Oil Heat

[WA1GFZ]

Well has the time come to get rid of it. The burner was having some problems last night so went down and turned on the other tank because it sounded like it was missing. This fixed the problem. Heck I just changed the filters back in Nov.
Just bought some oil maybe it was sludge.
Then I started looking at things. I'm set up to burn .85 GPH of oil and with power to run the burner that comes out to about $3.25 an hour to operate. It makes about 60,000 BTU and about 20% heats the air outside. 60.000 BTU is about
20 KW/H times .12 or $2.40 an hour of ready KW (if I was buying electricity). 
Then New QTH has about 11KW of heating elements and it heats the house very well. Also the hot water heater runs 3400 watts I think. Electric is 100% efficient. This comes out to a total of  about 42,000BTU  14 KW/h only costs about $1.70

This place is a bit bigger and not as well insulated but Electric sure sounds like a better deal. yea I could spend 3 or 4 grand to buy a better furnace but I could install electric heat for about $500 and still save money. 48,000 BTU would be about $2.00 an hour.

 

[W1VD]

Frank

Assume you get your power from CL&P like I do...

Unfortunately .12/kWh is just the generation service rate. Then there is the transmission charge, distribution charge, combined public benefit charge, CTA charge and FMCC delivery charge... all of which are a certain dollar amount times the number of kWh used. Since almost every item on the bill is tied to the number of kWh used one should really take the total bill divided by the number of kWh used to determine the actual cost. My bill, that arrived today, shows .18 per kWh to be the bottom line per kWh...delivered.








   

[WA1GFZ]

Good point Jay. XYL showed me all the extra charges but I didn't look at the bottom of the bill to see the total rack up. So my $2/hr goes to maybe $3. Still it is cheaper than oil.
not much motivation to stick with oil.

[W4EWH]

Good point Jay. XYL showed me all the extra charges but I didn't look at the bottom of the bill to see the total rack up. So my $2/hr goes to maybe $3. Still it is cheaper than oil.
not much motivation to stick with oil.

OM, I suggest you get an energy audit done: I've never heard of electricity being cheaper than oil, even when the electricity is sold at a discount for heating, as some utilities do.

FWIW.

73, Bill W1AC

[WA1GFZ]

Bill,
The price of oil is pushing $4 a gallon so there is reason to look at other energy sources. I started with how many BTUs does this opec monster make and how much does it cost to run. My monster is pushing 50 years old with a newer beckit burner. At some point I will have to replace it. I figure it coast over 3.25 an hour to run it producing 48 KBTU.
It takes about 16 KW to make that much heat and the efficiency is 100%. Smart water heaters monitor your usage and shut themselves off  when not used. Electric heat is very easy to regulate room by room.
I think we have crossed the threshold for oil. I can switch the house to electric for about $500 but a good opec monster will cost a few thousand.
Show me where I'm wrong. BTW the new QTH is electric and I don't need 16 KW to operate heat and hot water.   

[N8LGU]

    Dave-in-the Cave switched to Woodoline.
I bought this old house in '95 and installed a new natural gas furnace. My gas bill averaged $30/mo. As the years went on, the price of natural gas went up. In 2005
they hiked it up almost 100%! I went to the local farm store and bought a large boxwood wood stove and installed it. Wood here is cheap (sometimes free). I have never been so WARM. On the down side it's rather labour intensive and dirty. I am an old ham and don't mind. The best part is I told the gas company to take their meter
and...

[WBear2GCR]

The electric will jump up to match the oil, just slower, higher mass system...

I'm definitely going with wood out here.
It is insane to pay $1,000 to fill a 275gal oil tank.
Completely insane.

If I could get a small nuclear thermopile, I would.

My plan is to plumb in hot water circulated heat off a central wood burn, and use a big tank for thermal capacitance... screw this oil crap.

It's friggin out of control.
Way way way out of control.

These bastard politicians and their handlers all saw the writing on the wall back at the first "fuel crisis..." should have not done what they did. The chickens have come home to roost. Grrrr....

           _-_-bear

[Bill, KD0HG]

Looking at all the angles, is propane or natural gas available there, Frank?
Around here, piped natural gas is the cheapest heat bargain, especially if one has a 90+% efficient boiler. Propane is second cheapest, followed by electric. But our electric rates are only 9 to 10 cents / KWH. They went up some 17% last year, too.

