Question about home heating

[Freebird]

OK....I know that we have discussed various options for heating our homes but I have another question. Have any of you swapped from propane to electric heat?

 

I know that at first, it seems like a dumb question but I've been doing some research on it and it's not so dumb as it may seem. There is a breaking point with the price of propane and the price of electricity where electricity becomes cheaper and I'm thinking I have passed that point.

 

From what I have learned, when propane reaches $2.48 per gallon and if you are paying no more than .10 cents per KWH for electricity, then electricity becomes cheaper. I am now paying $2.50 per gallon for propane and my electricity is .07 cents per KWH so according to what I THINK I have learned, I would be better off switching to electricity.

 

Any experts here who can show me where I've made a mistake?

[bossman]

Greetings, I live in an all elec. home. My elec. bill generaly averages $65.00- $90.00 in summer and Around $150.00 in winter monthly. The square footage is 1800. Hope this helps.

[FROG MAN]

Problem solved. Sell place and downsize to a nice cabin in the country. My property taxes on the house and 4 acres last year was $300. I got a gas well in the back yard with free gas. What is a heat bill?

[scotty]

Your math looks good to me. I get 34 cents/million BTUs cheaper. Of course that will vary depending of a lot of variables and efficiencies. The break even point will be a factor of cost of install and amount of BTUs used.

But then again, what I am using to heat my house I wouldn't listen to me. I am the squirrelest person I know.

[RedRider]

I prefer solar heat - from the Arizona sun!

 

RR

 

Sorry, not a very helpful post, but it is -9F this morning and I am ready for summer.

[bongobobny]

We're totally elewctric as well, and my electric bill for last month was around $170 but we also have cheaper local electric. The only disadvantage is it gets pertty dry in here and have to run humidifiers. Elsewise it's clean and efficient heat!

[RossKean]

You might consider a heat pump if you are going electric. Higher initial cost but much more efficient than electric resistance heating. It operates as an air conditioner in the summer. This, of course, assumes that you have some sort of forced air system. Would be a complicated install if you had to put distribution piping in place.

 

I have had homes with oil, electric resistance, heat pump and natural gas heating. The heat pump operating cost was about the same as the natural gas.

 

This will, of course, depend upon local utility rates.

 

Ross

[wild hair 39]

don't know about your area,but heat-pump 0ver propane work's pretty good,heat pump with temp over 20 deg,to do this,new A coil,heat pump out side,H/P t-stat,rewire,could be that you already have a H/P coil,just need to check out the spec.for you area

:080402gudl_prv:lowell

[DragonRider]

We have always had total electric homes, to me gas is dangerous if you get a leak, plus with the cost of natural and propane these days fewer bills is the name of the game. When we moved from S. Louisiana our electric bill was running over $225.00 a month in a 1300 sq. ft home, but we ran the a/c longer down there and we had a swimming pool that we ran the pump on 8 months out of the year.......When we move to Ga. and saw what folks were paying for gas here, there is no way I was going for gas anything............We now have a 2400 sq. ft. home and our electric bill averages about $150.00 a month. Plus most electric companies give a discount if you have a total electric home.

 

My reason for saying gas is not as safe is, we had friends in La. who had gas and they developed a leak that got under their house and something caused an explosion, possibly a pilot light from the gas water heater and the reslulting fire, seriously injuring a very close friend of mine who bears the scars to this day.

[cecdoo]

I have total electric home in a northern climate, we have the heat pump set-up, I believe a properly installed heat pump with back-up propane would be a pretty eff. set-up. One thing to watch out for, electric has been pretty stable cost wise for a long time, in Pa. they are talking about BIG increases in elec. in the next few years. We have been in our home for 23 yrs. we are on elec. budget pay same amt every month $175-200 a month, hasnt changed much over the years. Craig

[Gary N.]

Don,

With that pond and large lot of yours you may want to consider the ground source heat pump (water furnace). It's not too cheap to install but very efficient. I've been quite happy with my system since about 1990. I had to put wells down to circulate the water due to only having a 1/2 acre lot but with yours, you could trench in the tubing and even incorporate the pond I think.

The system extracts heat from the circulating water which is always at a constant temp. (around 55* I think). A regular heat pump extracts heat from the outside air and starts to get inefficient as the temp. drops and then a backup system kicks in. My backup system (electric elements) hardly ever comes on unless it gets down in the single digits or below and the wind blows hard.

[dynodon]

We went from gas heat to a geothermal system. Of course it is all electric. Still heat water with gas, gas stove and dryer.

 

We like our geothermal system, it is saving money, but is more noisy with the compressors running all the time (or most of the time).

 

We did three deep loops rather than a wide shallow system.

[Rottdoglover]

Don. Our home is 1800 sq.ft. in mid Illinois. Electric heat is ceiling radiant. Small wires in a grid. Our $/KW was .05 but they just increased it to .07. Last month heat cost was $211. Although electic may be cheaper now, will the cost of retrofitting and the possible rate increase still beat propane? Electric is slow to heat up but temp is steady. Forced air has a wider temp swing. Luck to you whatever you do

[Cougar]

Don, I just checked yesterday here in Iowa. where I pay

my gas bill , they said Propane is down to $170 a gal this month

and they say it should not go up anymore this winter.

Also, I buy the propane at the right times if I can.

 

Kinda Like buying gold *lol* We were paying $2.00 a Gal

For a year though.

 

Also consider a 1000 gal tank and buy at bulk rates.

