Propane Users: Plans for the Future?

[dpb800]

We purchased our acreage 3 years ago and suffered through the first winter with propane. Not cheap even then! We decided to go with geothermal and love it. It's much cheaper and has additional benefits.

We even purchased the unit which leaves our propane heater installed and functioning as a backup heater. We have a 1000 gal tank that is half full that we can use for a backup.

We live in prime wind country and are looking at putting up a wind turbine. This would take our only utility payment of about $100 a month to zero utility bills.

 

[dodge man]

I will probably stick with the propane. It gets to cold in our area for heat pumps. I have an fairly efficient fire place(at least as efficient as they can get) that will heat the house except when it starts getting below zero but I don't use if everyday, just on weekends at the most. The price did get to over $5 a gallon in my area. I just did a fill and got it at about $3 per gallon. Most winters I can get by all winter without a fill. Our furnace is very high efficiency and our house it pretty tight but it was so cold this winter. On an average year I would use less than 1000 gallons of propane, that's for hot water and our furnace.

 

[V1Rotate]

I don't live in the Midwest so you will have to excuse me if this seems like a dumb question.
What about oil heat? Most homes in the Northeast use oil, it is not as cheap as Natural Gas but is still cheaper than Propane or electricity.

 

[dodge man]

I think propane is cheaper to heat a house with than oil.

 

[dave1949]

Fuel Cost Comparison Calculator

Plug in your numbers a click on "calcuate"

Somebody posted this a while back.

 

[aczlan]

I think propane is cheaper to heat a house with than oil.

Thats what my heating guy says. On the straight price per BTU, Propane is 0.0915 MBTU/gallon and HHO is 0.13869 MBTU/Gallon.
Thus, if propane is $3/gallon and HHO is $4/gallon. It would cost you $34.51 per million BTUs of usable heat output (ie: not sent up the chimney) for propane vs $35.17 per million BTUs of usable heat output for HHO.
The formula is: ([MBTU per Gallon]/[Price per gallon])/[Heater Efficiency]=Price per MBTU of usable heat output
So for HHO with a 82% efficient furnace and $4/gallon to buy it would be: (0.13869/4)/82%=$35.17231798
For Propane with a 95% efficient furnace and $3/gallon to buy it would be: (0.0915/3)/95%=$34.51251079

Aaron Z

 

[TnAndy]

these arnt very efficient..and need heated condensate drains. 15,000 btu isnt much compared to the 125,000 btu furnace my house needs.

Why would they need a heated condensate drain ? What condenses on the evaporator coil in the winter when in heat mode ?

15,000BTU isn't very much compared to 125k......but then a 'mini-split' is for zone heating/cooling.....not the whole house. My 12,000BTU master bedroom unit handles a large master suite quite nicely, heat or cool.

 

[PastTense]

There are large regional variations in the price of propane. Thus in the Northeast heating oil is cheaper, while in the Midwest propane is cheaper. For example here in Iowa I contracted for propane for $1.39/gallon last summer--and this was about the price lots of others in Iowa were contracting at. Look at these charts for various regions (there is a dropdown list under area)--look at View History not current data as prices have gone crazy in the last couple months:
U.S. Weekly Heating Oil and Propane Prices (October - March)

 

[wedge40]

How large are the homes that you people are heating? I've got mere 1100 sqft. I have one of the 23000 btu kerosene heaters and can keep most of my house above 70. This has been the coldest winter since I bought the house. Ive gone through about 40 gals of kerosene and barely touched my propane.

 

[therealmjfox]

Fuel Cost Comparison Calculator

Plug in your numbers a click on "calcuate"

Somebody posted this a while back.

That is a decent calculator but it isn't complete (for example, doesn't include electric heat pump or geothermal).

Here's a comprehensive spreadsheet for comparing heat costs:

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/heatcalc.xls