We also burn a lot of wood here to supplement the propane and passive solar. Used hardwood shipping pallets are free, my mental therapy is to rip them up with the chain saw.

[W1QWT]

Since I have an all electric house this interests me.
My electric bill for January was $462 and I used 3008 KWH.
In September when I am neither heating or airconditioning my bill was $135 and I used 920 KHW.
My house is not small it has 4 bedroom (five if you count the ham shack), 2 full baths , 2 living rooms, dinning room etc.

I am curious what people who have oil or gas heat paid  for heating in January.
i.e. If I had oil than I would add that to the $135 base cost for electricity and then I wonder if that would be above the $462?
Conversley if I subtracted $135 from $462 then I am only paying $327 for heat in January.
Caveat: In September there may be a small amount of heat involved in that $135 as I don't remember if at the end of the month I might have turned on the heat a few time at night.

Regards
Q, W1QWT
 

[W4EWH]

Show me where I'm wrong.

I don't like to think in terms of "Wrong" or "Right": let's talk about efficiency instead: it's something that you get to define for your house and your outlook.

• It may be more efficient for you to spend your time earning money to pay an energy auditor and heating engineer than it is to do this yourself.
• It might be more efficient to analyze the changes in lifestyle and habits that you're considering in order to make electric heat more efficient than oil for your situation:
  
  
  • Different heat levels room-to-room: will your spouse/kids/guests object?
  • Can you get used to using a cold bathroom in the morning?
  • Expense for installation and maintenance of "spot" water heaters.
  • Loss of your home's use during construction.
  
  
• The most efficient short-term process is the one that yields the most efficient long-term result:
  
  
  • If your furnace is 50 years old, it's not comparable to modern units. It's important to compare apples to apples.
  • Electricity costs are subject to OPEC too: what about solar or wind or geothermal? As long as you're tied to the grid, well, you're tied to the grid.
  
  

The point I'm trying to make is that you're talking about changing your (and your family's) habits more than about changing your heating plant. I just spent a weekend at a Bed & Breakfast that was built with no connection to the electric pole: the utility wanted $12k to put up the poles, and solar cost $12k, so the owner had an easy decision to make. However, seeing his family during day-to-day life with a teenager in the house was a great eye-opener, because they had gotten used to doing things I hadn't thought of:

• Need for constant energy awareness - not a great American habit, at least in my family's case.
• Different appliances and modes of use:
  
  
  • Turning off the (satellite) modem when not being used
  • Laptops instead of desktops, charged at work instead of home.
  • TV's that take a long time to turn on rather than a constant-current drain to keep them in standby.
  • Ultra-efficient washer and dryer
  • Wider temperature variations during the day.
  
  
• Most importantly, a willingness to adapt their behavior constantly: everything from planning laundry according to the forecast to putting on and taking off sweaters several times a day to insisting the child do his homework while it was still daylight.

My point is that it's the "spillover" effects that you need to think of, not just the immediate cost of electricity today or the expense of super-insulating your home, but you are the only person who can assess the worth of those lifestyle changes. In the immortal words of Jackson Browne: "I'm not trying to tell you that I've seen the plan - turn and walk away if you think I am".

FWIW. My 2¢.

73, Bill W1AC

[k4kyv]

Something I find annoying, particularly at retail businesses and schools, is the tendency to over-compensate with heating and cooling.  Round here, in the middle of summer when it's 95º outside, public buildings are typically cooled to about 65º, and you need a  sweater to stay comfortable.  But in winter, those same buildings are heated to a nauseating temperature of about 85º.

I can recall when I used to teach school, regularly cracking open the rear door in the classroom in the dead of winter to cool the room to a comfortable temperature.  Most rooms didn't even have individual thermostats, and in those that did, the thermostats were  locked inside a metal cage because they apparently thought the lowly teacher in charge of the classroom was too stupid to operate a thermostat.

I remember well when we were going through all this in 1974 - gas lines, energy awareness, house insulation, gas sippers vs guzzlers, wood heat, ceiling fans, etc.  Why is it happening all over again, as if nothing had occurred the first time?

We used to heat here with oil, but the $750 ventilated oil heater purchased in the early 80's, crapped out because the manufacturer had conveniently discontinued a $5 part that wasn't to be had anywhere, new or used, at any price.  Plus the only company that still did home delivery of heating oil became harder and harder to deal with because they no longer wanted to bother with small residential accounts.