Jeff

[BuddyRich]

Is it going to take 10 years to get a return on your investment ? Are you still going to be in the house in 10 years ? We put 45k into the last house. The current owners are enjoying our investment. Things change..

[barend]

Had individual gas heaters when i was a kid, oil furnace for about a year, and then a heat pump (with woodstove ) Still don't like a heatpump, with a woodstove or oil furnace you're putting hot air into your house, heatpump will just pump cold air and gradually heat the place up but not nearly as 'comfortable'. Other factor to consider with a heat pump: no electric>>NO heat!!!

Having said that, my elecrtric bill was $0.0989/Kw or if you prefer $0.0289/sqft

[pegscraper]

Our last place was on propane, and our current one is all electric. I don't have any real math to prove it, but it sure seems like electric is no more expensive than gas anymore. I can't see how you could convert the whole house over to an electric system and expect to recover the costs in a reasonable time though. If electricity is actually cheaper right now, it can't be that much cheaper.

 

Heat pumps don't work real well in this part of the country. It gets too cold here for them to work efficiently.

 

The way to do propane is to own your tank instead of renting it, and have enough capacity to last all year long. That way you can fill up only in the summer time when propane prices are down. They really make a killing on that winter time fill up. Then if you own your tank, you can shop around for the best price. If you rent one from some company, you're stuck buying propane from them and whatever price they want, and they probably won't let you have one big enough to last all year anyway. They love that winter time fill up, when propane prices are generally four or five times what they are in the summer. I personally know someone who bought his own tanks and does this. He had recovered his equipment costs in a year and a half. The rest is all savings. If our current place was on propane, this is what I would do. But being all electric here, I'll leave it the way it is.

 

Short of that, put your window A/C units in backwards to blow the cold air out and the warm air in and see how well that works.

[painterman67]

Just a thought here, if yopu already have propane , instead of ripping it out and installing a new heat pump.Try adding a heat pump to your current setup. The heat pump will use the emergency strips at a set outside temp in order to keep up. That is when the propane would kick in ..

 

 

Price to heat electric is not bad until you get into those emergency strips. They pull straight 220 and you can watch the wheels spin.

 

Just a thought,

David

[Reed]

check into duel heat!!!!!! See if your power co. offers it. I get my off peak elc. for .03 per kw. the trick is you need 2 ways to heat. because they can control your elc. heat.

so in peak time you need your propain.

[nelsonrl]

Duel heat would be my suggestion. Heat pump with propane heaters???? Problem with a heat pump is that at lower temps, there is no heat to remove from the outside air and so, you are defendant on your secondary heat.

[Freebird]

I should have given more info in my first post. I already have an air source heat pump and it is great. I got a quote last year for putting in a Geo Thermal system and it was no cost effective. I now have a very high efficient propane furnace for backup to the heat pump when it is too cold for the heat pump to work. The problem is, for these extra cold winters like we are having this year, there are a LOT of days and nights when the system has to swap to the propane. Installing geo thermal would cost me about $10,000.00. Due to the high efficiency of my current system, payback would take about 12 years. Life expectancy on the geo thermal system is just a year or too longer than that so it just makes no sense.

 

I have a forced air central system and was thinking of just replacing the propane backup furnace with electric. Based upon the current price of propane and electricity, it should be considerably cheaper and the initial cost shouldn't be very high. I'll just have to look into it a bit further. The only questions are will propane stay high and will my electricity stay low.

[PBJ]

We had a propane furnance for years but it usually only ran as back up to our Vermaont casting air tight wood stove. Our old farm house was 2100 sq ft. when we were done with it. Local pallet copmany sold wood for $200 for nine face that got us through 3/4 a season . Tw loads made it the whole season with wood left over to start the next year nice and seasoned. 100 gallon tank of propane lasted 2 months. Just an option but one that saved us thoudsands of dollars over the 25 years we lived there.

[1sttenor]

Ground Source heat pump is the cheapest heating source over the long haul. We built a new house in 2000 and installed one then. We're all electric now, had natural gas in the house before. That house was running $265/mo for utilities on a level pay plan. This house is almost 2.25 times the heated space, due to heating two garages and the electric bill is $149/mo. It will also heat your water. With all things being equal, the other house were it the same size, would be costing over $596 to heat, compared to our $149. At a monthly savings of approximately $447/mo, we've recooped the cost of the system ($15,500) 3 times over. They're great.

 

WaterFurnace 5.5 ton unit, 3 zones

 

Edited January 24, 2009 by 1sttenor
spelling

[WilCruise]

Don,

If I understand it correctly you're still pretty close even if the electric does give you a bit of an advantage. Have you invested in thorough insulation? I was amazed at how much we saved when we went all out insulating our house (blown in, another layer of blankets up top, sealed around widows, elec outlets etc).

 

The price of electric and fuel do fluctuate constantly so it may go back after you invest in a change. My logic was to invest in reducing the need regardless of source. We cut our heating oil consumption from 4-5 tanks per year to less than half that (just got the first refill this year and it's been cold). If you haven't already done that it may be worth considering as an alternative.

[barend]

Have you checked on propane prices? Brenda's boss asked her to do so after a fill up and discovering a friend payed less, turns out competitor's price was lower. Had her call his supplier back and got an adjustment on his bill!! I think it went from over 4 to about 2.50.

Seems I heard someone talk about the delivery guy draining the rest of the tank prior to fill up because it was easier that way. Could be way of here, but something to watch for nonetheless

Good luck:225: