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NFR: Propane Usage/Prices

2K views 38 replies 17 participants last post by  smc 
#1 ·
I'm thinking of moving house but there's one thing holding me back from signing on the dotted line. This new house only has propane for water and heating. Its 3000+ sq ft and has a 500 gallon tank. I called a local propane company and they said I would most likely go thru a tank a month in the winter (Oct - March) and two during the summer which would be about $500 a month on a payment plan...thats $300 more (not to mention an electric bill on top of that for lights, appliances, etc) than I pay now in a slightly smaller house with electric everything .

Does anyone here heat with strictly propane? If so, do these figure sound right? Its a nice house but the $300+ more in utilities may put it out of my price range.

Thanks.
 
#2 ·
Big E,
I have friends who built a home about 5 years ago, and thought that heating with propane would be: Efficient, economical and clean. They spend about $850 a month from Oct-April to heat their VERY well insulated house.

THey are actually looking into putting in an electric system...as it will be much cheaper to operate. Your fears are founded, and finally propane prices are not stable these days!

I would look into if the home might be capable of utilizing a different primary heating source...if yes, go for it!

Griswald
Vashon Is.
 
#4 ·
Most modern electric furnaces & boilers are 100% efficient, however the cost of electricity when measured in btu's has been running about 30% more than the cost of propane, per btu. The best a modern propane boiler can do is 94%-98% efficiency.

I just switched from an 80% efficient oil boiler (oil is even less expensive per btu than propane) to a 94% efficient modulating propane boiler. The boiler supplies hot water and also the radient floor heating. I supplement heat with a wood stove, mostly for the cozy factor... and for the exercise. My house is very well insulated, about 2500 sq ft. Because of the efficiency of the propane boiler and the (historically) lower cost of propane compared to No 2 diesel my heating cost has gone down by *about* 25% with propane, compared to oil - equates to a savings of about $100 per month in the winter. An electric boiler would cost me much more to run.

That's just my experience. It's always good to run the numbers though, understand the cost of btu's and how your system will use them.

Here's some comparative costs per btu: http://www.npga.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=914

Good Luck!
 
#5 ·
Even when we heat the indoor workout pool in the basement (seriously, we do have one!) our electric bill's only a couple hundred a month in winter. Chelan and Douglas have the cheapest electric power in the nation I'm told, and nobody has gas for anything here. That expense would be a deal-breaker for me!!
 
#15 ·
Douglas has the lowest rates in the country. Chelan is rather expensive at three cents a kilo-watt hour. That is 33% higher than Douglas!!

The Chelan County PUD is "owned by the people they serve". If they don't serve you good luck.

I have propane at my vacation rental solar house in Chelan County.

It costs us somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 a year for hot water, heat, refrigeration, stove, and the generator for cloudy days. Propane is expensive and when the price went to $4 a gallon it was tough. That said propane is the environmental fuel of choice for heating and cooking. Using electricity for heat and cooking is just wasteful.
 
#6 ·
we use propane for the furnace, water heater and cooking range. i had a 500 gallon underground tank put in place of the 225 gallon original a couple years ago. my consistent pattern is to fill sept/oct and then again feb/mar. thats it for the entire year. prices per gallon vary quite a bit so it really pays to shop by phone to see who has the best rate when the need comes up. i find that ferrell gas consistently has the highest prices of all the suppliers, fill up after fill up. on an annual basis, we spend about $150/mo for these 3 propane uses.

the best investment you can make is a programable thermostat. figure out your comfort range, set it and don't mess around. i have dropped our consumption by 10%/year with this simple change. our heated floor space is about 2,500 sqft so in a similar range and the house is 15 years old so not of the latest insulation standards.
 
#9 ·
hmmm...see this was what I was afraid of...your experience is the exact opposite from what the propane place told me. The place has a programmable thermostat with zones. We keep our place now at 67 degrees. Is that about what you heat at gt? I'd be interested to find out how you pay so little when theres people like Griswald's friends that go through $850 of propane a month in winter.

Switching to another heating source is not possible as I'm only renting.
 
#7 ·
A friend of mine recently bought an older place with only propane and old-style electric baseboard heating. Faced with the same high costs, he had his place retrofitted. He got rid of the baseboard heating, and had a local contractor (a friend) install radiant heating in his floor. This is a network of tubes with hot water running through them. This network of tubes was laid down over the existing floor base, after the carpet was removed. A false floor was built over it. Propane heats the water.
Aside from the installation cost, its relatively cheap, efficient, effective, and really feels great on bare feet.
With propane, you can also get an "on demand" tankless hot water heater. I haven't heard of any electric ones, yet.
 
#10 ·
We have 2500 feet and is primarily heated with an electric furnace that is 3 years old and runs like crazy on the coldest days. We purchased a wood stove to use on the coldest days and in two years it has paid for it self. Fortunately I live on a good size property with pleanty of trees to harvest and only costs me the fuel to run the saw. If you have access to low cost wood this might be a the way to go.
 
