Let's talk heating

[bbird]

We have central forced air in our house. IF we run it all the time we are looking at almost $500 a month to keep the house at a 65 degree temp during the winter.

We put in a woodstove, and a baseboard heater in the hallway outside all the kids bedrooms. The baseboard runs off 110 and we can keep our electric bill down to an average of $235 during the winter. The problem with this because of the way our house is set up the living room where the wood stove is can stay warm but the bedrooms well...we can keep ice from forming on the windows but it's freezing.

When we were first married our house had a propane furnace. We have been talking about getting one for this house to see if it will keep us warmer and be cheaper. It's been so long though that I have not kept up on propane prices.

What would you do? Is propane a good choice or a risky choice with the gas prices going up? We can handle the cold, but it makes for a longgggg winter.

[thrillbilly]

three words

radiant floor heating


it doesnt have to be the tube and water type. they have it electric now. real easy to install.

[bbird]

Is that like Ceiling heat where you have the little wire all over your ceiling? We had that growing up.

The only problem we would have with something from the flooring is there is no outer foundation. We started out with a single wide mobile home, and redid all the floors, walls and then added on to more then doubling the size of the house. There is more "new" home then mobile home now if that makes sense. Anyways, we have siding down to the ground, but it's not concrete, because the house is on Pier and beam (hope that is the right words). We have a peaked roof over everything that was put on last summer so the mobile home has a double roof and the addition just has the one roof. We replaced windows and added new thermal windows. There really is no sense in why it takes so much heat to heat the place, so I guess it falls into it's just a bigger house now at 2016 sq ft, I believe.

I'll mention this to dh, and see if he has heard of it before. Right now we are open to anything. Thanks TB

[Deleted]

Wow, I'm going to stop complaining about our $100.00 electric bill now.

We don't have air here, just windows, so it's no more expensive in the summer than in winter for us. We have one propane "fireplace" thing (it looks like a little woodstove but it burns propane), but I only use that on mildly chilly days. In the winter we use the big woodstove. Even though that thing runs almost constantly, with a blower fan, it's no different than running the oscillating fan in the summer. We have a 500 gallon propane tank, but the only things that run on propane here are that one heater and the cooking stove, so we're still using the tank we filled in October of 2004. I think the price of propane here is right around $3.00 a gallon now, and it's going to hurt when we have to refill it. We still have about 3 or 4 winters' worth of wood stacked out by the barn that was here when we moved in. After that, we'll have to get a log truck to bring us another load, or maybe we'll just cut down some of the dead cottonwoods on the back of our property. Those ought to take us through a couple more winters at least.

~Lannie

[bbird]

You are lucky Lannie. I can get us down below $100 in the summer even with 2 a/c going but I dread winter. We are not on a budget plan so we plan for winter bills.

[bergere]

We had propane up in Kitsap county and it was not cheaper.
We had it for heat and the water tank.... it would cost us so much money it isn't funny.
We were looking at.. for a family of three being major misers
$250. on Average a month. When the price went up to $2.75 per gallon 6 months before we left it got down right painful. Hate to see what it is now.
We had one month were our son drained the water tank twice taking a shower.. that was a $500 day.
He could only have baths after that.

We moved down here, we are all Electric and it costs us on Average $60.00 a month for three seasons. Last winter it got up to $90.00 a month.
It is much, much cheaper to stay with electric in this area.

I would however like to build a real firplace here. Would be nice to have another source of heat and a place to cook food it if the power should go out.

[bbird]

Bergere, do you know what kind of electric heat you have? Does it hook up to 220 or 110? I think that is what is causing us problems because the furnace is 220. Do you have CRPUD electric? You are doing really well with your bill.

[bergere]

Ours is 220 also,, same electric company.
What kind of filters do you have on yours?

We also use those energy saver light bulbs in most of the fixtures. That has made the biggest difference.

[dlangland]

BBBird, My last 3 places have had propane or natural gas, not by choice, just because it was was what was there. If you do go that route, spend the bit extra to get what they call the high-efficiency furnace. That type has no pilot light, (Has electronic start) and vents out the side of your house with PVC pipe so you don't even need your chimney. If you ever reroof, you can take the chimney off. Kind of neat.

The thing I always have been told and believe is no furnace or supplemental heat source like wood is worth a bean if your house isn't adequately insulated. That might be something to think about. I consider myself the Queen of Caulk, seriously. I lost track of how many tubes I use each fall. There are a lot of small odd things a person can do each fall to winterize. It's odd that even in the summer running my air as often as I do, my electric bill stays about the same as it is in the winter with the furnace fan running. This is my 2nd hig-efficiency furnace. I have a now 4 yr. old high efficiency furnace AND lots of caulk. Sometimes you can stuff insulation into places yourself, like up in your attic. Other times you may have to hire someone, but it will usually pay for tself in a short time. I know I could save more mney, but I don't do anything special with my window covering like a lot of people do because I need to see the light or I go up a wall being indoors. :-/Deb