CALC: How Much Does It Cost to Stay Warm; Fuel Comparison

[MountainDon]

Dandy Excel spreadsheet available from the Dept of Energy. User can enter values for costs and efficiencies. Spreadsheet gives cost per million BTU's

Download it HERE

Main website is here

[NM_Shooter]

Nice.

A good benefit to that spreadsheet would have been the average installation costs of the different means of heating.  For instance, the geothermal shows the cheapest operating cost, but the installation costs are huge.

Looks like wood is a great alternative! 

[rocking23nf]

Electricity is far from .11 cents.  I have never seen it at 11 cents in my 8 years of homeownership, last month was 5.5 cents.

And natural gas furnaces are now high effiency.

[archimedes]

Wow 5.5 cents !  Where are you?

Mine is over 8 cents.

[MountainDon]

Here in NM we get the first 200.000kWh@ $ 0.0732540 then the next 500 kWh is $ 0.1008840. Over that it's $ 0.103838.  In June, July & August it's more.... $ 0.0732540,  $ 0.116918 and  $ 0.144494   That's for regular old fashioned dumb metering.

Taxes, fuel adjustment (upwards, never down) and "because I exist" fees are extra.

[rocking23nf]

Edmonton, Alberta

Electricity last month was around 5.5 cents, natural gas was around 4$/GJ.

This is not counting admin charges, delivery charges, etc etc.

[davidj]

Wow, no wonder I see so many people using electricity in their cabins.

Here in the Bay Area, below 100% of baseline it's almost $0.12/Kwh, + 7.5% tax, so basically $0.13.  "Baseline" is 240Kwh/month - that doesn't go far if you start using it for heat, hot water or cooking.

However, with the hot tub running I nudge over 200% of baseline in cold weather.  Right now the cost is $0.40/Kwh + tax for all power over that level.

[MountainDon]

I just looked up my old home town rates. manitoba Hydro charges 6.38 cents for the first 900 kWh and only 6.57 cents for everything over that. Large customers pay only 3.95 cents

Of course they are using large dam hydro electric power.

[ScottA]

Our power company offers a discount if you keep your usage less than 400kwh a month. You are allowed to go over one month out of the year. We haven't managed to get that low but for 2 months so far this year. Not that it really matters since our power is pretty cheap anyway. My electric bill that I paid today was $49. As for heating, I use wood which is almost free. I estimate it cost me less than $50 to cut a years supply of wood.

[DirtyLittleSecret]

Excellent find!