Home Improvement → Re: Electric Bill

I was thinking that with a large house, I would benefit from not heating the whole house all day. Is this not correct?

I've no experience with electric (baseboard) heat, but if you turn it off in a room (during the day, while you're gone 4-8 hours), how long does it take to make it comfortable ?

I'm not sure if turning the heat off entirely but leaving doors open would allow enough heat from the heated rooms that are on would help.

You have not mentioned what fuel sources are available. Natural Gas is one of the best fuels for space and water heating. Let us know what fuel sources you have available.

In the case of Natural Gas, some suppliers will offer financial incentives to convert. A friend of mine's father lived along a road where the gas company installed a new line to supply a central school, further down the road. They replaced the gun type oil burner in his relatively new hot air furnace, with a gun type gas burner and the electric water heater with a gas water heater at no cost to him. They also ran a black pipe gas line to the kitchen to allow my friends father to install a gas stove when their relatively new electric stove wore out. The gas company also gave them a rebate that partially offset the cost of replacing their electric dryer with a gas dryer.

It is very important to consider how long you will live in the home and amount of time to payback improvements that you make to reduce energy costs. Most energy auditors have forms to calculate the payback interval for any improvements you make at today's energy cost.

I do not have Natural Gas available in my area. Apparently, there were petitions and attempts to convert the neighborhood at one point (or even twice), but there weren't enough people willing to sign up for it.

I lived in an all electric house with well pump for 13 years. The heated area was only in the 1200 sq/ft range and 13 years ago I could get close to a $400 bill. I would suggest shutting doors to any rooms without water running through them or the attached walls and turning off the heat unless you are using the room. This can save a fair amount of money.

Your well pump should not run all the time when you are running water. If this is happening then you have a problem. Somewhere in your water system should be a pressure tank that will minimize how often the well pump cycles. These tanks go bad and lose pressure. Some have a sealed bladder and some of the older ones you fill up with air when they run low. Those will have a valve on them that looks like a tire fill valve. The tanks don't last very long and neither will your very expensive well pump if it is constantly working when you demand water. If you are taking a shower, you should only hear your pump kick in a few times during the shower.

That sucks because your bill is high because of the baseboard heating. I had it once....once. It was a rental (duplex) and about $400/month in the winter. (otherwise about $50 or so in spring/fall and $120 in the summer)

Insulation should be checked out as well.

You might consider converted to oil or propane if you can't get NG.

I'll certainly be checking into propane.

If you choose propane, buy the largest tank you can afford so you can use any local supplier otherwise you are married to the supplier that you are leasing your tank from.

Edit: If you own your tank you can purchase propane when prices are lowest in your area. If you know anyone in your area that uses propane ask them what they are paying per gallon. Propane prices can vary dramatically depending on your location.

Check out this website, members compare propane prices:

»www.checkpropaneprices.com/

Check out fuel oil with a local supplier, there is some special exemption when installing underground fuel tanks if the purpose is home heating.

The page linked below show the heat content of various heat sources. Locally, as I type this, electric resistance heat is less expensive than a propane 94% efficient furnace.

Local winter electric rate $0.09/Kwh all taxes, fees, unfees, surcharges, taxes on the surcharges, and taxes on the taxes on the unfees included.

$2.55 per gallon of propane delivered (100 gallon minimum - customer owned tank)

91300 btu/gal * 0.94 = 85822 usable btu/gal
1 Kwh of electricity = 3413 btu/hr
85822/3413 = 25.15 Kwh per gallon of propane

Soooo....

85,822 Btu runs $2.55 using propane or $2.26 using electric resistance (baseboard, strip heaters, etc)

From the sounds of your situation, I'm thinking a heatpump with propane backup.

Of course, since fuel prices and electric rates seem to vary quite drastically from region to region YMMV!

»www.engineeringtoolbox.c ··· 868.html

Damn. Propane is expensive there. Here it is $1.75 / gal delivered. That's the price last week. It's been dropping as the mild winter comes to a close.

As some have pointed out, depending on electrical vs propane rates, the savings might not be huge.

Here are a couple tips when it comes to electrical baseboards:

Make sure heaters are at least 3/4 of an inch off of the ground (that includes being 3/4 of an inch off of a carpet) and clean them and make sure they're free of dust. Any dust on them will ruin any efficiency.

For other tips, check this out.

»www.bchydro.com/etc/medi ··· ters.pdf

I'll add that while electrical baseboard might be 100% efficient in converting to heat, I'm not sure how efficient they'd be compared to forced air when actually used in practice of heating a room. I'd imagine that there is a lot of loss with electrical baseboards that lose heat to the wall itself, and then outside, vs forced air that moves air around in the house. Just how much "BTU's" you lose in any given house is anyones guess, you'd need an energy audit to figure that one out.