Propane Heating cost

[alan40]

Hi all, I have a 1328 Sq. ft. ranch style house that is now 10 years old. My daily cost to heat the house is $14.00 a day. We heat the house, the hot water tank and stove off of propane. We have 4 people in the house. It's well insultated and we maintain 64 degrees when we're not home and 68 when we are.
Is this a normal price per day? I've called the heating company but they just say it's winter time. I know there are other variables but thought we might have a propane expert out there or some one else who heats with propane.

Trying to get a wood stove by the wife since we own 23 acres and cut wood for the sugarhouse. I have all the equipment except for the argument on how to get the wife to agree. I love wood heat and she hate's the mess. Of course the stove would be in the unfinished basement with concrete floors but that is'nt the answer either.
Thanks for any input.

 

[PBinWA]

Hi all, I have a 1328 Sq. ft. ranch style house that is now 10 years old. My daily cost to heat the house is $14.00 a day. We heat the house, the hot water tank and stove off of propane. We have 4 people in the house. It's well insultated and we maintain 64 degrees when we're not home and 68 when we are.
Is this a normal price per day? I've called the heating company but they just say it's winter time. I know there are other variables but thought we might have a propane expert out there or some one else who heats with propane.

Trying to get a wood stove by the wife since we own 23 acres and cut wood for the sugarhouse. I have all the equipment except for the argument on how to get the wife to agree. I love wood heat and she hate's the mess. Of course the stove would be in the unfinished basement with concrete floors but that is'nt the answer either.
Thanks for any input.

It only cost me around $8-10 a day to heat our 12 year old 3500 Sq. Ft. House last month. That is primarily electric heat via a heat pump and some Propane heat through a propane stove on really cold nights. It has been an average winter for me - not too cold not too warm.

I think you need to look at your insulation and where our heat is going. It seems a little high to me but I'm in a different part of the country. Perhaps some more insulation in the attics and some time spent plugging holes and cracks would help. Our house was a terrible when we bought it and I've easily reduced the heating costs by 1/3 or more by spending some time and effort plugging holes and adding insulation.

A wood stove on a ranch style house would not be that expensive. The expense is in the chimney. Some of the newer wood buring stoves are supposed to be fairly clean and low maintenance (Quadra-Fire) but I don't have any experience with them.

Hope this helps.

 

[heehaw]

i was just listening to a talk show about energy cost: they had a house in colorado, to heat the house it was estimated at $2600 for propane: @$2100 for electric(heat pump): @ $1600 for natural gas: and @$650 for geothermal: now i missed part of the show, an i am "assuming" they where talking about heating cost per year.
heehaw

 

[Pilot]

There's a big difference in heat load between Clark County, WA and Vermont. Heating degree days in Vancouver run about 5200, vs.7900 in Enosburg Falls, Franklin County, VT. The difference in the heat load between the 2 locations would suggest your costs are similar to the guy in Clark County.

FWIW, here is some fuel cost data, national averages ($ per million BTU:
Electricity $28.75 (resistance heat)
Propane $21.35
Heating Oil $16.37
Natural Gas $14.15
Wood $free (if you own the supply)

Heat pumps supposedly use about 57% as much electricity as resistance heat, but everyone I know with a heat pump has had major repairs on it after just a few year's use, running well over $1,000. For the heating oil, you have to add in the cost of periodic service, which runs about $200 per year for the unit in our little church.

Unfortunately, I have no way to calculate BUT's required from the heating degree days, so I can't guestimate what your cost would be with other fuels. But considering the cost difference for oil vs. propane, you might want to consider switching.

What's your wife's objection to wood? If she doesn't want it in the house, there are units you can put outside and they pump water thru a heat exchanger in the house.

 

[Mace]

It is a typical winter night for us here in Rush Valley. Right around 0 to -5. I go through one bag of pellets a day to heat 1600 square feet on one level. No basement. I go through 4 ton a year at 130.00 a ton.

When we first moved in 2 years ago on propane furnace, I went through 500.00 of propane from December to March.

 

[ToadHill]

I have a propane furnace in my farm. I don't get to the place much in the winter, maybe twice a month for 2 or 3 days. I keep the temp at 50 when I'm not there and 68 when I am. Since 2003 the cost of propane has gone form $1.26 per gal to the present $1.98. I use about 650 gal to keep the place heated enough for the pipes not to freeze in the winter.

