Cost to Heat Your House

[Walt34]

I'm assuming these zones are plant climate zones? If so we're in zone 7. We have a forced-air natural gas furnace, one rarely used gas fireplace, gas clothes dryer, gas water heater and gas stove so there really isn't any way to separate them out except seasonally. The gas bill in August was 28.36, the last bill was $138.82 for Oct. 31 - Dec. 5. I expect the next one to be ~$200, and maybe peak at $250 for February if we get very cold weather. House is 1700 SF. Oh, and we set the thermostat at 78° F. If DW is out I'll run it up to 79 or 80 and yes I'm wearing long pants and a flannel shirt. Did I mention I hate cold weather?

A guy at work used to tease that NASA used the IR signature of my house as a navigational beacon.

This is why having natural gas available was a big factor in buying the house and why I immediately sprung for the extra insulation package when it was built.

 

[rodi]

We ran the heat last night - but today we have the windows wide open since it's 79 outside. But a cold snap is coming for Christmas....

 

[Marita40]

Guess I'm not getting the "zone" thing either. Planting wise, I'm zone 4 in Minnesota. 100 year old home, typically turn on the gas heat (radiators) mid to late October and it can run through April, even May. In the coldest months (Dec, Jan, Feb) it is about $150-200/month to heat the house.

 

[sengsational]

Zone 8, natural gas. $0.17/sf for heating only for the season.

The gas bill in the summer is $16 or so (that's got to be for water heating and clothes drier), so I subtracted off $16*12. There's a $10/mo service charge, so I suppose I could add that back during the heating months, taking it up to $0.19/sf.

We spend much more on cooling than heating here.

 

[John Galt III]

Electric heat pump in Pa. Costs about $20 in Oct. $60 in Nov. $90 in Dec. $100 in Jan. $100 in Feb.

 

[CRLLS]

Our climate zone is #5. Our house is 2190 sq ft, Our last 12 months' gas bill was $605. That includes gas water heater, gas cooking and gas dryer. we keep the living areas at 74 degrees and the sleeping area at 68. We get so much passive solar heat in the Winter that we have to open windows to cool down the house in the afternoon. On the few days when I run the electric heater to work in the garage, I plan on an extra $10/day for electricity.

 

[laurence]

San Diego checking in here - what is heating?

 

[Breedlove]

Our retirement home is a 1000sq Ft Metal building with 2 1/2 " closed cell foam insulation . This house is all electric with a tankless water heater . The only mistake I made was a guy talked me into a big PTAC heat pump . It is real noisey and for heat not efficient. . I am looking at a solar mini split . But currently we pay the rural electric company minimum year around 65.00 monthly . This home is in Richards Texas .
The nice thing we built this house ourselves . It is like a bunker.

 

[Siestatime]

Northern New Jersey here. Zone 6B. Spent $553 in 2016 for natural gas for heat, hot water, cooking and dryer. 2,200 sq. ft. home with 100,000 BTU/hr. (34 gallon tank) condensing water heater and radiant floor heating. I can't believe a 34 gallon tank heats my whole house and we never run out of hot water either.

Comes to $.25/sq.ft./yr, but if I back out $13/month every month for hot water and dryer (summertime bill), I pay $397/year for heat, or $.18/sq.ft./yr.

 

[Golden sunsets]

Zone 6a-northern New England. Cost per sq foot for a 2900 sf home is about .58 cents at today's lower oil prices-base board hot water and water tank.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Fishingmn]

2300 sq foot house in Twin Cities. Gas bill this year was $812 which includes water heater, 2 fireplaces (which DW runs a lot) and stove top. We have old house with 3 zone water heat system which is pretty efficient. Keep house at 68 at all times in winter.

 

[Montecfo]

Zone 6B-northern VA
2 zoned gas furnaces
just use gas for heating house and hot water
$818 for heating season
$.24/sf annually for heating

 

[Philliefan33]

This provided me with a nice math exercise this morning!

2500 sq. ft. house just north of Philadelphia. We use natural gas for heat, hot water, and cooking. We use about $8/month worth of gas in non-heating months so I backed that out of the total for heating. Last year the gas bill for heating was $480 over seven months. That works out to $0.19 per square foot annually.

We keep the house at 68-70 during the day when we are home. It sets back to 65 at night. I also turn down the heat when we are away at the other house.

 

[LOL!]

Thanks to this thread it opened my eyes at how little we pay to heat our house, so I'm turning the heat up for the rest of the winter.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

House built in 1978 that has terrible insulation in the Atlanta (zone 7b) area. It was also designed and built with very large (and not double pane) windows to "bring the outside in" which means it lets in the cold! Anyway...our "treehouse in the 'burbs" is about 2400sf and after adjusting for "non heating periods" (also have gas water heater), I have figured that it costs us about $250 or 10.2 cents sqft/year. I also noticed that it's up about $50 a year since I retired, since I home most of the time. Thermostat is set at 62 at night and 68-70 during the day.

 

[Tom52]

We have one supplier for both natural gas and electric utilities. So I can't easily determine what portion of utility bill is strictly for heating. We have approx. 1477 sq ft ranch with a full basement that is also heated and cooled, so in that case it would be 2954 total square feet. The 12 monthly bills for 2016 totaled exactly $1720.23 so that would equal $0.582 per square foot for heating and cooling per year. Forced air heat kept at a reasonable 72 degrees during winter and A/C kept at 78 degrees during warm weather.


