Heating the house

[quad59]

I have been tossing the idea around of switching my heating source up. Heres whats going on we currently have propane, at 2.29 a gallon last year our annual heating was real close to 2000 dollars. We have a 2 story home built in 2000 about 2800 sq ft well insulated good doors and windows. I have been looking into the outdoor woodburners for awhile and my lowest number I can get with me istalling it using the water system with radiator deal that goes in the duct work above the fan is 5200 dollars. I also contacted a local HVAC company about switching over to electric because we have rural electric and it is cheap, 62 dollars a month in the summer with central air on 70. He quoted me at 6000.00 to switch to electric with a I think it was 95 percent effecient furnace. Does anybody have any opinions, advice, If I swith the furnance I mind as well switch the water heater as well... Oh and my propane furnace is 98 percent efficient. Wood or electric?

[derekhonda]

Sounds like if your numbers are correct just lay it all out there and make a break even point. Which ever comes first use that one.

[derekhonda]

Dude you caught me on such a boring day at work I did a quick little analysis. I did have to speculate on some things, but basically if your average annual is $2000 and nothing changes for the next 10 years.

You listed setup costs but you didn't list est. monthly expenses. For electric I assumed $100 a month (which is probably a hair cheap but you guessed $62.00 for some reason.

And for the wood I just estimated a yearly expense of $500 cause you are only gonna use it 2 or 3 months a year.

[derekhonda]

So in year 4 you begin to save money using wood, if your setup number and my estimated guess are close. In year 8 you save money over your current situation if you were to use electric.

[quad59]

The 62 dollars for electric is the highest my bill has ever been. In the winter its more between 30 and 35 per month. My motivation isnt all about money it is and it isnt. My gas company is like dealing with gangsters they have fees for everyhting above and beyond the gallon price, they always jack my bill up and I always come out paying more than was quoted. I was looking towards electric when my wife said that I dont have time to find,fetch,stack and feed wood. We are very busy people. Looking to the future I dont see propane ever getting cheaper, electric I think will stay the same or get cheaper through clean burning coal or the eventuall synthetic style fuels...Of course this requires largly on crooked politicians and want they want. Just tired of this darn tank in the most inconvenient spot and dealing with the worst customer service I have ever experienced with amerigas.

[quad59]

I'm not sure what the electric would be annually with the addttion of an electric furnance and water heater. My buddy has an all electric home and he said his annual electric was around 2000 His home is alittle larger than mine square footage but its not a 2 story. More of an open floor plan so I'm sure the heat flows better. Big deciscion I just know I want to give the gas company the finger..

[derekhonda]

I mean its all up to you. Personally, $2,000 to 3,000 to heat/cool and run all utilities in that big of a house for a whole year doesn't seem too bad to me. But if you feel you are being mistreated then by all means you should switch. Just know there are some costly set-up expenses on those and weigh it all into your decision.

[ZeroLogic]

Wood pellet stove...

[smr]

I have a 2200 sqf house and I installed an outside wood burner about 5 years ago. I love it.

Your not gonna heat that house for $65.00 a month with an electric heat pump. You should expect at leat 3 times what it cost you to cool it. (elements use a lot more wattage than a comprisor)

I cut most of my own wood and it takes about 1 small truck load every two weeks to heat my house.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by ZeroLogic
Wood pellet stove...

I agree, however you have to watch the price of pellets which is really high the past few years. I use a woodstove exclusively and a pellet stove as a booster when it gets cold cold. They fully heat my 4000 sq foot home. Pellet is worthless when power is out and we loose power alot here in the winter.

Another choice would be one of the newer style outdoor woodstoves that also heats your hot water. I want one of them but would have to plumb the house with ducts and such.

[quad59]

talking with the hvac company and the numbers with the units I'm looking at it looks like about 180 - 200 in the winter and staying the same in the summer for my electric. The big expense is the intial install. so lets say 4 months at 180 4 months at 120 and 4 months at 45 for an annual electric of call it 1400-1800. I'm already paying just for that in propane on top of my current electrcic. I do beleive I'm going to go electric. I also will get alittle bit of trade in on my furnace because it is fairly new not much between 3 and 5 hundred. It will take along time to recoup the intiall investment but well worth it I think to say good bye to the gas company, and there tank!!

[quad59]

Originally posted by Pappy
I agree, however you have to watch the price of pellets which is really high the past few years. I use a woodstove exclusively and a pellet stove as a booster when it gets cold cold. They fully heat my 4000 sq foot home. Pellet is worthless when power is out and we loose power alot here in the winter.

Another choice would be one of the newer style outdoor woodstoves that also heats your hot water. I want one of them but would have to plumb the house with ducts and such.

Thats what I was going to do pappy use the water system where the woodstove heats the water and you pump it into the house and heat the home and water with heat exchangers. The price of this stuff has gone up alot and now in my town you have to get permits and they are starting to put restrictions on it. I beleive I am just switching to electric. My electric is really cheap!!

[bustedknuckle]

We Have A Heat Punp , Its Not Bad.We Get A Little Better Price On Electric because were all electric.our house is three bed with finnished basement.abouve grnd pool.our monthley bill is 320.00 month. we thought about pellits because we have a fireplace but pellits are getting hard to find,,my wife works for walmart and there haveing trouble getting them.probley a demand thing...the wood stoves are big around here but wood is going up.almost double from last year.

