House Heating - Which Fuel?

[Haoleguy]

My daughter & SIL are looking for their first house(~1700 sqft) to buy in the Shrewsbury, MA area. Yesterday I went on a house hunting tour with them and found that homes have electric, oil, and underground natural gas heat in that area. I'm familiar with oil(25yrs experience) as it's currently gouging a hole in my pocketbook......for the most recent cold month I paid $800 in oil heat. Wayback when electric heat was exorbitantly expensive to heat a home. Since I know that oil will keep climbing what are the cost comparisons in today's experience? Which of these makes sense to pursue if giving the same insulated house? Thanks for you thoughts on this...........Gary

 

[Jimmy Joe]

Natural has seemed to be the bargain for years around here if you are in an area that has it.

 

[LD1]

Natural gas if avaliable is the best you mentioned. Almost the same heat as propane, but a lot cheaper and no tank/deliveries to worry about.

And if you are refering to "electric" heat as baseboard/radiant/electric furnace, those are expensive to run.

BUT, if it has a heat pump/air conditioner, that is the way to go on the milder days and is cheaper than gas in the long run. My heat pump is cheaper than my propane down to about 20 degrees F. Natural gas being cheaper than propane, I'd probabally guess @ 40 degrees and above it would be cheaper to operate than the NAT. gas.

 

[milkman636]

Each ccf (hundred cubic feet) of natural gas I burn costs me $0.99 and contains 102,900 btus. A 92% efficient furnace will theoretically put 94,668 btus of heat into my house for each 99 cents worth of natural gas it burns.

94,668 btus is equivalent to 27.75 kwh of electricity. Using my current electric costs of 12.2 cents per kwh, the equivalent amount of heat from electric resistance heat would be $3.39.

Heating my house with natural gas is way less expensive than electric would be.

 

[JDgreen227]

My daughter & SIL are looking for their first house(~1700 sqft) to buy in the Shrewsbury, MA area. Yesterday I went on a house hunting tour with them and found that homes have electric, oil, and underground natural gas heat in that area. I'm familiar with oil(25yrs experience) as it's currently gouging a hole in my pocketbook......for the most recent cold month I paid $800 in oil heat. Wayback when electric heat was exorbitantly expensive to heat a home. Since I know that oil will keep climbing what are the cost comparisons in today's experience? Which of these makes sense to pursue if giving the same insulated house? Thanks for you thoughts on this...........Gary

I had oil heat back when it was 79 cents a gallon in 1989, (had comparable heating costs then to natural gas which wasn't available here at the time) but it burns DIRTY. Electric is very clean, comparable to gas...but expensive. Just paid my latest bill online today, it's been bitterly cold the past two months in mid-Michigan, but my monthly gas bill including a gas water heater was only $160 with tax for a 2450 square foot house, full basement with R-19 walls, R-19 wall insulation upstairs, R-30 attic insulation, double and triple pane windows, 68 degrees...and that was running two 94% percent efficient furnaces...

NO COMPARISON...go with natural gas, PERIOD. I don't know why anyone would choose another heating fuel.

 

[Wacky]

Do you have a decent spread with any woods? I use wood to heat my house.

 

[Carl_NH]

For Shrewsbury Ma they have natural gas in some areas, so it depends on hte house and street etc.

In order of cost:

Wood - if you have a woodlot
Natural Gas
Geo Thermal - Fairly High install cost tho and electrical usage pending your rates
Wood Pellets - $250/ton
# 2 Oil $3 Gal with some new boilers they are 90% eff now
Propane (depending on your area) could be lower than oil

Attached is a link to the PSU energy comparision sheet. I used this in my analysis when I replaced my oil boiler (With a 90% efficient Buderus blue flame boiler) and reduced annual consumption by 400 gallons from 900 gals annually before.

penn state energy cost calculator - Google Search

 

[LD1]

Each ccf (hundred cubic feet) of natural gas I burn costs me $0.99 and contains 102,900 btus. A 92% efficient furnace will theoretically put 94,668 btus of heat into my house for each 99 cents worth of natural gas it burns.

94,668 btus is equivalent to 27.75 kwh of electricity. Using my current electric costs of 12.2 cents per kwh, the equivalent amount of heat from electric resistance heat would be $3.39.

Heating my house with natural gas is way less expensive than electric would be.

Wow, I didnt know the conversion #'s but natural gas is WAY cheaper than propane.

Each gallon of propane is ~91000 BTU (or somehwere around there). And at a cost of 1.85-2.25 (in my area last I checked) that makes propane about twice the cost of nat. gas.:confused2:

Even my heat pump being about 3.5x's more efficent than resistance, that is still ~8kwh to get that many BTU's. And at MY rate of .10, that is $.80 for heatpump vs .99 for nat. gas. And heatpump efficency diminishes quickly as temp drops.