#11 ·
M-F, am and pm heating up to 68. during the daylight hours, its set to drop to 62 but rarely goes below 65. weekends, 68. $850/month would basically mean running a 500 gallon tank dry in 30 days!!!!! what are they heating that takes that much propane?? BTW, i keep detailed expense reports on this exact topic so the numbers i posted are accurate for the last 4 years. i don't have zones on the thermostat as there is only one for the entire house.

and as i said, shop for propane, the pricing is all over the map. if you friend has a 'keep fill' contract with one of the more expensive suppliers, he needs to drop it and shop. this is no different than seeing the various prices/gallon at the various gass stations.
 
#16 ·
Been trying that route. Its a struggle to get anything out of the rental management company. The people who were in it before were also renters, have asked for their name and phone as well as asking them to ask the owner. So far no figures have been given and its been three days since I asked. The only thing I got was that they would address the issue AFTER I signed and gave them my deposit. Kinda what got me concerned in the first place...like they know its an issue and don't wish to discuss until after I've been roped in.

Told them I wasn't signing anything nor giving them any money until I got the figures.

Just got off the phone with another propane place and they said that they would base their monthly plan on 1200 gallons used for the year...I told them the other place said I'd use more than double that and they said that was unheard of. Said I would be looking at about $225 a month.
 
#17 ·
when i need propane i call multiple suppliers and get it delivered on demand. you don't need a contract with a supplier which is what your last post sounds like. i have a local friend who signed up on a 'keep full' and he is paying way more than i have when i needed a fill. only thing a contract does is spread the cost over the 12 months. i just budget for this each month which allows me to shop price. everyone has their own way to approach this so simply consider my approach as one avenue, nothing more.

i just pulled up the spread sheet. for the past 13 months, my average was $105/mo. you obviously burn lots more in the winter months and way less the remainder of the year. hope these ACTUAL numbers help'yah.
 
#19 ·
Sure do GT. I'm just unsure. I finally got info that the tank is leased from a company here in Poulsbo. Called them up and they wouldn't give me any figures. I then called their headquarters and got figures from them. Seems that in 2008 they had 3 deliveries for 630 gallons and only one delivery in 2009 (July) for 250 gallons. I was told by the PM the tank is full. When talking to the woman at HQ she said that 250 gallons from July wouldn't last the winter. She started mentioning something about they were probably buying propane somewhere else and they should look into pulling the tank. Ummm...did I say the house was vacated in Jan 10...I really meant Jan 09.

She said 1200 gallons seemed low and 2700 gallons seemed high and should shoot for somewhere on the high side of middle to estimate usage.

I just hope they don't delve too deep into this and go reposess the tank...that would be a fine way to start a tenant/owner relationship.
 
#20 ·
We have a tank we "rent" from Pacer Propane, so we have a contract with them to supply our LP. If I wanted to cancel the contract and buy my own tank, then I could shop around and get the best price per gallon. But that's one more pain in the arse I don't want to deal with, and it would take years before I'd recover the cost of buying my own tank. Last year in Feb we used $245 worth of LP- this Feb we used $215 worth. Our hot water heaters and all our appliances are LP, but we have a heat pump with backup electric furnace as our main source of heat so we don't use near as much LP as if it were our main source of heat. Heat pump is great because it's also a cooling unit. But they're spendy, and really spendy to retrofit in a pre-built house.
 
#21 ·
Have used propane for over five years to heat our house, run dryer, run a propane fridge and power a back-up generator for electricity. ( I live on soar and wind power) I suplement my heat with wood. Have over 3000 sq ft house ( wish it was smaller). I rent a 1,000 gal tank and live at 3,400 ft and really exrperience Winter where I live. House stays around 60 F in Dec, Jan, Feb and most of March. Not a lot of people can live like this. I am used to it.

We go through about 1,200 gallons a year of propane. I usually wait for prices to fall and they should in the next few months and fill up the tank.
I figure I spend on average $250 a month and have no electric bill.
 
#22 ·
Propane is my primary heat source. My house is much smaller than your proposed home though. In the past 12 months we spent just over $1200 for propane. Most of that is in the winter months as propane at my house is heat and hot water only. We have electrical appliances for everything else. I keep the house pretty close to 68* most of the time to keep the three princesses comfortable. My tying bench is in the unheated garage where I freeze my ass off. I have a pellet stove that I use to boost rapid heat in the morning when it is really chilly. This was a relatively mild winter overall, but it was quite cold for this area for quite a few days in December and January.
 
#23 ·
What sq footage is your house Ed? Sounds like you used just over 500 gallons of propane so the figures I got of 630 gallons for 2008 may be quite close to actual usuage. The house is listed at 3437 sq ft and has a MIL apartment which is on its own zone so that's prolly another 600 sq ft or so (two rooms) that I could just keep around 50 so the water doesn't freeze. Better yet if I can shut the water off to the MIL, I shouldn't have to heat it at all. The 4 car garage has sub floor heating but I don't foree us heating it.
 
