Anything different heating this winter?

[Sunset]

Okay, just received an offer from my thermostat company. If I sign up to allow the local utility to adjust my thermostat this heating season, ...

Does anyone have any experience with this type of offer? How'd it work out? Should I pass or go for it?

I think that I wouldn't mind it much of the time, but it wouldn't be so great if DW was cold or if we had company and I had to explain that the utility was turning down our heat.

So they will basically turn off your heat at the coldest times, like when you need it most.
I'd want to know the minimum temp, as pipes by exterior walls could freeze.

If you have guests over, just tell them you are saving money by doing this, and put a small empty basket by the door
Maybe you are allowed to over-ride it a number of times and still qualify

 

[Graybeard]

I'm shocked at how fast and how far fuel oil has dropped especially over the past 2 weeks! I filled my tank in late September or Early October at what was then the lowest price in 6 months and I checked and wrote the price down every day. I thought I was lucky to have ordered oil at $3.93, well today it is $3.62!There is no way I could have held out until now as I was very close to being out and never in a million years would have expected oil to be below what I paid especially in early December! The thing is, how much more will it drop? I won't need 100 gallons, the minimum delivery amount, for at least 5 -6 months as I heat with a woodstove.

 

[street]

I'm shocked at how fast and how far fuel oil has dropped especially over the past 2 weeks! I filled my tank in late September or Early October at what was then the lowest price in 6 months and I checked and wrote the price down every day. I thought I was lucky to have ordered oil at $3.93, well today it is $3.62!There is no way I could have held out until now as I was very close to being out and never in a million years would have expected oil to be below what I paid especially in early December! The thing is, how much more will it drop? I won't need 100 gallons, the minimum delivery amount, for at least 5 -6 months as I heat with a woodstove.

I buy a lot of gas and drive whatever the price is. Today I paid $3.09 so it has dropped a lot this years. Sounds like 100$ a barrel might be back by mid-summer though.

 

[njhowie]

Our home uses oil for heat. In the spring, with our last fill, it was about $6.50/gallon, which is significantly higher than we've ever paid. When I read the total charge, I nearly fell over. Totally unexpected to be so high. Today, I'm guessing it's still between $6.25 and $6.50/gallon. From past experience, whatever diesel is at the pump, our oil company charges about 50 cents above that.

Normally, I try to hold out turning the heat on until November 1. This year was very easy to make it that far as we had extremely mild weather in October. Even now, daytime temperatures are mid-40s to mid-50s. However, I've decided to do more this year and not turn it on. We're using a couple of small electric space heaters in whichever room we're hanging out in, and the bedroom at night. I'm willing to trade a higher electric bill for not paying (so much) for oil. We still need the oil for hot water, but that is a minimal amount. I have the safety on the Nest thermostat by the bedrooms set at 40, which is the lowest it goes. The small space heater has been excellent in the bedroom with the door closed at night. At the other end of the house, the safety on the Nest is set to 45 - the fridge begins to freak out at that temperature or lower. Thus far, the safety did kick in below 45 a couple nights for about 25 minutes. So not bad at all.

If the electric bill comes in $100 to $150/month higher, maybe even $200 higher for the next few months, I'll be happy.

So after a month or so, we have some numbers and can do some evaluation.

We finally received the oil delivery yesterday (normally comes end of October or beginning of November). The tanks were just below 3/4 before the delivery, which came in at 107 gallons. That's about what I expected - if the delivery was at end of October or beginning of November as usual, it would be about 60 gallons to fill.

Now, the biggest surprise was that the price was $4.69/gallon. Locally, diesel is still about $5.00-$5.25/gallon at the pump, so I was expecting something between $5.50 and $5.75. Delivery guy said the price had come way down recently.

The electric bill also just posted, and it came in at about $50 higher than usual. This was also really good in my view. As mentioned, I would have been happy even if it were $100-$200 more.

So we're convinced that spot heating just in the rooms where we hang out is a really good approach as opposed to having the zone heating with the oil. We'll continue using just the small portable electric heater in our bedroom overnight as it keeps it toasty with the door closed. The Nest at the other end of the house still has the safety set at 45 and comes on for less than 30 minutes each night.

With the savings, we just bought a better wall-mounted electric heater for the bigger family room, as it takes the small portable heater a long time to bring the temperature up. The new heater has wifi and Google Home integration which is great, as we already have the oil heat and AC on it.

We'll see how the rest of the season goes, and at what point we feel the need to use the oil heat.

