Cost to Heat a Home

[nico08]

Say you have a house that is 1,500 square feet, with the same size basement. Say you live in New Jersey, use gas for heat, have a medium efficiency furnace. Say the outside temperature is 35 degrees farenheit and you keep the inside of the house, basement and upstairs at 70 degrees farenheit. About how much would that cost for a 24 hour period? The house is not insulated great, just average. Just a good estimate is fine. Thanks.

 

[ERD50]

42

 

[nico08]

42

42 dollars a day? That would equal about $1,260 a month. That seems really high. How did you come up with that estimate?

 

[REWahoo]

How did you come up with that estimate?

Yeah ERD, how'd you come up with 42?

 

[samclem]

Assuming you mean the daily average temp is 35 deg, and if NG sells in NJ, for about $13/thousand cubic feet, then I'd guess it would cost between $250 and $350 per month, or between about $8 and $12 per day.

Some utilities provide info on the average bills of their customers. You'd have to guess at how much of the gas bill was for heat.

 

[Mulligan]

I sure hope ERD is joking about $42 a day, if you are planning to move there. I have a home that is right around 1500 sq. ft., no special insulation, and in the dead of winter which is below your 35 degree reference, it runs $150 a month, in MO. Natural gas heat helps, Im sure. This year has been a lot cheaper though. But I imagine everything is more expensive in NE.

 

[glippy]

42 sounds about right.

Hehe, I think ERD50 was trying to point out that there are so many other variables to consider that the ball park figure would essentially be about as useful as any old random number.

 

[jazz4cash]

Can't find any details on this data.............
http://www.neada.org/news/2008-09-15-heating_costs.pdf

Might try calling the local utility or heating oil companies.

 

[ERD50]

42 sounds about right.

Hehe, I think ERD50 was trying to point out that there are so many other variables to consider that the ball park figure would essentially be about as useful as any old random number.

Yes, but not just any old random number. Forty two is THE answer. To everything. Google says so (look up 42 in wikipedia for more fun facts):


(It was either "42", or "The trains meet half-way"?)

-ERD50

 

[easysurfer]

I never was good at math problems. But I do know that a good way to save on heating bills is to not use the central heat if you don't have to. That is, you space heating (safely, of course) to only heat rooms that you are using. The same goes cooling and spot lighting.

 

[LauAnn]

I have a ten-year old home that's 1500 square feet. It's in Pennsylvania. I keep the thermostat at 66 degrees during the periods that I'm there and awake, and at 58 degrees other times. My natural gas bill for December 2011 (a relatively mild month for this winter) was $63.98 for 55 (thousand?) units. That comes out to
$2.05 per day and 1.77 units per day.

 

[Alan]

42

Douglas Adams would be proud of you.

 

[Nords]

42 dollars a day? That would equal about $1,260 a month. That seems really high. How did you come up with that estimate?

Here's how:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number)

42 (forty-two) is the natural number immediately following 41 and directly preceding 43. The number has received considerable attention in popular culture as a result of its central appearance in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything"

In my house this would produce blank stares from both my college daughter and my spouse. But on a submarine the entire crew would be quoting paragraphs from the books...

 

[frank]

I live in ne iowa and have a 1500 sq ft house .well insulated, with decent windows and my heat for whole year, which is gas ,so also includes hot water and clothes dryer averaged about 2.80 per day.

 

[farmerEd]

I am shocked at how little it costs you folks to heat. We live in a 2600sf house in the colder part of New England, house is built in 1962 (and I have little by little been re-insulating where possible.)

Until I converted to wood it took 2000 gallons of heating oil per heating season, which is roughly Nov 1st thru April 1st, so roughly 5 months. So on average that was 400 gallons per month, and at $3.60/gallon that would come out to almost $1500 a month at todays prices.

I did fortunately convert to 100% wood about 4 years ago, and my wood comes from my own wood lot saving me about $7000 a year in heating bills.

Someday I'll move to a warmer climate, at least for the winter, but that's at least 10 years off when the last of the kids is out of the house and away at college.

 

[frank]

I heated with wood when I first built this house, I was in the logging business, so got the wood for nothing. when I quit logging went to natural gas. firewood around here costs 800 dollars a semi load, so it doesn't make sense for me to burn wood. but when my heating costs get as high as yours I would surely go back.