[ZeroLogic]

Originally posted by Pappy
I agree, however you have to watch the price of pellets which is really high the past few years. I use a woodstove exclusively and a pellet stove as a booster when it gets cold cold. They fully heat my 4000 sq foot home. Pellet is worthless when power is out and we loose power alot here in the winter.

Another choice would be one of the newer style outdoor woodstoves that also heats your hot water. I want one of them but would have to plumb the house with ducts and such.

How much is a bag of pellets for you guys down there? Up here its around 4 to 5 bucks a bag which would last my dad and I about a week. The pellets do get scarse around late December but we just stock up.

[smr]

Originally posted by Pappy
I Another choice would be one of the newer style outdoor woodstoves that also heats your hot water. I want one of them but would have to plumb the house with ducts and such.

That's what I got. It's called a hardy. www.hardyheater.com It heats our water and warms our house.

The only down side is when the electric goes out they are useless.

[killerofcrows48]

Do you have an easy access to wood? We've been using slab wood for the past 2 years and it's getting pretty hard to find anymore.

[jcv400ex]

Bank on electric going up. We still get 50% of our electric from Coal, but they're going to start really getting hammered by Obama's administration.... due to the enviromental impact of burning coal. I know here in PA, it's going up about 30% due to the de-regulations being lifted...I don't know all the details, just that it's going up.

I'm not real impressed with pellet stoves either. With the price of pellets increasing and the amount of pellets you'll burn when that's your primary heating source, it just doesn't give you any savings.

Wood is by far the cheapest way to go. Outdoor ones are nice, but the install is expensive. I heat with forced air natural gas, and the new furnaces are great. In the dead of winter last year, my highest bill was $72 for gas, and that includes hot water tank, dryer, stove and heater. It's hard for me to beat that right now.

but if I was building new contruction, I'd have a outside wood stove with gas backup and run water lines throughout the flooring and then you can also have your garage as your dumpzone. With a wood stove you can't adjust the output, it's either ON or OFF...so you need a dump zone for the extra heat to go to.

If your planning on keeping the house for awhile, then i'd upgrade the heating system, but it'd be with a wood burner.

[Bruce300ex]

We just got an outdoor wood stove, cost around 11,000 including install
it heat our hot water and the house it doesnt burn much wood because once the water it holds gets to 180 it shuts the blower off and the fire goes out until it cools to 168 then the blower kicks on and the fire starts again
if we completely fill it it burns for about 48 hours but to us wood is free since we cut it from our woods

[outacontrol]

im an hvac tech, and have an all electric house now with a wood/coal burner, with no heat pump. This spring im going to a heat pump which will run until about 10 degrees and heat your home, under that it kicks in your electric furnace. it is a lot cheaper for a compressor to run, than any "electric" heatsource whether it be a furnace or electric baseboard. I have a spreadsheet from Carrier that shows a breakdown of propane vs gas vs electric. To get one million btu's of heat it costs 3 times more using propane than a heat pump.

[quads14589]

we have two wood stoves one downstairs and one in our basemnet and when you get those two pumping they put out some heat and you wont have to put on the heat upstairs or down, wood stoves are great, very dirty tho, but when you can get the wood for free they r awsome

[byrdman37876]

burn junk mail.:D

[jonboy]

Look into a dual fuel setup

[quad59]

Still waying out my options. Natural gas a definate no its not available the lines are 5 houses up and they are not bringing them down our street. I found a pretty inexpensive woodburner I'm looking into.

[hondaracer31]

I just put in an outdoor wood burner 2 months ago. Do some research and get a good one. Remember "It's an investment". The one I got is a "Central Boiler", as far as I'm concerned that is the best one out there. (With a 25 year warranty!) It was not cheap at $13,000 for the total install, but it will still be heating my home, domestic hot water and shop in 30 years. My highest gas bill last year was $700 for a month, the gas bills this year should be about $20. The only thiung I use gas for now is cooking.

[biker]

wood stove for sure! i just finished setting stone and building a hearth for mine, just before the cold got here! like said before the only thing with a woodburner is they can be dusty! i run my furnace fan to circulate the air so it isnt to bad as long as you stay on top of replacing the furnace filter!

[Sjorge450R]

my dad just got a woodstove installed at my house. I didnt think it was gonna do much and he swore to me that it was gonna heat most of teh house and let our diesel be saved for hot water.

Anyway, our house is about 2700 square feet and this wood stove heats the ENTIRE two store house and has our thermostats reaching 75 degrees. Granted we have been splitting wood for 3 months, and we acquired the log splitter nothing, i think my parents are making out in the deal.

[raptoric]

Originally posted by ZeroLogic
How much is a bag of pellets for you guys down there? Up here its around 4 to 5 bucks a bag which would last my dad and I about a week. The pellets do get scarse around late December but we just stock up.

a bag of pellets lasts you a week??
im lucky to get 1 day out of a bag and im heating 2400sq
the pellets do go fast but i stock up on a couple tons for the winter. paid$300 a ton