I built my house in 1997, moved in in October. Until last fall 2012, when I went to geothermal, I used 7780 gallons of fuel for heat, at a cost of $13,600. When I started it was $.79 per gallon, I was heating my house for around $600/yr. In 2000 oil went over $1/gal. In 2005 it went over $2/gal, and was at $3/gal for most of 2007 and 2008. It hit $4/gas in 2012, the last I put in the tank.
I started burning pellets in 2001, but used less than a ton/yr the first 4 yrs. When oil hit $2/gal in 2005 I started burning pellets more, 1.5ton/yr from 2005-2007. In 2008 I changed to Harman XXV pellet stove, auto start and large ash pan, I started burning it constantly for my downstairs heat, oil only for upstairs. Since 2008 I burn 3 tons/yr pellets. 2008-2012 I used average 300 gal/season for upstairs heat at avg $951/yr. This year I burned no oil, so saved around $950 on oil cost as oil is about the same cost this year. However, my Jan electric bill was my highest ever, at $350 (very high for me), because we had a long cold spell and I was running on electric backup heat. I discovered since my thermostat was not properly set (by me), which contributed to it running on aux elecric more than it should have. I ran about 2000 KHW over my normal 3000 Kwh for Dec&Jan combined, so it costs me around $200 more in electric for those 2 months. But geo has saved me about $750 over the winter by not burning oil. There will be more savings over the year, as I use it in the summer to heat my water.
I installed my geothermal myself. I expect it to pay off in around 6 yrs if oil is at $3.50/gal, quicker if the price is higher, assuming pellet prices stay the same.
Since 2001 ive used 1134 bags of pellets at a cost of $5152. this is counting 41 bags I still have to burn for this year. the price of pellets has stayed rather constant, actually has gone down some lately.
My house in 16 yrs has used 225.8 Mwh of electric, costing $18,500, or on average 39 kwh/day costing on average $3.21/day, unless I messed up my math somewhere.