Boy I wish I could get NAT. gas.

To the OP, if natural gas is that cheap in your area, go that route.

 

[bp fick]

Nothing can touch Nat Gas for economy. The US has more Natural Gas than the Saudis have oil. With the new technologies for producing it, there is presently a virtual glut.

Sadly, in rural areas like this, it isn't available. We likely pay close to double for the LP we have to use. In fact, NG and LP are moving in different price directions. Sad. We need a better option.

 

[JDgreen227]

Nothing can touch Nat Gas for economy. The US has more Natural Gas than the Saudis have oil. With the new technologies for producing it, there is presently a virtual glut.

Sadly, in rural areas like this, it isn't available. We likely pay close to double for the LP we have to use. In fact, NG and LP are moving in different price directions. Sad. We need a better option.

Back in '92 I paid my utility company $3200 to bring the gas pipe up from the corner (about 400 feet) and the way oil prices kept rising, the payback time was about 6 years, however I had to replace the furnace but the old oil burner was going to need expensive repairs soon so it worked out great for me. I just lucked out there...

 

[JB4310]

Which fuel? The worst one, OIL!!

There was a time when oil was the cheapest now it's the highest. There was a storey a couple weeks ago in the paper, when we had a frigid spell, it said it could cost up to $75. a day to heat with oil! at the courant pricing, when temps go zero or below.

I have a gas line right in front of my house (100 ft), there was a time when the gas company would bring in service free of charge. They did that for me at a shop I owned, but that's when prices were closer between gas and oil and they were competting for business. With the way things are now what would their insentive be to do it for free? to get more back logged?

Outlook for oil prices does not look good with the meltdown in the mediteranian. Gonna have to look hard at getting gas service up to my house.
Hope my 9 year old Peerless steam boiler can be converted to burn gas

JB.

 

[tglass]

Which fuel? The worst one, OIL!!

There was a time when oil was the cheapest now it's the highest. There was a storey a couple weeks ago in the paper, when we had a frigid spell, it said it could cost up to $75. a day to heat with oil! at the courant pricing, when temps go zero or below.

I have a gas line right in front of my house (100 ft), there was a time when the gas company would bring in service free of charge. They did that for me at a shop I owned, but that's when prices were closer between gas and oil and they were competting for business. With the way things are now what would their insentive be to do it for free? to get more back logged?

Outlook for oil prices does not look good with the meltdown in the mediteranian. Gonna have to look hard at getting gas service up to my house.
Hope my 9 year old Peerless steam boiler can be converted to burn gas

JB.

I've used corn or pellets for the last 5 years (have electric hooked to the house) and have cut my cost in half including electricity bills and cost of burn. Safety devices are extreemly reliable. The only problem is a daily bring the fuel in from the garage, and at my age it is getting to be a problem. Now I'm thinking electric with a heat pump might be the answer.

 

[mrpoppy58]

My daughter & SIL are looking for their first house(~1700 sqft) to buy in the Shrewsbury, MA area. Yesterday I went on a house hunting tour with them and found that homes have electric, oil, and underground natural gas heat in that area. I'm familiar with oil(25yrs experience) as it's currently gouging a hole in my pocketbook......for the most recent cold month I paid $800 in oil heat. Wayback when electric heat was exorbitantly expensive to heat a home. Since I know that oil will keep climbing what are the cost comparisons in today's experience? Which of these makes sense to pursue if giving the same insulated house? Thanks for you thoughts on this...........Gary

We installed a Heat Pump. But We also installed an Adams condensing fuel oil Furnace which is 96 percent efficent. When the tempature falls below 32 degrees the oil furnace takes over. This is our second Winter with this system and We like it.

 

[whistlepig]

Geothermal is the cheapest heat and cooling. The efficiency rating for geothermal is 300%. We have a pellet stove in our house for emergency heat. I really like the pellet stove. We lost power for 4 days during the recent ice storm and used the pellet stove powered by the generator to heat our house. Our pellet stove used 60 pounds of pellets for every twenty four hours of use @ $3.75 per 40 pound bag. Wind chills were in the single digits those four days.

 

[zzvyb6]

Now that we have that one hammered down, don't forget about consideration for how air conditioning fits into their home: Window, forced air, fans, blocks of ice or outdoor swimming pool?

Forced air is most comfortable, that usually means forced air furnace. Electric heat and hot water heat (even from natural gas) rules out central air unless its a special entity.