 

[GregMVT]

Hi all, I have a 1328 Sq. ft. ranch style house that is now 10 years old. My daily cost to heat the house is $14.00 a day. We heat the house, the hot water tank and stove off of propane. We have 4 people in the house. It's well insultated and we maintain 64 degrees when we're not home and 68 when we are.
Is this a normal price per day? I've called the heating company but they just say it's winter time. I know there are other variables but thought we might have a propane expert out there or some one else who heats with propane.

Trying to get a wood stove by the wife since we own 23 acres and cut wood for the sugarhouse. I have all the equipment except for the argument on how to get the wife to agree. I love wood heat and she hate's the mess. Of course the stove would be in the unfinished basement with concrete floors but that is'nt the answer either.
Thanks for any input.

It seems we have a lot in common. We live in Poultney, about 20 miles west of Rutland and we also sugar. Our 1,400 sq ft ranch was built around 1950 (no cellar only crawlspace) but I've done a lot of insulating, blown in the attic and about 1/2 of the exterior walls have new fiberglass. The furnace is gas along with on demand hot water (think that saves us some $ and space too) but electric stove. We just had our 500 gallon tank filled on Jan 11, the time before was Sep 20. Here's the breakdown:
Number of days: 113
Gallons to fill tank: 97.3
Cost per gallon: $2.28
Average gallons used per day: 0.861061947
Cost per day this winter: $1.963221239

Here's how we do it:
When we bought the house in the fall of 2002 it had an existing fireplace, brick chimney and clay tile lined that we used some that first winter. The next year I had a fireplace insert installed with a stainless liner to the top of the chimney. We have to run a couple of fans all the time, along with the blower on the insert. It keeps the house about 70-75 with the back bedrooms a little cooler than the front of the house. I buy 7+ cords of logwood in the spring ($375 delivered) and cut/split/stack in the storage area that is part of the sugarhouse. We have a little over 13 acres of land that I get another 3+ cords a year from. In an average year we'll burn about 10-12 cords for the house AND for sugaring. All of the wood is hardwood. I had thought about a pellet stove but after going through the ice storm in 1998 I decided I'd rather deal with the wood and be able to have some heat even if we couldn't run the fans.

Hope this helps.

Greg

 

[billbill1]

IMHO, you are losing lots of heat somewhere. Can you get someone to bring an infared camera to show you where the loss is? More heat goes out the top of a house than anywhere else, maybe your attic insulation could use a tune up? I'd get it check out for sure, I think you could get by for at least half of that. Is the house drafty?

 

[Sigarms]

A couple of dumb questions.

How long have you lived in the house, and what have the previous fuel costs been?

What type of gas furnace do you have (80% or 90%)?

Is the heating appliance even a furnace (could be a boiler, not sure).

What type of water heater? (again, natural or direct vent)?

In therory, more efficient the equipment, the less fuel usage. That said, makes no sence to instal an ultra high efficient system with an old duct system that has major leakage (again, may not apply in your situation).

Was this the same heating company that installed the system for you? If it was, I would look elsewhere. They took the lazy way out, they don't have to see you, and they may of missed a potential sale. They don't sound very professional.

If you have ductwork, is it in the basement? (looking at possible duct leakage somehwere)

If you actually do have a heat loss somehwere where it's not supposed to be, any future money into a new system may be just wasting your money.

Assuming you have a forced air furnace in the basement, one consideration would be an indoor wood furnace. Hook up a plenum to the furance to your ductwork, and you shouldn't have issues of distributing heat within your home. Don't have any experience with them myself, but if you do an internet search, a wealth of information out there on them. Again, no clue as to how reliable they are.

You're probably like my in laws up in Vt. Open up the windows for three weeks during summer and you a/c is take care of. Would suggest a duel fuel system (hybrid heat), but may make no sense for you per the intital cost and the savings you would see running a heat pump.

Pilot, not sure of the people you know who have heat pumps, but if they are running around 1k in service bills for thier systems within a couple of years, I'd think the people who instal/service them have no clue what they are doing. Most, if not all manufacturers have a five year parts wrt (minimum) and I don't know where, other than a compressor or coil changeout, you could get hit so high with service work (labor only) in such a short amount of time.

 

[Pilot]

Re: Friends with heat pumps: Failure took more than a couple years, but almost all of them failed within about 10 years or less.

They were installed by different outfits--widely spaced homes built at different times across the county. Some were built in the '70's, but the one at the Air Guard base where I worked was installed around 1990 and it was always giving trouble. Maybe new ones are OK, but in my experience the repair cost outways the efficiency.

One friend, an engineer, did make his last (after initial failure) by making several mods on his. He had the background to analyze the system and figure out the weaknesses.

Considering heat pumps are just glorified refrigerators, they should be trouble free, but they aren't.