Posted on 01/13/2024 8:20:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
We have electric heat and air plus propane in case the power goes out.
Currently dropping below 20F here in central Texas.
Im ready for summer!
I have a geothermal water furnace. December, January and February I see bill around $200. $150/month give or take the rest of the year. The unit seems to be able cool more efficiently than heat cost wise.
The house is 2,500 sq/ft. Touchstone Energy efficient. It keeps up with heating, unless it is below zero for an extended period. I have a wood burner to supplement.
I had to live in England for a year at the end of my service. Wife and baby boy and I had to travel 50% TDY. We had a house off base and it was a 50s-60s model with all electric heat baseboards.
It did have a small coal/wood stove in the main hallway that mainly heated water in a tank in the attic that fed the electric water heater and a small wall radiator. My wife didn’t use the stove because it was difficult to start burning and handling the coal, etc. so the only room she heated was the baby’s room with electric heat. When I was home we still only heated the baby’s room but I ran the boiler all the time. I’ll never go electric.
Indeed. That ole electric meter spinning like a helicopter
Eric Clapton, is that you?
That is true. We have NG in town, but at our farm the house is on propane.
In Texas winters are short and it is not the issue that it is up North.
With propane at my farm house it is a one time charge to fill my tank, no monthly fees for connection. All that is on LP there is the floor furnace and optional LP heat on central heat and air system. The central heat and air system there has electronic ignition, no pilot. (Does not work when electrical power is out.) But the floor furnace has a pilot light, but it is turned off most of the year. We have electric water heater at the farm, it is REA supplier, pretty cheap rates.
In town NG is a lot cheaper than LP heating. But there is a monthly fee whether you use anything or not. I have a NG water heater in town. The furnace on the AC system and the water heater are all the appliances that I have on NG in town.
The cost per therm for natural gas they show is 3.5X higher than what I pay.
Milder my butt. It is -6F this am here in Missouri. We are not used to winter weather so cold.
“..Same here. I save a lot with a variable speed heat pump,...”
Yep...they’re pretty efficient and can produce about three times the heat for the same amount of energy that the strips would use within their efficiency range.
For colder weather, we use a propane boiler, low-speed pumps, circulate water thru PEX up under the floor joists (properly installed, insulated, etc.) to create a radiant heat floosr, and we do this in 3 different zones throughout the house.
It can be 20 below outside, the house (6” exterior walls with R23 and R30+ in the ceilings) will stay at a nice 72 degrees with minimum use of fuel. That boiler could easily be changed out to utilize a wood pellet boiler should FJB really go off in total insanity.
We moved to Maryland about 14 years ago. Homes here can be either electric, oil or gas. One of the few non-negotiables when I was looking for a house was natural gas heat.
Not available. Leftists threaten to end supply here.
Here there is heat pump over to k-1
The Forecast high for Kansas City today is -2 F
YeeHaw
Regards
alfa6 ;>[
In the old days mainframes used to heat office buildings locally.
Wood however heats wonderfully and is great for the environment.
Propane here as well. I do have an electric heater out in the shop/office area, but the main house id propane. Generator is propane as well.
I have the same line of thinking. My solar and battery storage provides 83% of the electricity I need through the year in my all-electric home, including charging the EV (16K miles per year, not counting the 10K miles we charged it last year away from home). I'm happy with having to buy only 17% of the energy we need for the home. Going further is running head long into the law of diminishing returns and wouldn't be worth it fiscally.
But in the back of my mind I'm always thinking the "what if" scenario of the Dims making it painful to buy even that 17% of my power from the grid. What if they make it too costly? What if they set up a mark-of-the-beast style social credit score?
So I already have in mind what it'd take to be 100% energy independent.
There are too many variables to provide a definitive answer
To ask the question is ignorant and irrelevant
Eric Clapton, is that you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, it’s JJ.
Maybe where you are. Try 7300’ in New Mexico.
Don’t forget to claim the energy efficiency home improvement tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act.
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