Posted on 12/06/2013 6:21:31 PM PST by Chickensoup
The television question was solved last week. Freepmail me if you want to know the solution.
New problem: I use over 3K oil and four cord wood to heat home and mil apt. The wood heats the main house. The oil heats a ground floor room, the mil and all the hot water.
I have been thinking of distributing the system. Getting a propane hot water heater for the house, and two propane wood like heaters, one for the ground floor and one for the mil. Also get one of those big space ship looking tanks. Because at that size I can negotiate the price of propane.
All told, about 9K worth of change. Is it worth it? Is it effective and efficient?
Has anyone done this? How has it worked? I have been trying to figure out payback, I know propane is less efficient than oil but it has the lower price point. Natural gas is never going to be an option here.
Your thoughts please?
New problem: I use over 3K oil and four cord wood to heat home and mil apt. The wood heats the main house. The oil heats a ground floor room, the mil and all the hot water.
I have been thinking of distributing the system. Getting a propane hot water heater for the house, and two propane wood like heaters, one for the ground floor and one for the mil. Also get one of those big space ship looking tanks. Because at that size I can negotiate the price of propane.
All told, about 9K worth of change. Is it worth it? Is it effective and efficient?
Has anyone done this? How has it worked? I have been trying to figure out payback, I know propane is less efficient than oil but it has the lower price point. Natural gas is never going to be an option here.
Your thoughts please?
I think a lot depends on how competitive your local propane market is. When I had propane here in Indiana, there were only a few dealers available and we were always paying a really big markup over commodity wholesale prices.
I went to a 1000 gal tank (from the previous 500) and filled in the summer when prices were lower. My current house with nat gas I heat for a fraction of what I used to pay for propane.
I like it!
Propane is about a dollar and a half less expensive now in bulk. Maybe a bit over that.
Unless God puts natural gas under my property now, I am never going to see natural gas lines in this neck of the woods.
Our system has four 200 foot wells under the driveway and pulls liquid into a heat exchanger that is 59 degrees. It's cheap to bump this to 70 in the winter months and even easier to pull chilled air for AC in the summer.
Some of the newer GSHP installs I've seen feature the wells in trenches vs. vertical. Find a heat/AC company that has experience. Our payback was about four years vs. traditional electric heat.
Current propane prices @ $2.50 / gallon.
Looks like a fun ride!
My daughter installed one about 3 years ago - heat for a 4 bedroom house and all hot water for a family of 9. The savings over oil have been tremendous.
I believe propane is more expensive than heating oil.
He later was associated with Roush in the earlier daze.
High octane equivalence, I believe.
1.98 this summer for a summer fill at 100+ gallons
I recall reading about these years ago. It sounds really interesting. If I were building new I would certainly look into it.
radiator heating? My father in law put it in the basement. One little radiator heated the whole darn basement..over 1000 sq ft.
I looked into this, I have one 400+ foot well. Way to expensive to retrofit. Certainly consider it if I was building new.
Have wood, pellets would not work where we are.
What is radiator heating?
If propane is $2.50/gallon, your cost is 29.43 MM/BTUs.
If oil is $2.50/gallon, your cost is $19.48 MM/BTUs.
I assume your oil is probably closer to $3.50 delivered. This would be $27.28 MM/BTUs.
I think I've got this right...
My former boss has a nice ground water heat pump system and his monthly bills (heat and ac here in Indiana) are quite low.
He has spent a lot of money on repairs to pumps and plumbing which offsets the monthly savings to a large degree. However he says he would still go that route on a new build.
My next door neighbor has a similar opinion on his gwhp, although the brightly logo’d repair truck is a frequent visitor to his driveway. If you look into these, I’d budget for a monthly maintenance fund over and above the utility cost.
I used to heat with propane, went to electric storage heat, the savings from propane paid for the system in under three years.
Quiet and clean, and cheap. Not as cheap as a heat pump, but much cheaper than propane.
These are insulated brick filled heaters that store heat at night when electric is cheap, and distribute it during the day. Your electric utility adds another meter that charges at the cheaper rate. Call them, they’ll give you all the info.
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