Home Heating - Usage this year?

[Meghan54]

We're averaging just over $100/mo in natural gas. (Nat. gas heat and water heater.) I think last month was $125. 1700 sq. ft. house. Electric was $95 last month.

Summer, gas drops down to maybe $25, elec. jumps up to ~$200-$250.

So, we pay around $250/mo to cool/heat the house and run it. I do tend to keep the thermostat at 72 in winter, 69 in summer, tho.

 

[Colt45]

Maybe $200 when it's the coldest (and it gets /cold/ here).

electricity would probably be an order of magnitude more expensive.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

A ton of coal runs us about $260 for bagged coal. It lasts a little more than a month; so about $200 per month for heat. House is barely insulated - window in 5ini room that needs to be replaced, and about 2-3" of insulation in the attic. Basement is unheated, resulting in quite chilly floors. But, at the moment, it's around 5F outside, and 72F inside.

DrP - is your coal furnace dirty and a PITA to clean? I am seriously considering switching to a pellet or coal boiler/furnace. Coal is a cheaper option, but I've heard it can be a chore to keep clean. The new pellet furnaces are pretty clean and mostly hands off, but they are a LOT more money.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Ah the joys of living in a rural area, with a few acres of woods on the property, and having a big wood stove.

We actually buy most of our wood, but we supplement with some wood we cut on our own as well. Definitely saves some cash.

 

[vi edit]

Yeah, LP people got proper f'd this year. 3x increase in prices. I know people in similar situations as you - $1000 gas bills. YIKES!

We've had one of the coldest winters on the books here in central IL and my gas + electric bills have been $260 and $200 for December and January. That's around 4200 sq/ft and thermostats set at 71 degrees. It's -15f outside right now.

 

[K1052]

Thoughts?!

Look into geothermal heat pumps with electric aux heat. A few $1000 bills for propane makes the higher up front expense much more palatable.

 

[waggy]

we use propane too. we are on a keep fill though instead of filling it when empty.

december $240
jan $279

We also have a wood burning stove. i fired that up during the cold days. you get that thing hot and it heats the a good portion of the house all day.

can't remember what i paid for a truckload of wood. think around $75

 

[rh71]

Natural Gas.

Jan/Feb/Mar are the big 3 months for us. This year Jan was $290 as opposed to last year at $220. It's been far colder this year and obviously a lot more snow for the Northeast.

Gas is awesome though - not only is there no maintenance or deliveries, we pay less than HALF what we did with oil over 12 months. Avg $100/mo. now since summers are only like $35.

 

[olds]

I honestly don't know as I don't track stuff like this. I want to be comfortable in my home so it costs what it costs.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Some pretty tough prices here. I bought a foreclosure in Oct. complete with an empty oil tank. Filled it up twice so far and I'm down about 1/2 tank. I keep my house fairly frigid, but it's around 2300 sqft. I do kinda like being cold, but I'm more worried about the summer. I loathe being hot, but thankfully I have central air. I really have nothing to compare to except this year, which is the coldest winter ever apparently. I live in PA.

Natural gas is 200 ft away too

I had an energy audit done in Nov. and I've been planning all the things I am going to fix. I'm going to replace my recessed lights with ICAT housing, I need to get better seals on my doors, remove my mail slot in my door(so dumb) and probably slap some mastic all over the place on my forced air ducting in the basement. The doors are terrible though. I can see outside in the upper corners of several of them.

I absolutely cannot wait to build my own house...modern materials and building science, proper insulation and sealing, geothermal climate control, solar power and water heating. And for the love of all that is holy multi zoned climate control.

 

[NetWareHead]

I'm also thinking about coal. My GF and I are living in a 2 unit house with tenants upstairs, that we intend to move out and get tenants on both floors. Its natural gas for heating, hot water and cooking so its perfect from a rental perspective. We live in NH and oil/propane is shockingly expensive. Coal is not dirty as some people would like to believe. Our next house, if it happens to be oil/propane or in a place where no natural gas is present, we will get a central coal boiler or a stove. Look at this video of this guy receiving a 3 ton shipment. Down the coal chute and into his bin, no dust. This is hard coal aka anthracite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlOFA81rhxg Soft coal aka bituminous can get sooty and dusty.

I also looked at pellet but it has too many disadvantages. If you are going the solid fuel route (coal, pellet, firewood) and have decided that loading a stove/boiler, tending to the fire and ashing it out is within your capability, then do it with the superior fuel and use coal.

 

[NetWareHead]

We use propane.
I had a fill up on 12/31 for 358 gal. @ $2.39/gal + tax = $937.
I just got filled up again on 1/31.

So my heating bill for January was $937.

We only use propane for heat. (electric water heater and stove)
We have a 130+ year old house with all new windows and doors.
The exterior walls have pumped in foam insulation.
We live on a hill with open fields all around us, so the wind bombards us.

I just can't believe our heating bill would be $900+ if we were on 100% electric.
I am thinking about looking into heat pumps and switching to 100% electric.

Thoughts?!

Share your winter heating woes!

358 gallons of propane contains 358 x 91,333 (BTUs per gallon) = 32,697,214 BTUs

You needed 32,697,214 BTUs of heat.

We know that each kilowatt-hour of electricity contains 3,412 BTUs.

