How Much Do You Pay to Keep Warm?

[MountainDon]

I was just looking over the latest gas bill and wondered about the costs to keep warm throughout our membership.

We use gas for space heating, water heating and cooking. There's also one 4 x 10 foot solar air heat collector panel on the roof. It has a small electric fan and blows warm air whenever the sun shines, helping out during the daytime hours only. It's thermostat cuts it off when/if the air temp in the house hits 73 degrees. I have no idea how much we actually gain in reduced fuel use, but it must be something.

Anyhow the gas company figures indicate the average NM customer of theirs used 105 Therms last month.

We used 88 Therms for $105 with all taxes, fees, etc. added. 1600 sq ft house, kept warm (71) during daytime; at least one of us home most days. Overnight (10 PM to 7:30 AM) the thermostat sets it back to 64 degrees. This is with a 95% efficient furnace.

This is 5400 ft elevation high desert mesa New Mexico.

[ScottA]

I haven't tracked it all that close but we've averaged about $200 a month this winter for propane. Propane has gone up so much over the last few years that I'm switching over to 100% wood as soon as I move in my cabin. Propane has gone from $.89 a gallon in 2000 to $2.89 now. Wood is free, just costs time and sore muscles.

[MountainDon]

My use for the month means nothing without something to compare to. Heating and cooling are measured in degree days. Knowing the degree days gives you the ability to compare.

Here's a link to the Climate Prediction Center Degree Day Statistics, a part of NOAA. There's an explanation of degree Days as well as Growing Degree Days available there. As well they have weekly and monthly tables and charts from right now and back several years. They list larger cities (only 6 in the entire state of NM), so a little approximation may have to be done.

For last month my location showed 960 heating degree days. (last year it was 1017 for the same month)
Homer, AK   1339
Phoenix AZ   313
Atlanta GA   704
Boston MA   972
San Francisco CA   511
Duluth MN 1702
Tulsa OK   817
Portland OR   801
Seattle WA   806
Madison WI   1467

The following is the main page of that website (for the extremely curious)...  http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/documentlibrary/hcs/hcs.html

And   http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter3/index.html   has other temperature related info

[Redoverfarm]

Never really tried to sit down and figure as I have several heat options going. I have a heat pump for temps 40F and above, gas furnace (95% eff) and a wood stove for temps less than 40F.  Last year my propane furnace used 115 gallons from October to May. The electric cost for the heat pump seems constant with summer prices of  the airconditioner.  In additon to the aforementioned I usually use approximately 2 (3/4) ton truck loads of wood in the stove. Depending on the price of propane the cost varies. For the replacement of the 115 gallons in August was $256. I would imagine the cost will be more after filling this year.  As long as the temps stay slightly at 40 to above I believe the heat pump is the most efficent of primary heat without the wood supplement. 

[tc-vt]

NE Vermont
Approx. 4800-5000 heating degree days
1-1/2 story, 600sf footprint, 1200sf total
Closed cell foam insulation approx r17 - r19 walls, r27 - r30 in the roof
Slab foundation, insulated to r10 (2 inch blueboard)

Wood heat, primarily, which is run from 6pm to 10pm.  The house is anywhere from 49 to 57 degrees when I return home from work but it is comfortable within 2 hours of starting the wood stove.
Supplemental heat on occasion with a no-vent 28,000 btu propane heater.

During the last two winters I used a little over a cord of wood each season.  

Approx. 225 gallons of propane were used through the each year.  This includes hot water, cook stove, gas lights, gas refrigerator and the no-vent heater.

Tom

[Ernest T. Bass]

$0, heating with nothing but our rocket stove. We use it to heat our water, too, so that saves us about $100/month in electricity.

[cholland]

I paid $170 last month for propane (heating only).  800 sq. feet.  We had a good cold spell along with everyone else.
Thats at 2000 ft in California.  I can't wait for a wood stove in my new house.
I have sold two cords of wood that I'm not able to burn to help offset my propane bill.

[glenn kangiser]

$0, except chainsaw and wood splitter gas -so maybe $6.00 per month.  We heat with our 1920 Round Oak Wood Stove.

We had the long cold spell also, so will probably burn about 2 cord of wood this year to heat the underground complex.  We normally heat only the apartment section of about 500 Square feet.

