After dealing with a near $1000 dollar bill over a 3 month period to heat my home I am sick of natural gas. All I ever hear is how it is the cheapest most efficient way to heat my home, but as soon as it gets a little cold outside the prices start to soar, and continue to climb!
What makes matters even worse is I completely gutted my home and really insulated it well over the summer. What boggles my mind is that my bill was higher than last year’s when I had literally NO insulation in my walls or floors.
I really want to switch to an electric heat, but I keep getting told that it would be even more expensive (which I find hard to believe because my highest electric bill was $40). I have also thought about a wood burning stove, and even oil, but after speaking to my sister-in-law, who uses oil, I learned that oil prices really skyrocketed this year as well.
Any ideas on what would be the best/cheapest way to heat my house? I can’t afford another $1000 next year.
Between oil, gas, and electric, oil is the cheapest. Electric is usually the most expensive but it can vary somewhat depending on what area of the country you live in, but it’s generally accepted as being the most expensive. You might want to read the Heating and Air Conditioning forum at That Home Site. Or you can find tons of info on this subject on the Web; I did when I looked into it for when I bought my house.
The electricity you use for lighting your lights is far, far less than what you would need to heat an entire house.
Wood, if you cut your own or own forested land, has the opportunity to be really cheap but work-intensive (not only cutting and stacking/storing the wood, but bringing it to the furnace and starting the fire), plus tempurature is a bit hard to control. Wood fireplaces in strategic rooms of the house can also suppliment a gas or oil furnace.
With oil, if you have a big enough tank, you can buy a year’s supply in the summer, when prices are low.
Electricity’s only advantage is the portability factor. Once I bought a small electric space heater, kept it pointed at where I was sitting, and didn’t bother to heat the rest of the apartment unless other people came over, so I didn’t have to pay to heat the whole apartment. Of course, in a house, this method won’t keep your pipes from freezing.
RE your bill: Is the amount of gas you’re using not noticibly lower with the better insulation? If it is, then console yourself with how high your gas bill would be if you were using as much gas as last year.
Where are you located?
Here in Tennessee, electric heating/cooling is the way to go.
Of course, the TVA Hydro plants help with that.
A good first step would be adding insulation, & replacing your windows (no, not the one in yer friggin’ computer). Reducing heat loss is half the battle in the war to beat your bills.
If you insulated the floors I assume you have a basement.
Insulate the area between the floor and the top of concrete wall.Where the plate sits.use fiberglass batting.
A good summer project might be insulating the basement walls. When I was working insulating houses we did several. All were 1X2 furring strips and 3/4 inch styrofoam. The homeowners then completed the job.Some used drywall some paneling.
But seriously living anywhere in the south is a great way to reduce such costs. As long as you can do without air conditioning in the summer. As long as you live somewhere temerate you’re going to need to burn something to keep warm and its gonna cost you.
We use LP too, and had the same problem as the OP - huge bills three months out of the year. How does the pre-pay thing with your gas company work? All our company offers us is a 12-month payment plan - you pay a set amount every month based on what you paid in total the year before. If you use less, they either refund you or you advance the money for the next year. If you use more, then you get one bill that’s higher in order to make up for it. I don’t see this as much of a deal, frankly, because it clearly takes into account the high prices you paid over the previous year. And I don’t need a bill for gas I used in the winter in August, when my electric bill is going to be fairly high due to heavy a/c usage.
Is there any way to get a decent estimate of how much it would cost to use electricity instead of gas? In our previous house, it was all electric and we never had such high bills, but the house was somewhat smaller and in a neighboring state as well.
One thing you might want to consider is radiant flooring - it’s a thin mat material that you put under your current flooring that’s electric. This is particularly nice if you live in a cold climate - you could use it as an adjunct to your gas heat. You could just use it in the room you are in at the time. You’d be amazed at how much more comfortable a room with radiant flooring is - you could probably turn the thermostat down and still feel nice and toasty. The company you buy from could probably tell how much it would cost to operate.
Friends of ours had this and it was heavenly - reminded me very much of an apartment I had at one time that had steam heat where the pipes ran under the floor. Very efficient and very comfortable heat. I’d do it in my own house, but I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to peel the dogs off the floor in the winter when it was time to go outside :).
Electric heat pumps can be in line cost wise w/ gas and oil, electric resistance heat is the expensive type. Heat pumps don’t work beolw freezing outside temps though, so you need another system for those temps.
Gas vs. oil is pretty much a tossup and most likel;y not worth it to switch.
Your best bet to save some bucks would be to get some kerosene portable heaters and/ or nautral gas room heaters and heat only the rooms you need during the winter, closing off the other rooms in your house.
One thing i think is important to remember wtih heating is DON"T leave the heat on when you’re not home…and unless it’s REALLY cold dont’ use the heat at night…most people sleep too warm which is actually not good for your quality of sleep.
I remember how shocked i was when i found out that most people tend to leave the heating on all day and night, even when they’re not home shudder
oh…and if there’s just one person in the house…and you’re just sitting watching tv or in front of teh puter…why not consider sitting wrapped up on a blanket or somethin (what i’m doign right now…although it’s not even winter here yet lol)
