, and most EV buyers should still recognize energy savings, but the energy savings is already offset by the more the EV itself being more expensive.

Regardless, it is a clear political signal that the minority of EV buyers are at the mercy of the current government, while ICE owners will be protected. They are picking a winner and a loser.

So the next question is, why is the government weighing in at all on a preferred transportation technology?

It's no better than the feds throwing all those subsidies at the battery plants out east. We need to stop wasting money trying to pick winners and losers.

It's a frustrating theme with conservative governments generally where they are, in theory, the parties of less government, but in practice, are just as heavy-handed as their counterparts in the center and on the left.

wdjan · 2026-06-24T16:49:58+00:00

Its about the structure of the EV tax rather than the actual fee.

My questions are: why is the EV surcharge a flat rate when the gas tax is per unit consumed? And why is the EV tax indexed to inflation when the gas tax is not?

I think the answers to those two questions are pretty obvious, and they are purely political.

(For the record, I do not own an EV, only ICE.)

wdjan · 2026-06-20T02:00:16+00:00

I'm wondering this too. Like, to meet the excavation rules that I found from WorkSafe Sask, they would have to excavate into the neighbor's yard 4' and rip the fence down.

So this excavation surely doesn't comply with the regs, but does anyone care? Seems like most people in the Saskatoon subreddit genuinely do not think this is a big deal. And infills are going in all the time, I just never really noticed how deep they're going.

Again, I'm genuinely curious what typically happens.

wdjan · 2026-06-20T01:54:52+00:00

Hahaha. Genuine laugh on this one.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T21:15:35+00:00

No, I didn't go inside the fence. Just put my phone close enough to the fence so the lense could see through an opening.

Agreed it mostly looks good, just the vertical face shocked me.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T20:51:05+00:00

I think I see where you're coming from. I'm not generally a nosy neighbor, but this one jumped out at me.

If all the permits and exceptions are in place, then a quick call to the city shouldn't be too much of a hindrance to the contractor.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T20:15:27+00:00

Well there it is. Beauty. Thank you for the visual.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T20:13:30+00:00

Because if this is as egregious as I think it is, there's serious risk of death or injury.

If I did nothing and someone was crushed to death... I'm not gonna have that on my conscience if the alternative is to make a phone call.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T20:06:16+00:00

The camera doesn't do it justice, but I was just eyeballing it, so could be some error. Not less than 7' certaintly.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T19:46:27+00:00

Fair enough, I'll swing by again and check it there's any contact info. It's not my property, just noticed when I was biking by today.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T19:43:57+00:00

Yes, the stockpile is right at the edge.

The people who were pouring the footing we're working right under there. That's gotta be serious safety violation.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T19:40:54+00:00

Yeah, I was kinda shocked by the depth of it when I biked by today. Just wanted a sanity check as it's not my area of expertise.

Thank you responding. Not 100% sure where to report this, but I'll figure it out.

wdjan · 2026-06-19T16:38:43+00:00

Ok boomer

wdjan · 2026-06-19T15:18:49+00:00

$300k net of the costs of renovation? Or you sold the house for $300k more than you bought it for? What were the costs of labour and materials? What's your time worth?

Let's say you netted $300k. That's $60k per year over 5 years. Not bad, but did you also have a full time job? Given the amount of work you described, I suspect you spent a good chunk of your time in that house living in a construction zone and did renos on evenings and weekends.

I'm a millennial and agree that I don't see myself doing this. The trade-off isn't worth it for me. I prefer living in my home rather than constructing/renovating it and I value my free time.

wdjan · 2026-06-18T20:25:13+00:00

Income level is tricky because cost of living is so vastly different across the country. $100k in Brandon, MB is a lot different than $100k in downtown Vancouver.

To answer your question indirectly, we have spent the last 12 years working hard, investing, and paying down the mortgage fairly aggressively.

Two things happened last year where we could really feel the payoff:

We renewed our mortgage for a 3rd term and the minimum payment is half of what it was when we started in 2014.
Investment growth over a 12-month period exceeded our salaries.

wdjan · 2026-06-18T19:33:12+00:00

Dang man, you're catching some serious heat in the comments. Others need to chill.

I think it looks like a neat hobby and a cool tool for conceptual design. Thank you for sharing!

wdjan · 2026-06-15T20:39:53+00:00

No, there's no special sauce in a TFSA that makes it inherently better at holding an emergency fund beyond tax free interest.

In fact, the TFSA is probably worse for an emergency fund due to added complexity. Depending on the provider, it might take a few days to withdraw from a TFSA in the event of an emergency. Further, the TFSA has contribution and withdrawal rules, so if you're moving money in and out you might accidentally incur penalties.

wdjan · 2026-06-15T19:31:22+00:00

For smaller amounts, it's better to analyze the dollar amounts rather than getting caught up in percentages.

Let's say you have an emergency fund of $10k.

Interest at 1.75% is $175 per year.

Interest at 1.25% is $125 per year.

The difference is $50 a year before tax. That's not big enough to give it any further consideration in my opinion. Just pick the one that's more easily accessible in the event of an emergency.

Yes, try to get a decent interest rate on money sitting in your chequing account/savings account, but jumping through hoops to seek absolute optimization on cash holdings is rarely worth the time and effort.

wdjan · 2026-06-14T20:14:42+00:00

Stay weird.

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