[Willy]

I burn wood only for heat and average 3 to 3 1/2 cords a year and I get my wood for 100.00-130.00 a cord delivered. Long cold winters here still have around 2 ft of snow on the ground but the driveway is now clear but frozen hard. Heating season is around 6 Plus months. Mark

[glenn kangiser]

I could get by on much less if I finished sealing some areas.  Wood is cheap and I need to clean the property for less fire danger.   Maybe I'll seal the cracks next year -- this winter is near done anyway. 

[Willy]

I could get by on much less if I finished sealing some areas.  Wood is cheap and I need to clean the property for less fire danger.   Maybe I'll seal the cracks next year -- this winter is near done anyway. 

We all need some fresh air during the winter. I know we have windows opened up a little even with the wood stove going. Mark

[glenn kangiser]

My point exactly, Mark...thanks for reminding me. 

[Sassy]

$0, heating with nothing but our rocket stove. We use it to heat our water, too, so that saves us about $100/month in electricity.

Sounds like the rocket stove is working good...  how often do you have to feed it?   Do you have your water pipes in the bench part?  I'll have to look at your website again...  ours was too much work for what we were getting out of it...  but ours was just the barebones...

[Ernest T. Bass]

We have to stoke it pretty regularly; every half hour or so to keep it burning hot. We're only burning small aspen for the most part, though. Being that it's open and in a higher traffic area, it's easy to stick some wood in as you're walking by, so it's not a big deal. Even with the higher rate of feeding, we're still burning less than we did in our temporary 800sf mobile with a conventional air-tight stove. We let the fire burn out at about 10:00 pm, and usually only lose a couple degrees by morning. The bench is always warm. It takes about 48 hours for it to fully cool of, and that's with no cushions.

We have a 40 ft. coil of 3/8'' copper under a secondary "lid" on top of the main barrel. It heats the water quite fast when the stove is hot, but we have the top of the thermal-siphon loop going right into the top of our water heater, so the hot water tends to stay at the top and overheat easily. It would be better to weld an inlet in the side of the tank, about 16'' from the top. That way the incoming hot water would mingle with the water in the tank and heat everything more evenly. The advantage to our existing system is that we didn't have to maim our functioning hot water heater in any way.

[Sassy]

Sounds great - can you post your link again to the cordwood house?  That's such a cool house... now, you're going to build another?

[Ernest T. Bass]

http://home-n-stead.com/about/blog_files/category-3.html

Shakes still aren't finished... Those should help with the heating a bit one they're on. We're too chicken to go up there in these blizzards with -45 degree wind chills . We've also had some log shrinkage that will have to be patched up this summer. 

We do plan on experimenting more with the cob/cordwood down the road, but this spring we will be building a vertical log camp using the same Aspen trees. It's actually a pretty terrible wood, but it grows like weeds around here. You could probably build a house the size of ours from the same acre of trees every 20 years. If that's not sustainable...

[Sassy]

Thanks, Ernest!  Enjoyed browsing through again - looks very nice    So your floors are made with clay, sand, straw & water?  Then you oiled them with hemp oil?  You mentioned your floors were soft - so  are ours - except for the one on the front porch where the conversation pit is...  the surface chips off - then I have to try to plaster it but so far haven't found a good mix that holds real well or looks great - although, it just gives it a more rustic look.  I have to repair patches about every month...  we've used linseed oil or concrete cure & seal - don't even know where I'd buy the hemp oil.  That would be ordered out of Canada?  ...since it's still illegal here - pretty stupid...  Anyway, you have a beautiful home!  The rocket stove looks like it's working really well.  We wouldn't be using the rocket stove much in our great room unless we had a lot of people over - we're planning on taking ours out & putting a Franklin stove in...  the cabin is in 3 self-contained parts right now - so you only need to heat up one area at a time if you're not planning on being in the other. 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Yeah, the rocket stove would be kind of a pain if it were off on a wing of the house, and you had to make frequent trips to feed it.. It's definitely better off in a more central, higher traffic location.

Yes, the hemp oil came from Canada. We got a 50 gallon drum and used it on the whole house. Very expensive stuff... Personally, I would have used linseed oil, but my mom was set on the hemp.

We actually used dried, shredded horse manure in the floor mix for finer fibers than straw. There were some other additives to the mix as well, but I'm not the one to ask about that. The floor is a bit too soft... It's surface is similar to leather, I guess. It dents pretty easily, but the imperfections blend in pretty well. Our biggest problem was an unstable subsurface, which lead to a lot of "shifty" cracks. We had a compacted dirt/gravel mix under the floor, but we should have had another layer or two of a "dirtier" mix, with less gravel. Live and learn.