We changed to propane.  At the time, the cost per gallon was about the same as oil, just under $1/gallon. I immediately noticed that a gallon of propane generates fewer BTU's than a gallon of kerosene.  Now propane is over $3/gallon and I understand oil is close to $4.  For the first time I ever recall, heating with electricity is about as economical as using oil or  gas.  But guess what, they have already announced that sometime within the next month or so, electric rates are suppose to rise double digits.

We have plenty of timber on the place so firewood would not be a problem, but it's a hell of a lot of work to brave the poison ivy, ticks and creeping old-buzzardism to cut wood, haul it to the house, then split and stack it.  Even the thought of it gives me a dreadful feeling.

Everything is rising in price - food, gas, heating fuel, electricity, medical care, university tuition.  Maybe it was a false alarm in 1974, but it is looking more like the real McCoy this time - not unlike the predicament I hear old timers describe enduring in the midst of the Great Depression.

[W4EWH]

I remember well when we were going through all this in 1974 - gas lines, energy awareness, house insulation, gas sippers vs guzzlers, wood heat, ceiling fans, etc.  Why is it happening all over again, as if nothing had occurred the first time?

[snip]

We have plenty of timber on the place so firewood would not be a problem, but it's a hell of a lot of work to brave the poison ivy, ticks and creeping old-buzzardism to cut wood, haul it to the house, then split and stack it.  Even the thought of it gives me a dreadful feeling.

Don,

I think you've answered your own question: what happened the first time is that people found out how cold a woodpile can be when there's snow on it, and how much the splinters hurt, and what a pain it is to start a cold stove on a cold morning.

Not to mention what it's like having to break the ice out of the toilet bowl ...

73, Bill, who used to live in New Hampshire in a house heated by Kerosene when we could afford it and wood when we couldn't.

[WA1GFZ]

My uncle Joe got me into solar back in the middle 60s so the first thing I did with this place was go passive solar. On a sunny day we are quite warm. Insulation R25 in the walls R60 over head. Not much to be gained there. Windows double pain Andersen. I'm there. Yup we turn the heat down but next year it will be lower. I burn around 700 to 800 gallons a year heating 1500 square foot ranch
and making hot water for 4 of us.
Yea, maybe I could save what 100 gallons if I replaced the monster. I've burned wood and coal. It costs too much around here unless you spend 1/2 the summer groping around for free wood. It would be easier to get a part time job and make a few extra bucks. 
So Q that comes out to around $3K for oil. $300 to heat the place in January with electric doesn't sound bad.
New QTH I'm glad a blew an extra building season doing R35 in the walls and R67 overheat. And Yes 6 nice big windows facing South.
BTW it is cool to be on the DOE mailing list for new suggestions for building....They are adding new ideas all the time.
Now let's start a political thread on Carter's effort to get us to wake up.
 

[W1RKW]

Just wait until the enviro nazi's catch up with you wood burners. Enjoy it while you can...

[WA1GFZ]

I used to burn 5 cord a year...then I opened my eyes and figured I could collect money at a gas station second shift and have more free time. Then I did two ton of coal a year. Coal is great except for the dust but I hear the price has taken off for that also. I hear wood pellets work great but a good system costs about $3500.
Bob, You have a newer place, how much oil do you use?
When i bought this place in '77 the monthly payment was $308 now it will cost that for just heat....and another $300 to support the town clowns.

[Tom WA3KLR]

All-electric house here with heat pump, 2550 square foot leaky split-level.

"January" bill : Jan. 7 - Feb 4; 28 days, average temperature 33 F,
83 KWH per day, 2314 KWH, $221.45.

I run 67 degrees in the day, I dress warm (long-johns, jeans, undershirt, long-sleeve shirt and sweater), 64 at night.  I was home all day every day during this bill period.

[Opcom]

With the high price of diesel, (and oil in general), the guys over on steelsoldiers.com are both talking about, and doing, the burning of anything from used transmission fluid and engine oil to waste vegetable oil in their big military trucks. 4-8MPG truck is costly to operate. Except for WVO, which takes some processing, they filter the used stuff and throw it in the tank with the diesel fuel.. One guy did a cross country trip entirely on waste vegetable oil. Exhaust smells like french fries.