 

[skyking1]

I looked at the power bills and we spent ~1500 on the year, with all electric. I am not going to sweat using the electric furnace this winter to get comfortable.

 

[MC Rider]

We moved 3 weeks ago and it is about 10 degrees cooler than the old place. Just got the propane filled up yesterday, over $400. We are tearing through it fast, so time to figure out that pellet stove.

 

[Koolau]

I'm shocked at how fast and how far fuel oil has dropped especially over the past 2 weeks! I filled my tank in late September or Early October at what was then the lowest price in 6 months and I checked and wrote the price down every day. I thought I was lucky to have ordered oil at $3.93, well today it is $3.62!There is no way I could have held out until now as I was very close to being out and never in a million years would have expected oil to be below what I paid especially in early December! The thing is, how much more will it drop? I won't need 100 gallons, the minimum delivery amount, for at least 5 -6 months as I heat with a woodstove.

I think my dad paid between 9 and 11 cents/gallon for the business ca 1954-'58. How times (and prices) have changed. Of course, that was a 2000 gallon tank, so a fill up was still a chunk of change in those days. YMMV

 

[Koolau]

I buy a lot of gas and drive whatever the price is. Today I paid $3.09 so it has dropped a lot this years. Sounds like 100$ a barrel might be back by mid-summer though.

I was glad that Costco dropped from $4.60 to $4.40 last fill up. Every one else in town is $5.15 to $5.50. Our fuel prices almost always move slowly - both up and down but YMMV.

 

[misanman]

What's the minimum temperature they guarantee not to set your thermostat below?

Many of the details, including the temperature parameters, aren't disclosed in the offer. I suppose that if I begin the process of signing up that there would be a contract that would contain the details. I may do that but I've about decided not to bother. The $200 wouldn't be worth having an unhappy spouse. Our thermostat settings on the main floor are 71 during the day and 68 at night.

 

[skyking1]

I picked up a new dehumidifier for our guest bath. I hang a lot of laundry up in there and this new one looks promising.
A typical dryer load costs $0.57 and dumps that heat outdoors, and wears out the clothes. This dehumidifier will use $0.96 in 24 hours, and will never run like that.
All the energy stays in the house, and I re-use the water too.

 

[Koolau]

I picked up a new dehumidifier for our guest bath. I hang a lot of laundry up in there and this new one looks promising.
A typical dryer load costs $0.57 and dumps that heat outdoors, and wears out the clothes. This dehumidifier will use $0.96 in 24 hours, and will never run like that.
All the energy stays in the house, and I re-use the water too.

I do like your idea - especially since the waste dryer heat is essentially thrown away. My parents dried clothes this way back in the day. We had steam heat and the extra moisture in the air from clothes was good for the skin and made it "feel" warmer as higher humidity air will not absorb moisture from your skin as quickly (thus the reason folks have humidifiers for their heating systems sometimes.) By the way, evaporating the water requires energy too.

BUT do keep in mind that drying the clothes with ambient (heated air) does cool the air - to dry the clothes so it's not "free." Your mix of fuels (if any) may determine how much you save. A BTU balance would be instructive, but difficult to obtain so YMMV.

 

[NW-Bound]

I do like your idea - especially since the waste dryer heat is essentially thrown away. My parents dried clothes this way back in the day. We had steam heat and the extra moisture in the air from clothes was good for the skin and made it "feel" warmer as higher humidity air will not absorb moisture from your skin as quickly (thus the reason folks have humidifiers for their heating systems sometimes.) By the way, evaporating the water requires energy too.

BUT do keep in mind that drying the clothes with ambient (heated air) does cool the air - to dry the clothes so it's not "free." Your mix of fuels (if any) may determine how much you save. A BTU balance would be instructive, but difficult to obtain so YMMV.

The above made me think.

When the water evaporates from the clothes hung inside to dry, it absorbs the heat from the interior air. When the water vapor is condensed by the dehumidifier, it releases that heat back to the evaporator coil of the machine. This heat is then carried by the refrigerant to the condenser coil, and released back in the air.

So, no gain/loss of heat due to drying clothes. The dehumidifier takes energy to run, and this energy also ends up as heat inside the house. It is therefore not wasted.

 

[skyking1]

Yes, the conservation of energy applies. It's a 3.5 amp compressor and every bit of its product stays within your walls.
Of course it only works where you have excess humidity and are doing heating too. It works on the west side of Washington state. Just fine. On the east side? Not so much. The air is way too dry to begin with. I try to keep the house at right about 50%.