 

[kenmac]

electric rates would have to be cheap to beat some of these 98% efficient gas furnaces. Air temp from an HP isn't even close to gas unit when it gets cold out. Alot of my customers ask me about a HP as, the elec. co. is always running ads for them. I tell them if your use to the warm air from a gas furnace , you won't be happy with a HP

 

[JB4310]

I've used corn or pellets for the last 5 years (have electric hooked to the house) and have cut my cost in half including electricity bills and cost of burn. Safety devices are extreemly reliable. The only problem is a daily bring the fuel in from the garage, and at my age it is getting to be a problem. Now I'm thinking electric with a heat pump might be the answer.

Nothing like the heat from a solid fuel stove to bad there wasn't some way of having a huge hopper so you wouldn't have to handle bags everyday.

I know nothing about these heat pumps all you guys are talking about, we don't have them around here. Never even herd the name before coming on TBN.

Geothermal is the cheapest heat and cooling.

Must take a long time to recoup the initial cost?

A school I work at did a small free standing addition to the campus, it's a science themed building with all the latest "green" designs.
It has geo wells, I forget how deep but they were there drilling for awhile there, they get heat and AC out of it, not sure if they ever need to supliment it with other energy source.
The building has enough solar panels to sell power back to the electric company, but those panels are very expensive, I think they said something like 10-15 years to break even.

JB

 

[whistlepig]

Nothing like the heat from a solid fuel stove to bad there wasn't some way of having a huge hopper so you wouldn't have to handle bags everyday.

I know nothing about these heat pumps all you guys are talking about, we don't have them around here. Never even herd the name before coming on TBN.




Must take a long time to recoup the initial cost?

A school I work at did a small free standing addition to the campus, it's a science themed building with all the latest "green" designs.
It has geo wells, I forget how deep but they were there drilling for awhile there, they get heat and AC out of it, not sure if they ever need to supliment it with other energy source.
The building has enough solar panels to sell power back to the electric company, but those panels are very expensive, I think they said something like 10-15 years to break even.

JB

Our closed loop ground geothermal that was installed in 1999 was $14,000 plug and play. This same system today would cost $22,000. Payback is relative to the situation. I am getting close to retirement. My geothermal is paid for now and I will have heating and cooling bills that are 1/3 of all the other options. Plus we have the de-superheater option that reduces the cost of the electric water heater by a considerable amount. This is forced air heating and cooling.

 

[Carl_NH]

Which fuel? The worst one, OIL!!

There was a time when oil was the cheapest now it's the highest. There was a storey a couple weeks ago in the paper, when we had a frigid spell, it said it could cost up to $75. a day to heat with oil! at the courant pricing, when temps go zero or below.

I have a gas line right in front of my house (100 ft), there was a time when the gas company would bring in service free of charge. They did that for me at a shop I owned, but that's when prices were closer between gas and oil and they were competting for business. With the way things are now what would their insentive be to do it for free? to get more back logged?

Outlook for oil prices does not look good with the meltdown in the mediteranian. Gonna have to look hard at getting gas service up to my house.
Hope my 9 year old Peerless steam boiler can be converted to burn gas

JB.

If I had natural gas 1000 feet away I would have done it..but its not possible here. Come on $75 a day that's 22-25 or more gallons of oil or 2,700,000 to 3,000,000 million BTU thats and a poorly insulated house of 2000 square foot house requires 100,000 BTU at 0* F/24 hours usually much less if insulated..

As Whistlepig states Geo is great BUT initial cost is a factor, then what are your local utility rates? I have a friend in south central PA that has 5200 SF house, geothermal, in other words all electric, and the last 12 months averaged $200/month for heating, cooling and hot water BUT the rates are $.12 per KWH, then the heating degree days are MUCH lower there than in NH / northern New England. We pay $.24 per KWH for electricity and do not have natural gas so the options are limited.

Bottom line you should choose your heating system based on your local factors, budget then long term goals. The ROI (return on investment) is a combination of factors per a given house (insulation/tightness & size) then location (Degree days, fuel options) and this will yield a number to replace or keep the existing system.

I do agree with Whistlepig to have a main system and alternate, as no question that radiant heat is the best from a pellet stove or other means (we use a central fireplace with a lot of stone)

 

[Haoleguy]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. You're confirming my thoughts on the 3 fuels I posed the question around in that gas, if available, is best and that forced air allows for both heating and cooling. Since they are looking at starter homes you can imagine the hodge podge in age, insulation, and heating/cooling systems. I would guess that the chance of seeing geothermal will probably be slim but I do think they will be seeing homes with primary and secondary heat sources with wood as an option. Unlikely they will find wood on the size lots that the homes are coming with, however, I have plenty of wood available from my property. Any other thoughts are welcome. Thank you again.......Gary