If it's cold where you live, what are you heating with and what is it costing?

[jyoutz]

Your first post you make this claim.

Maybe you are right? But as deep into this thread as we are I aint gonna go dig back through....did you ever give numbers?

How much does a bag/ton/etc of your fuel cost you? And how many btu's is it giving you? That is the only true number.

Prices are different everywhere....but it seems the larges price variations are electric.
IE: propane, HHO, pellets, etc all seem to be about the same or similar cost through out the country. But electric....ive seen people say they pay less than $0.10 and others pay over $0.30

With my geo and $0.14/kwh I cannot justify paying MORE for a different heating source

I think 5030 is correct about pellets being cheaper than propane. Back before I converted to natural gas, I had a forced air furnace fueled by propane. My heating season is 6 months and it cost about $175/month for propane ($1050/season). I bought a pellet stove to use as primary heat and only used 2.5 tons at $210/ton ($525/season). I only used the pellets at night and used the furnace as backup during the day. I kept the thermostat at 66 degrees and the furnace only came on intermittently because of the house being so warm from the nightly pellet stove heating the house to 74 degrees.

 

[jyoutz]

Both. I'm concerned that to air isn't going to work in our cold when we need it most. Almost certain of that. Geothermal installation price I'd have to look at the return on investment. We're currently running a 30+ year old gas furnace that seems to be working well.

That 30+ year old gas furnace may be working well but probably very inefficient. A few years ago I replaced my 20 year old gas furnace with a new 95% efficiency model. The old furnace was only about 70% efficient at best.

 

[MossRoad]

That 30+ year old gas furnace may be working well but probably very inefficient. A few years ago I replaced my 20 year old gas furnace with a new 95% efficiency model. The old furnace was only about 70% efficient at best.

Yep. It is very inefficient. And our house is 100+ years old and poorly insulated. This year might be the tipping point for it being worth replacing to get a payback in a reasonable time period.

 

[LD1]

Yep. It is very inefficient. And our house is 100+ years old and poorly insulated. This year might be the tipping point for it being worth replacing to get a payback in a reasonable time period.

IF the house is that poorly insulated, it might be better money spent on fixing that instead of a new heat source

 

[5030]

That 30+ year old gas furnace may be working well but probably very inefficient. A few years ago I replaced my 20 year old gas furnace with a new 95% efficiency model. The old furnace was only about 70% efficient at best.

We replaced our old Bryant condensing furnace because the secondary HX was cracked with a new Bryant and it is a 95% unit. One thing we found out is, when burning propane, the burner units need to be replaced every couple years as they get fouled with deposits from the propane and then they don't burn correctly and make carbon and that destroys the HX. We now have it on a maintenance schedule. Burner units replaced every 3 years. For us, it's only a backup as we heat with biomass normally.

 

[jyoutz]

We replaced our old Bryant condensing furnace because the secondary HX was cracked with a new Bryant and it is a 95% unit. One thing we found out is, when burning propane, the burner units need to be replaced every couple years as they get fouled with deposits from the propane and then they don't burn correctly and make carbon and that destroys the HX. We now have it on a maintenance schedule. Burner units replaced every 3 years. For us, it's only a backup as we heat with biomass normally.

I only ran the new Traine furnace for 2 seasons on propane, and only for backup when out of town. Last year I had it converted back to natural gas. When I bought the NG furnace I had to buy a propane conversion kit to be installed. I had them put the NG valves and other things in a box, so it was an easy conversion back to NG. The HVAC guy who did the conversion said everything still looked like new, so I guess the limited propane use didn’t do much harm.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Here is a calculator for the cost vs efficiency - copy and paste into excel and adjust for your local area and heat source.

ENERGY COST CALCULATOR
Enter the costs in Column E below for the various fuels in your area, or just use
the numbers already listed.
FUEL	ENERGY CONTENT		UNIT PRICE		HEAT CONVERSION EFFICIENCY		COST PER MILLION BTU
Kerosene	130,000​	BTU/gal	$4.05​	/gal	91	%	$34.23
#2 Fuel Oil	135,000​	BTU/gal	$4.00​	/gal	89		$33.29
Propane	92,000​	BTU/gal	$2.69​	/gal	94		$31.11
Natural Gas	100,000​	BTU/therm	$1.79​	/therm*	94		$19.04
Electricity - Resistance	3,412​	BTU/kWh	$0.34​	/kWh**	100		$99.65
Electricity - Heat Pump	11,945​	BTU/kWh	$0.34​	/kWh**	100		$28.46
Coal	13,200​	BTU/lb	$300.00​	/ton	75		$15.15
Firewood-Hardwood	25,000,000​	BTU/cord	$375.00​	/cord	60		$25.00
Wood Pellets	8,200	BTU/lb	$350.00	/ton	85		$25.11
Shelled Corn	6,800​	BTU/lb	$6.00​	/bushel	75		$21.01

$375 for a cord of hardwood? Come to CT, it is $225 which makes your cost per million BTU $15. Your efficiency is low too. A modern wood stove or insert can be 70-80% efficient. Wood wins on this chart by a mile when you factor this in.

 

[LD1]

$375 for a cord of hardwood? Come to CT, it is $225 which makes your cost per million BTU $15. Your efficiency is low too. A modern wood stove or insert can be 70-80% efficient. Wood wins on this chart by a mile when you factor this in.

Prices are regional. Use prices in your area and compile your own chart and see what works best in your area.
But what would transportation cost be for him to go all the way to CT to save $150/cord on firewood?

But thats not the point. Everyone can "twist" the numbers to show their bias in the results. As in your bias towards firewood being the best option, when clearly it is NOT the best option for Carl

 

[Carl_NH]

Correct LD1 - it's very regional and if I buy wood, I get green which is $250-275, then let it sit for a year. Agreed on the efficiency factor of wood stoves too as BoylermanCT pointed out and cost of wood will vary by region

I have expanded the calculator inputting the BTU requirement (in our case 65000 BTU) which then enables me to see the cost of oil vs using mini-splits for example. Since we have solar which generates on average 80% of our demand the mini-splits are a good alternative.

At the end of the day, we all have different scenarios, efficiency, availability, and costs associated with our heat source, so it's not one size fits all.

 

[Hilbilly]

Why are all these hypotheticals being introduced into a persons response?

The OP asked a simple question. What do YOU heat with and what is YOUR cost.

A person responds with a simple answer and it gets torn apart by others telling him his answer is wrong because he didn't include some hypothetical situation into his costs, which would make his real costs much higher.

Lets assume I heat with 10 cords of wood and state that my cost is $500 per year plus 100 hrs labor. So my cost is $500. WRONG! My real cost is much higher because I could have sold that 10 cords of wood for $2,500, so my real cost is $2,000. But wait, we forgot to include my time. I am a retired lawyer (not really) and I used to charge $400 hr for my time. So I could have gone back to work and made $40,000 in 100 hrs. Therefore my real cost is $42,000. Boy I did I ever get the answer wrong.

To my way of thinking, my real cost = my actual cost. Not some hypothetical cost.

Here is my answer: I heat with wood, burn about 5 - 6 cords a year and my cost is about $200.

Have at it.