 

[Andre1969]

I almost did something dumb. Today, I checked the gauge on the oil tank in the basement, and panicked a bit, because it's down to about 60 gallons! I could've sworn I just filled it up back in the spring. I looked up my spreadsheet, and saw an entry for 5/15/2022. 155 gallons, $575.06 total. And a note that said "$3.559/gal market price + various fees".

But, that just didn't seem right. I have dual zone, heating/cooling. The upstairs unit is all electric/heat pump. The downstairs is heat pump with an oil backup. It's a 275 gallon tank, and probably wouldn't have even started relying on oil until well into October. And going through ~215 gallons in two months, when we're not even into the coldest part of the season just didn't seem right to me.

It almost seemed to me, like it hadn't been filled up. So I started looking through my credit card records, and could find no payment to the oil company around that time.

Then, I looked at the spreadsheet a bit more closely. Something about that note just didn't seem right. I use the different tabs on this spreadsheet to track my electric bill, and the oil bill, but also have some old tabs from the old house, and even a tab for the electric bill at my old condo. Well, I look at the tab for the oil bill at the old house, and sure enough, on 3/11/2008, I bought 155 gallons of oil. The bill was $575.06. And there was a note that said "$3.559/gal market price + various fees".

When I made the spreadsheet for the new place, I just copied it from the old one, deleted most of the fields, and entered new data as I bought oil. So I'm guessing that on May 15, 2022, I was going to order some oil, and even entered that date, but then when I looked at the gauge and saw I still had a decent amount of oil, I figured I'd hold off. The oil company gives me a bit of a discount if I order 200 gallons or more, so I try to let it get to that point.

And, that would make sense. Considering gasoline was flirting with $5/gal around that time, in these parts, I'm sure home heating oil was more like $6 or more. So I probably figured at the time that I'd hold off and see if prices came down.

But, I just forgot to clear out those other fields at the time, in the spreadsheet. Is this really what getting old is going to feel like? Forgetting stupid stuff like this?!

 

[NW-Bound]

... Is this really what getting old is going to feel like? Forgetting stupid stuff like this?!

Nah. If you can work the spreadsheet and find your error, you are still OK.

Getting old is like this: my mother who lives alone keeps fiddling with the thermostat, and messes up the setting without knowing what the dial reading means.

My brother who lives nearby kept getting calls from her about the AC/heat pump not working. He had to drive over to set the thermostat where it should be. He ended up taping it up.

 

[NW-Bound]

This winter, I set the thermostats higher than I did in previous years. Getting old, I guess.

With the mini-splits mounted high due to the vaulted ceiling, when I set their temperature to 77F (25C), the temperature at ground level is 71F (22C) out in the living space, and 74F (24C) in my bedroom. I still wear t-shirt and shorts, and sleep without a cover.

The outdoor low is not too bad at 36F (2C) or higher. My electric bill is going to be $75.

I need to go up to the high-country boondocks home to check it. Low of single digits. High above freezing. My wife is afraid of the cold even for a short stay, so I don't know if I will go alone. Need to check the road condition.

 

[thod]

I did something like this over the summer with the electric company this year in Texas.
It was different because they would send me an email 24 hours prior indicating that if I could reduce my usage during a 4-6 hour window the following day I would get some credits on my bill.

All the meters are connected as a mesh network in our area and the companies know your usage down to just a few minutes. They know your history when compared to temperatures. So, they can use that data to determine if you really did reduce your usage or not and by how much.

The good thing is I can choose to ignore it on a given day if it would be inconvenient. I also think they vary the homes involved each time.

 

[Time2]

Okay, just received an offer from my thermostat company. If I sign up to allow the local utility to adjust my thermostat this heating season, I will get $100 to start and then an additional $100 at season end (after March 31). They promise to adjust is at most 15 times (seems like a lot) and for at most 4 hours (also seems like a lot). I can cancel any time online or even via the thermostat. Apparently the thermostat would be adjusted if they were having an issue with low natural gas pressure presumably because demand is high. There is no information on how much of an adjustment they'd make.

Does anyone have any experience with this type of offer? How'd it work out? Should I pass or go for it?

I think that I wouldn't mind it much of the time, but it wouldn't be so great if DW was cold or if we had company and I had to explain that the utility was turning down our heat.