 

[My Dream]

Can't really help since we heat a 2400 sq ft two storey (not including basement sq. footage) and converted to a high efficiency furnace. Home is constantly at 70 degrees and we live near Toronto Ontario Canada and lately it's averaged 30 degrees day and night. Cost is $65.00 per month including taxes for natural gas and our hot water tank and fireplace is ng. .

 

[REattempt]

1500 square feet, built 1932, basement. Little to no insulation. Same latitude as NJ in the US, comparable weather.

$74 in 2011 and $110 per month in 2010. House kept at 68. Was gone for a week in December this year which drove the usage down.

If we add back for the usage and for the warmer temps, and averaged the gas prices, $104 per month in December.

That is $3.35 per day. If I insulated, I could probably reduce that to $2.70 (20% reduction).

Here is the breakdown on the difference between the years:

 

[tryan]

$4639 for 2011.

2500 sqft house built in 1800's north of Boston . That includes $500 for firewood for the wood stove.

 

[Andre1969]

I live in Maryland, just east of DC, and my house is about 1500 square feet. No basement though. It's an old house, built in 1916, and added onto somewhat haphazzardly, and very poorly insulated. I used to have an oil furnace, and averaged around 450 gallons of oil per year. Heating costs would vary widely, as it was dependent on how much oil went for. First year I was in the house, in late 2003, I only paid $1.19 per gallon. By the summer of '08, prices had spiked to $5.62 per gallon, and I reacted by having an all-electric heat pump put in.

And then, wouldn't you know it...oil prices plummeted, while electric rates went up! In 2007, my average electricity cost was 11.3 cents per KWH, but that went to 15.6 in '08 and 16.4 in '09.

In '10 it came down though, to 14.9 cents per KWH, and then in '11, I averaged 14.2.

I've read the electric meter from time to time, and around this time of year, over a 24 hour period, have used as much as 200 KWH in a single day (those bitter days when it's windy, cloudy, highs in the teens, lows below zero, you get the idea), and as little as 40-50 (those occasional days when it gets into the upper 50's/early 60's, and doesn't get below freezing at night).

The mid-Dec thru mid-Jan cycle is usually my most expensive bill. In 2009 it was $514 (average daily use 95.4 KWH). In 2010 it was $582! (108.9 KWH daily average). And in 2011 it was $527 (108.3 KWH daily average).

This year has been, thankfully, unseasonably mild. I've been keeping track, and so far have only been averaging around 70 KWH per day. If this trend keeps up (next meter read is on January 18th), I think the bill this time will only be around $350 or so.

 

[happy2bretired]

I live in Nebraska not New Jersey but I do have a house similar in size (1432 sq ft with basement) and the weather might be similar. I paid $793 last year for natural gas - $66 per month over 12 months. I did tend to keep the temperature a little low last year, 68 degrees or so.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Can't you just ask whoever is paying the heating bills now for the answer?

 

[Bikerdude]

Say you have a house that is 1,500 square feet, with the same size basement. Say you live in New Jersey, use gas for heat, have a medium efficiency furnace. Say the outside temperature is 35 degrees farenheit and you keep the inside of the house, basement and upstairs at 70 degrees farenheit. About how much would that cost for a 24 hour period? The house is not insulated great, just average. Just a good estimate is fine. Thanks.

Why would you want to heat the basement Is it finished living space? With the basement you will be heating 3000sq ft. Are the concrete walls insulated? Lots of variables here.

 

[FUEGO]

Here's a data point for you: I'm a little to the south of you but on the east coast. Last december the avg temp was 36 F. The bill worked out to about $6 a day (at natural gas around $1 per 100 cubic feet from the local nat gas utility). 1800 sf house, 40 years old, with decent insulation in attic and crawl space - no idea about the walls (whatever was standard 40 years ago!). Our windows are vintage 1972 so not the most thermally efficient. No basement, but there is a crawlspace so that might be a wash vs your situation. My furnace is 92% efficient IIRC but 7 years old. We keep daytime temps around 70 when we are there and nighttime it rolls back to 63-65. Direct sun exposure all day (no trees). FWIW.

 

[Free To Canoe]

Natural Gas usage for the year is about $700. House is about 2000 sqft with no basement.
I live in northern PA.