Heating. Propane vs Electric vs Wood Pellet

[LouNY]

Propane per $1.50 Gallon at 90% efficiency would be $1,824.82 per million btu
Electric (heat pump or mini-split) at $0.12 kiloWatt-hour (kWh) and 250% efficiency would be $1,406.80

Your numbers would depend on your cost of fuel,
and as it gets colder the electric would have more difficulty reaching it's advertised efficiency.

As far as safety with any kind of reasonable installation propane is a very safe fuel.

 

[5030]

Dang it, you beat me to it.

Gonna take a 'Laddie' pencil......:laughing:

I use in floor PEX in the shop, heated with a domestic HWH and feed pump running on propane. Once the floor temp is stabilized, in my case 72, it stays warm with little input.

I neat my house with a +90 condensing furnace fired on propane with a bio-mass stove helping out on really cold days. Pellets versus propane today, propane per BTU is substantially less expensive than wood pellets with no maintenance. Having said that, I run 50% hardwood pellets and 50% field corn dried to under 12 %. I pay nothing for corn so the cost per BTU realized is about in line with propane, but again, there is the maintenance aspect so I only use bio mass as a backup / supplement.

I like having multiple duels available as I like to run the least expensive one. I'd never run electric heat. Cost per BTU is over the top no matter how low the KWH charge is.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

 

[ovrszd]

Propane per $1.50 Gallon at 90% efficiency would be $1,824.82 per million btu
Electric (heat pump or mini-split) at $0.12 kiloWatt-hour (kWh) and 250% efficiency would be $1,406.80

Your numbers would depend on your cost of fuel,
and as it gets colder the electric would have more difficulty reaching it's advertised efficiency.

As far as safety with any kind of reasonable installation propane is a very safe fuel.

Good stuff Lou.

I'm paying $1.44 for Propane. I'm paying $0.15 kilowatt-Hour (kwh) for electricity.

My HVAC guy said he could heat my house cheaper using the heat pump than using the Propane fired Hydronic Floor Heat system. Then he said, "but I can't make your floors warm".

 

[ovrszd]

Gonna take a 'Laddie' pencil......:laughing:

I use in floor PEX in the shop, heated with a domestic HWH and feed pump running on propane. Once the floor temp is stabilized, in my case 72, it stays warm with little input.

I neat my house with a +90 condensing furnace fired on propane with a bio-mass stove helping out on really cold days. Pellets versus propane today, propane per BTU is substantially less expensive than wood pellets with no maintenance. Having said that, I run 50% hardwood pellets and 50% field corn dried to under 12 %. I pay nothing for corn so the cost per BTU realized is about in line with propane, but again, there is the maintenance aspect so I only use bio mass as a backup / supplement.

I like having multiple duels available as I like to run the least expensive one. I'd never run electric heat. Cost per BTU is over the top no matter how low the KWH charge is.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.

Good stuff.

In my opinion the cheapest heat is insulation.

 

[not2old]

My 31x44 shop is still under construction but I've given a lot of thought to heating it. I plan to install pex in the floor and use a waste oil boiler. I'm convinced that the idiots running things will drive up the cost of all heating fuels. Here in British Columbia where we have readily available hydro power for electricity, I'm now paying 14 cents per KWH to operate my geothermal which appears to be the most economical form of heat around here if you include the labour to cut and split wood. I have a 4600 square foot house and the costs, while reasonable, do add up and will continue to rise. The garage will also be my outdoor boiler. Local automotive shops are paying to get rid of waste crankcase oil and I plan on using that to my advantage. The initial cost is high, but is fixed.

 

[shooterdon]

Propane per $1.50 Gallon at 90% efficiency would be $1,824.82 per million btu
Electric (heat pump or mini-split) at $0.12 kiloWatt-hour (kWh) and 250% efficiency would be $1,406.80

Your numbers would depend on your cost of fuel,
and as it gets colder the electric would have more difficulty reaching it's advertised efficiency.

As far as safety with any kind of reasonable installation propane is a very safe fuel.

How do you get 250% efficiency? Are you saying if you use 1000 watts of electricity you get 2500 watts of heat output?

 

[Oldoak]

Deleted double post.

 

[Oldoak]

How do you get 250% efficiency? Are you saying if you use 1000 watts of electricity you get 2500 watts of heat output?

I caught that too. Good question.

Even 100% efficiency is impossible although I think electric would be the closest but not necessarily the cheapest.

 

[ericm979]

Instead of directly generating the heat, where 100% would be the theoretical maximum, it's just moving heat from outside to inside.


How efficient is a heat pump? – Leonardo Energy - Knowledge Base

 

[LouNY]

Resistive electric heat is considered to be 100% efficient use of the electricity consumed,
one kilowatt hour of electricity should yield 3412 btu's of heat.
The mini-splits that I installed a couple of years ago should be approximately 287% efficient in that 1 kwh power should yield 9792 btu's of heat.