32,697,214 / 3,412 = 9583 kilowatt-hours of comparable energy needed.

Compare your price per kilowatt-hour to price per gallon of propane and see where you stand.

Roughly, it takes 26.77 kilowatt-hours of energy to equal energy content of one gallon of propane.

 

[bignateyk]

I like the way South Koreans heat their homes and apartments. The heat is generated through the floor. It took longer to heat my apartment but within an hour it was pretty toasty. It does get expensive so you need make sure that it's turned off before you go out or to bed.

This was common in the US until they realized it was a major fire hazard.

 

[bignateyk]

What kind of insulation is in your attic? The majority of heat loss in your house is going to go through the roof. The best place to start would be to put another layer of fiberglass batting into your attic. Run it perpendicular to the existing batting.

What's the square footage of your house?

A heat pump will help you quite a bit from March through November. Once you get into December, January, February, it will really lose efficiency. The cheapest way to heat in extreme cold is coal/wood.

 

[NetWareHead]

This was common in the US until they realized it was a major fire hazard.

I'm seriously considering radiant floor in my next house for big rooms and bathrooms. In a properly engineered system with appropriate floor construction materials, it is safe. The highest temperature a slab should usually see is between 80-110 degrees. I'm looking at hot water running through my floors rather than electric.

 

[Blackjack200]

I'm seriously considering radiant floor in my next house for big rooms and bathrooms. In a properly engineered system with appropriate floor construction materials, it is safe. The highest temperature a slab should usually see is between 80-110 degrees. I'm looking at hot water running through my floors rather than electric.

It's not a hazard because of the temperature the floors get, it's a hazard because of the electrical element running through the floor. If you use hot water instead of electricity there really shouldn't be any risk at all. I'd love to do this but $$$ to retrofit.

 

[bignateyk]

It's not a hazard because of the temperature the floors get, it's a hazard because of the electrical element running through the floor. If you use hot water instead of electricity there really shouldn't be any risk at all. I'd love to do this but $$$ to retrofit.

Yeah I think if it's done properly with modern construction techniques it wouldn't be an issue.

I might put it in my bathroom when I renovate it this spring.

 

[NetWareHead]

It's not a hazard because of the temperature the floors get, it's a hazard because of the electrical element running through the floor. If you use hot water instead of electricity there really shouldn't be any risk at all. I'd love to do this but $$$ to retrofit.

Meh, I'm not too worried about electrical in the floor. There are already electrical cables (not for radiant heating) between the floor joists of my house and in the walls. Designed properly, its really nothing to worry about. If you have access to the floor from the level below, like in a basement, it is remarkably easy to install radiant floor. You install elements in between the floor joists and then shield them. Your existing floor is untouched. You may need an electrician to do the final hookup though.

Check this out: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20163505,00.html

 

[Thump553]

New England, oil heat, mediocre insulation, elderly relative living in house whose main hobby is turning up the thermostat.

Don't even ask.

 

[NetWareHead]

New England, oil heat, mediocre insulation, elderly relative living in house whose main hobby is turning up the thermostat.

Don't even ask.

You need a landlord thermostat. No matter what temp it is set to, you can define the upper temp limit.

 

[JulesMaximus]

We've run the heat 3 or 4 times this month. Only at night really though. Shouldn't really have much effect on our gas/electric bill at all.

It is a little cool in here right now though, we didn't run the heat last night (66 degrees).

We have a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 20 year old home in San Diego, CA.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Propane is VERY expensive

Natural gas is cheap

Wood is DIRT cheap (if you cut it yourself)

Just to give you an example. We have Natural Gas and it cost me $250 for the month of January to heat 1600sq ft house at 68 (turning it off when no one is around of course). I'm in the northeast and temps have been steady at 20-30 degrees, sometimes dropping below that.

Since our delivery/service charges are about $50-60 bucks anyways, I'm looking at about $200.

PS. when I replace my boiler I'm sticking with 80% Efficiency as well. The entire 90%-95% efficiency units are BS. Savings are VERY little if ANY and it takes many years to recover the cost as the units are more expensive etc. It also increases the complexity of the units as now they have to have condenser etc. More parts = lesser reliability. I spoke with 3 service people and they all recommended 80% (2 of them just recently replaced their own with 80% too).

 

[Blackjack200]

We've run the heat 3 or 4 times this month. Only at night really though. Shouldn't really have much effect on our gas/electric bill at all.

It is a little cool in here right now though, we didn't run the heat last night (66 degrees).

We have a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 20 year old home in San Diego, CA.

Yeah??

Well... well... you're just a poopyhead!!

 

[JulesMaximus]

Yeah??

Well... well... you're just a poopyhead!!

 

[z1ggy]

Live in the Northeast, right near Vdub.

Got oil in early Dec for about $350.

Have pellet stove, and bought 2 tons of pellets w delivery for $650. Will last all winter.

Just got $450 of oil a few weeks ago. Will prob last til end of march.

So overall, from Dec- end of March (4 months or so) my total heat bill is $1450 + any electric costs associated with heating. Call it $1500 to be even. Overall, that works out to $375/month. My house is only 1000sqft, plus a semi finished basement. Shitty insulation I guess...

In otherwords, F#ck the northeast.