We have a gas clothes dryer and range but an electric 50 gallon hot water heater which really sucks the juice. We also have an attached garage with a natural gas heater that I use occasionally in cold weather. We live in Iowa where it get pretty cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer.

 

[Breedlove]

Get rid of that 50 gallon electric hot water Heater . you have the 220power there obviously and the water lines . Buy a tankless water heater . For the two of us and 1 bathroom and washer we bought a tankless on Ebay for around 500.00 . Installed it myself. ...Pex Pipe is your friend !

 

[sengsational]

Thanks to this thread it opened my eyes at how little we pay to heat our house, so I'm turning the heat up for the rest of the winter.

Me too! I went over and gave myself 2 more degrees.

 

[Zathras]

Zone 4, about 6375 heating degree days based on 65 degree base temp.

100% of our heating is electric (geothermal pumps).
We also make use of passive solar for heat.

Our annual heating bill is estimated at $209, which would convert to about
9 cents/sf.

In reality, since October 1st our heating bill has been about $40.
Since we have had about a quarter of the heating degree days of the year, we are on track to come in about 20% less, or 7 cents/sf.

The geothermal is MUCH more efficient than the forced air, but the infloor heat can be slow, so is augmented by an Air Handler.

Water heating this year so far has been about $12.

Thanks for the question, I'm a data geek and it was a fun exercise

 

[lem1955]

I've been working to reduce our LP gas and electricity bills. We live in northern VT zone 4b. We heat and light about 3767 sq ft in our home. We use LP gas boiler with water baseboard heat, Mitsubishi Mr. Slim heat pump, Jotul wood stove and passive solar for heat depending on outside temperature. Electricity is ~ 80% supplied by our 4.2 kW All Earth Renewable Solar Tracker. The Solar Tracker was installed in 2010, upgraded in 2015. Heat Pump was also installed in late 2015. In late 2016 we replaced an old 50 gallon LP gas hot water heater with a new 40 gallon unit, an old water pump with a new one, and our aging washer and LP gas dryer with new Energy Saver units. In the past 6 years we have reduced combined cost of LP gas and Electricity from $5,845 to $3,124 or $1.55/sq ft to $.83/sq ft. I expect the trend will continue as the new appliances are now online. Of course, there was a significant new investment in infrastructure but that should pay for itself over the course of the next 10 years and will be priced into the value of the house when we sell it.

 

[jazz4cash]

I am not sure climate zone is the most useful descriptor as it only tells you what the annual low is, not how many heating degree days you have. You can get heating degree days here: Heating & Cooling Degree Days - Free Worldwide Data Calculation#


We have a gas furnace but mostly use gas for heating water. The bulk of our heat is from wood. I scrounge it on craigslist for free, so the cost is chiefly my time and labor (plus it helps greatly to own a pickup).

+1 on using degree-days over growing zones for tracking HVAC energy consumption. Another source is www.weatherdatadepot.com.

We're in zone 7 and our cost is .24/sq ft for heating with nat gas. It's actually a lot less than I thought so I'm glad this thread caused me to look. I track the usage diligently but don't pay much attention to the cost.

 

[brewer12345]

Note that most of the costs we are reporting here are unsustainably low. Natural gas prices that are feeding through to both gas heating bills and the cost of electricity are based on prices that we should not expect to be paying in the future. In order to incent enough new production, prices will have to be higher in the future than the last 12 months. By all means, turn up the thermostat if you like, but expect prices to be higher in the future.

 

[LOL!]

I've been working to reduce our LP gas and electricity bills. [...] In the past 6 years we have reduced combined cost of LP gas and Electricity from $5,845 to $3,124 or $1.55/sq ft to $.83/sq ft.

Thanks for the analysis. Our 3100+ sq ft home has used about $2200/yr in electricity and gas for many years now with early 1990's technology for everything. We don't have LED lighting and only a few fluorescent bulbs since the incandescent ones don't seem to burn out. I cannot imagine spending extra money to upgrade anything, but when something breaks beyond repair I guess we will have to buy something to replace it.

I can see what the gas dryer, gas water heaters use in gas because that would be one of the minimum monthly bills.

I can see what the lights, oven, stove, fridge use in electricity because that would be one of the minimum monthly bills.

Anything above the minimums will be for heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer.

Every once in a while someone will say something like "I saved $40 a month by having better appliances." I say, "Our bills are not even $40 a month now, so even if we got rid of the appliances, we would not save $40 a month."

To brewer's point, our bills have so-called "fuel charges", so yes prices of fuel are passed on to customers.

 

[jazz4cash]

I can see what the gas dryer, gas water heaters use in gas because that would be one of the minimum monthly bills.

I can see what the lights, oven, stove, fridge use in electricity because that would be one of the minimum monthly bills.

Anything above the minimums will be for heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer.

This the method I use also. Based on this assumption, 70% of gas bill is heating and 35% of electric is cooling.

 

[Hermit]

Heat degree days where I live are around 10,000. That is why I am putting 1.5 inches of spray foam in the walls backed by blown in fiberglass. I will heat mostly with wood with the furnace there to blow the air around.