Has anyone ben doing this kind of thing with an oil furnace for home heating? Seems like it would be a natural for burning the waste oils.

[N3DRB The Derb]

Why is it happening all over again, as if nothing had occurred the first time?
/quote]

we had prohibition, which gave birth to organized crime, made Joe Kennedy the Elder his fortune, and it was a miserable failure. We had the sense to stop it. Enforcing other people's ideas of morality thru the force of government has never worked.  Yet we've had a War on Drugs for 45 years, and it has been an even worse failure.

The US has never learned anything from it's history.

[WA1GFZ]

I think it would be smart to start taking all the sugar out of products we eat and start turning it into fuel. Someone just flew a plane across the pond on biofuel.

[W4EWH]

I burn around 700 to 800 gallons a year heating 1500 square foot ranch and making hot water for 4 of us.

If you're heating hot water with an oil-fired furnace, I assume you're using a "tankless" heater. Try disconnecting the "aquastat" so that low water temp does not turn on the boiler, and in it's place put a 10~15 minute timer that family members must push before using hot water.

I did, and it saved several hundred dollars a year, back around 1982.

If you don't have tankless, never mind.

73, Bill

[WA1GFZ]

I would be interested to know what other guys use for gallons per year of oil vs area heated. I try to keep it at 67 but sometimes on the weekend I bump it to 68 or 69. I like it cool when I sleep so 64 is a good number but don't always turn it down. I should invest in a set back so it is automatic. When I bought my place in '77 it had no insulation and the house was smaller about 1000 square feet. It had no insulation in the walls and 4 inches overhead.
The aluminum window frames were like heat sinks hanging off the house.
I burned 1000 to 1200 gallons per year back then and that was with cold drafts all the time. So reducing to 700 to 800 gallons whith the house 50% bigger made me feel good.

[Roy K8VWX]

  I could not be more pleased with my heating bill.For March I used 3957 KWH and my total billing was $ 237.82 . That divides out to 06 cents per Kwh.(This includes all hidden charges). I have geothermal heat at my house and have one 5,250 BTU plus one 14,335 BTU (220 volt) electric heaters in my ham shack which is a 30x40 foot building. I have two hot water tanks (one at each end of my ranch type house) two refrigerators, one food frezer, dishwasher, washing machine and drier plus two submersible H2O pumps. The house was insulated for geothermal and the only bug in the whole thing is the initial cost of the system, I’m not sure but I think the cost now would be between $ 18,000 and $20,000.That is a lot for a heating system but at the rising energy cost it is looking better and better.

[W1VD]

Fuel comparison, BTU/$, based on prices in CT. Some sources disagree on the BTU/unit -  but not by much. Unit prices may vary with buy ahead programs, etc. Efficiency not taken into account. This is raw BTU/$. Thrown together quickly...advise if there are glaring errors...

http://www.w1vd.com/Fuel%20comparison.pdf   

[K3ZS]

I live in central PA, not as cold as NY or New England, but cold enough.   I have been using a heat pump with our original oil/hot air heat as a backup.   I originally got the heat pump for cooling being only a slightly more than central air.    I was surprised to find that our heating costs (more than 12 years ago) were much less.   Now on my second heat pump made for a northern climate and more efficient, it is even better.    We leave the thermostat up all the time in the 70 degree range, because if you turn it down, then turn it up, the oil heat turns on.    This is the second winter with the new system and I have used just over a 1/4 tank of oil over the past two winters.   Our house was insulated "for electric heat" when we built it in the 70's, and with some other improvements, it is energy efficient.   Our electric bill is always under $200, which includes everything else including hot water heating.  If the heat pump craps out after 10 years it will have cost me $300 dollars a year to own.   I have a 10 year labor and materials warranty.    I know several people with geothermal heat pumps.    That is the way to go if you can get over the initial cost.    Around here, they are as efficient as a regular heat pump as if the air temperature was 50 degrees year around, because that is what the ground temperature is here.   

[K3ZS]

I should mention that our heat pump does not shut down if the outside temperature gets below some set temperature as some units are.   If the indoor setting drops 1 degree below the thermostat setting, the oil heat kicks in.   This happens rarely, the heat pump still keeps the house warm even down into the single digit temperatures, although it runs continuously.    This may be not efficient, but it is still cheaper than running oil heat.