This isn't something I would consider unless I was extremely poor. If I was a retired millionaire or had a big pension I wouldn't even think about something like this. Not even close to worth it unless you are in financial need for something like this IMO.

Such an easy go around, with an electric space heater. Could even be cost effective if you wanted to only keep a small room to keep warm.

$200 minus cost of gas that would have been used to heat whole house vs electric used to heat smaller area.

 

[Andre1969]

I just called the oil company to schedule a delivery. And they verified with me, that the last time I ordered oil was 11/18/2021...which coincides with my spreadsheet, minus that erroneous 5/5/22 entry, of course!

The price he quoted me was $4.49/gal. That's a far cry from the $3.29 I paid back on 11/18/21. But, at least I missed that window of $6+ per gallon!

Anyway, 11/18...I should have remembered that date. Among the classic Mopar crowd, that's known as "DeSoto Death Day"

 

[finnski1]

This winter, I set the thermostats higher than I did in previous years. Getting old, I guess.

With the mini-splits mounted high due to the vaulted ceiling, when I set their temperature to 77F (25C), the temperature at ground level is 71F (22C) out in the living space, and 74F (24C) in my bedroom. I still wear t-shirt and shorts, and sleep without a cover.

The outdoor low is not too bad at 36F (2C) or higher. My electric bill is going to be $75.

I need to go up to the high-country boondocks home to check it. Low of single digits. High above freezing. My wife is afraid of the cold even for a short stay, so I don't know if I will go alone. Need to check the road condition.

Wow. 74 in the bedroom. I'd be roasting.

It's 14 deg out here right now and I keep the house at 64 deg. Plenty comfortable. I do also have a wood stove centrally located that can heat the whole house that I'll run a few hours per day just for a little extra ambience and a place to stand near if we need an extra boost.

 

[Music Lover]

Some of you really like to keep the house temp low!! After spending 60 years living in a winter climate I've come to despise the cold and refuse to wear a sweater indoors. 21C (70F) is our winter daytime temp, about 16C (61F) at night.

 

[isisdave]

But, I just forgot to clear out those other fields at the time, in the spreadsheet. Is this really what getting old is going to feel like? Forgetting stupid stuff like this?!

'Fraid so. I was looking at information regarding inherited IRAs the other day, and found online a great paragraph about them that was brief and succinct. I copied it so I could put it in my "In Case I Drop Dead" document, but discovered I had placed an almost identical paragraph there only in October.

Oh, and I recently bought an extended warranty for my F-250 as it's approaching 3 years old, only to discover that I apparently bought an almost identical one when I bought the truck a year ago.

Well, at least I'm consistent.

 

[Koolau]

The above made me think.

When the water evaporates from the clothes hung inside to dry, it absorbs the heat from the interior air. When the water vapor is condensed by the dehumidifier, it releases that heat back to the evaporator coil of the machine. This heat is then carried by the refrigerant to the condenser coil, and released back in the air.

So, no gain/loss of heat due to drying clothes. The dehumidifier takes energy to run, and this energy also ends up as heat inside the house. It is therefore not wasted.

Not "wasted" in the traditional meaning of the word (IOW the heat balance is in a closed system.) But energy use (while reduced by this method) is still significant.

I wonder if anyone has ever looked into producing a dryer that works on this principle - a heat-pump dryer. Instead of exhausting the moist air from the dryer, why not condense the water from waste air using the cold side of a heat pump. Essentially, one would be recycling the same heat in a loop. I'm guessing the efficiency would be terrible and such a system wouldn't make sense except in the winter. Oh, well, there goes another patent idea down the drain.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

This winter, I set the thermostats higher than I did in previous years. Getting old, I guess.

With the mini-splits mounted high due to the vaulted ceiling, when I set their temperature to 77F (25C), the temperature at ground level is 71F (22C) out in the living space, and 74F (24C) in my bedroom. I still wear t-shirt and shorts, and sleep without a cover.

The outdoor low is not too bad at 36F (2C) or higher. My electric bill is going to be $75.

I need to go up to the high-country boondocks home to check it. Low of single digits. High above freezing. My wife is afraid of the cold even for a short stay, so I don't know if I will go alone. Need to check the road condition.

It was 53F inside the house when I woke up this morning. I wore 3 sweatshirts over a t-shirt. No heat used.

 

[skyking1]

I have reynaud's syndrome, so keeping a cool house is just not an option for me. Once my digits get cold they don't warm back up and it's very uncomfortable.
I tend to leave things alone at about 70°.