Home Heating - Usage this year?

[purbeast0]

my gas bill was the most it's ever been this past month since i moved in there september of 2012. it was $254. electricity was $90 which is pretty normal.

 

[Blackjack200]

tsk tsk tsk

And New England

Duh.

SMH.

Pffft. Then why wouldn't they call it New Manchester?

What's next, London in Canada?

 

[RagingBITCH]

Just paid off a $210 gas bill last night. At my old house (1500 sq ft) it was at most about $100. In the new house (double size, two heating units), guess I didn't realize how much we were using. (Along with the fireplace)

 

[msi1337]

I rent a house (1500sq ft). Last year the heating oil (yes, I said it) was around $1600 from Nov-Mar. This year so far it has been $1600 from Nov-Feb and I expect another $400 to make it the rest of the winter.

Home was built in the 50's..Insulation .. what is that? Single pain windows..yup! No way to run an electric heater because its a 120amp service.. check! Terrible landlord that is rich but doesn't want to spend any money on his properties... yup I got that too!

Needless to say, I want to find a new home this year.

 

[DrPizza]

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.

Actually, we have a pellet stove in the garage, but didn't use it this winter. I found the pellet stove to require a bit more maintenance than the coal stove. With that, about every other week, it had to be shut down & vacuumed out to keep things clean inside. With the coal stove, I usually shut it down around mid-winter, vacuum out underneath where the fire is, clean the fans, and pull the stove pipe out of the chimney to clean out any ash that's accumulating there. Takes me 15-30 minutes to clean. It's my wife's job to empty out the ash pan - if she forgets, and it overflows, then we get quite a bit of fine dust in the house when she takes it out of the coal stove.

From outside the house, there's no sign that we're using coal - no smoke or anything like that. Since the coal is dampened prior to bagging, there's no dust at all when the coal is dumped into the hopper. There's some annual maintenance, but it's not that difficult. As easy as it is, I was just considering grabbing a discounted pellet stove that's on sale for only $1200ish. Or rather, my wife was considering having me do that. I can pick up coal by the ton only about 1/2 mile from my house, so it's convenient.

When we first started burning coal about 8 years ago, it was around $120 per ton. This year, it's $260 per ton. (anthracite) Last year, it was $290 per ton. So, it costs around $10 per million BTUs. Hardwood pellets, on the other hand, if purchased off season, are around $180 per ton; roughly $14-$15 per million BTUs. So, coal is still more economical than pellets, but not by nearly as much as it was a few years ago. On the other hand, when compared to electricity... at 10 cents per kilowatt hour, that's just shy of $30 per million BTUs. Oil and propane are both well into the $20's per million BTUs. So, $2 or $3 really isn't that much. Firewood is actually cheaper per million BTUs. However, once you factor in the efficiency of the coal stoves and pellet stoves, compared to the efficiency of wood stoves, (iirc), coal still beats firewood, though not by as much as it did 7 or 8 years ago. Back then, when I was shopping for a wood stove, I was quickly convinced to get a coal stove by doing the math that realized that I could still cut all my own firewood, but then, sell the firewood, buy the coal with the profits, and have money left over for a couple nice dinners out with my wife. Of course, wood stoves are cheaper than coal stoves, so it would take longer for it to pay for itself. AND, most importantly, wood stoves have to be stoked quite frequently. The coal stove, if I turn it back a lot, can run for about 3 days on a hopper of coal. Ditto the pellet stove (maybe even 4 days for the pellet stove.) But, I can store the coal anywhere - rain or snow isn't going to destroy them. Pellets have to be stored where the environment is controlled. Wood - can't go away for 2 or 3 days and have the wood keep the house warm.

 

[fenrir]

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!

What did you use in Dec? I would lean more towards theft than use if there is a large difference. Dec was pretty cold in Northern WI, so it may have been warmer down in Ohio.

I have Natural Gas, my house is just as old and from what you described, mine would be less insulated and based on the calculations I used far less BTU's compared to you.

 

[Chaotic42]

$0. I haven't turned on the heater in my house since 2010.

 

[madoka]

My normal monthly bill is closer to $11, so this is like highway robbery!

 

[edro]

I called the propane company and got my usage for the last 3 years.
We are on track for being lower than the last 2 years! (even during a record cold winter)
I fixed some big drafts this fall that I missed when I replaced the doors and windows.

Also, I checked my furnace. It is a 92% model, so a new propane furnace isn't going to improve much.

Anyway, thanks to bignateyk for the attic insulation idea.
It seems so obvious now. My insulation in the attic is like 2-3" of old ass compacted rock wool.
I am going to re-insulate it this weekend for sure. I'm goin' deeep.

 

[PastTense]

No way to run an electric heater because its a 120amp service.. check!

I would disagree with this. Would anyone care to give an estimate of how much heating one can get out of a 120 amp service? For example 120 amps * 240 volts = 28800 watts. Probably you shouldn't use more than 80% of the circuit which gives 23040 watts. Assume you use half for electric heating and half for other stuff this gives 11520 watts. This is equal to 7. 68 1500 watt heaters. A 1500 watt heater gives out 5000 BTU, so 7 of them are giving out 35,000 BTU which is a fairly good number. Obviously the house needs to have adequate wiring (both size and number of circuits), the heaters of good quality and appropriately positioned so they don't catch other stuff on fire.... So could we have an expert analysis of this?

 

[Jumpem]

My natural gas charges have averaged $82.62 per month for a 1300sq.ft. house in central NY.

 

[Mixolydian]

I have a natural gas furnace.

According to Nest, I heated my home for 175 hours in January.

 

[NetWareHead]

I would disagree with this. Would anyone care to give an estimate of how much heating one can get out of a 120 amp service? For example 120 amps * 240 volts = 28800 watts. Probably you shouldn't use more than 80% of the circuit which gives 23040 watts. Assume you use half for electric heating and half for other stuff this gives 11520 watts. This is equal to 7. 68 1500 watt heaters. A 1500 watt heater gives out 5000 BTU, so 7 of them are giving out 35,000 BTU which is a fairly good number. Obviously the house needs to have adequate wiring (both size and number of circuits), the heaters of good quality and appropriately positioned so they don't catch other stuff on fire.... So could we have an expert analysis of this?

There are no direct comparisons. Every house compared to another is an apple to orange comparison. Every house has differences in sq ft, insulation, construction quality, windows, elevation, exposure to sunlight, exposure to winds etc..etc...etc... To get a proper answer, you need to run a heat loss calculation and figure out how many BTUs per hour are needed for the given structure. One easy way to get a rough answer is to look at past heating bills and compare with average temps for those times.