#24 ·
Eric, that house is huge. I can't wait to the guys, pies, ties and lies party there! My place is just under 2,000. The garage/shop/laundry/storage area is the same floor plan footprint as our main floor but it is not counted in the footage. Our place is a dome, full ground floor and and upstairs with just a few rooms. The basement area could be heated but I have the ducts all closed. So far no problems with pipes freezing because enen in the coldest of days thus far our garage has stayed in the mid to lower 40's.
 
#26 ·
the 13 months i quoted above, ~715 gallons. i won't take long to pay off that owned tank when you figure how much more leasing a tank and not being able to shop for price amounts too. just a thought.

there are only the 2 of us adults so that could make a signficant differnce. we also close off spaces which we don't use everyday. pass the fleece will'yah :)
 
#27 ·
Have you considered using a point of use hot water heater? When not in use there's only a pilot running until you turn on you're hot water. In comparison to the even todays new RHEEM HW heaters you can still save near 30% of you're fuel on the hot water. A good friend of mine had one installed and also installed a wood stove. His house is natural gas. The additions reduced his gas usage in half for the year.
 
#29 ·
We had a on-demand water heater. They work fine except we had a problem with carbon monoxide buildup. Make sure you have it properly vented, preferable in a garage away from your living space. Get a couple of CO detectors with digital readout.

Where it was located and being off-grid we could not get rid of the CO coming back into the house. So we ended up replacing with a direct vent water heater that solved the problem. We did see a significant increase in propane consumption.
 
#28 ·
BJG - Any figures yet?

ribka - 60 degrees? Couldn't handle that. Plus I think having wood heat as supplemental would make a big difference. My boyhood home was a wood boiler backed up with natural gas and while getting the wood in was a hassle it did heat the house nicely. Prior to the wood boiler we had a fireplace in the living room with an oil burner and the fireplace would take a big dent off heating chores. The house I live in now has a built-in fireplace. Its on the other side of the house to the living room but is below our loft master bedroom. While most of the heat goes up the flue, it does take off the dampness on that side and the master.

Mike - Being that's its a rental, I don't think I would recoup the expense over the tenancy. If I was buying it would be a different story but for now I have to settle for leasing until I get done with my internship (2 more years) and then figuring out if I will be staying here.
 
#30 ·
Vladimir, your point of use was indoors? I actually installed the one at my friends and a few others. Always and exterior unit, minimum 10 feet from common openings (door or window). I know there is a company making a so called "ventless" model, but I don't trust anything that is ventless yet burns a fuel.

BIG_E, my apologies brother, I didn't catch on that this was a rental. In all respects then, there are a number of things to look over that will greatly affect your propane consumption. As many have posted here Propane is a decent option for fuel. Maybe you can find out who supplied the propane and ask them not for the previous billing, but more so what this home has averaged in the last couple of years. Most homes on propane operate in a close range of cost. The inflated ones probably have further issues of items like:

1. Broken seals on doors and windows.
2. Insufficient insulation in attic and floor joists.
3. Poor Moisture Barrier.
4. Non-E Windows.

You get the picture. But like you said, it's not a property you'd put into at this time. Wish you the best of luck.
 
#31 ·
Vladimir, your point of use was indoors? I actually installed the one at my friends and a few others. Always and exterior unit, minimum 10 feet from common openings (door or window). I know there is a company making a so called "ventless" model, but I don't trust anything that is ventless yet burns a fuel.

.
We bought the house and a family of five lived there for three years previous. The on-demand heater was in the laundry room which was inside the house. What was happening was the heater was venting to the outside. But in winter with the wood stove running the carbon monoxide was sucked back into the house as soon as the heater stopped working. I got one of those Kidde Digital Readout CO meters for thirty bucks and actually watched the numbers ratchet upward. They would then go back down. CO counts did not stay high for long, but I still did not like it.

Since the house was one of those "super nonsense" that BPA recommends it sucked even more of the stuff back into the house. We normally always crack a window in the house to equalize the indoor and outdoor pressure.

The family that built the house survived simply because the water heater did not run at night. Nobody was doing dishes or laundry while sleeping!

I called the on-demand company and told them I needed the CO meter to stay at ZERO. They said buy a direct-vent tank water heater. Which is what we did. The CO meters stay at zero.

We do use more propane, but the safety is worth it.

The on-demand heater worked fine. Your suggestion of an outdoor install does not work east of the Cascades and being off-grid further complicates matters. We just yanked it.

If you use gas I would buy TWO of the Digital Readout meters in case one stopped working. The digital meter readout is pretty quick and gives you a good idea of combustion sources in your house and their impact. I would not buy anything but a Direct Vent appliance. For those that don't know. Direct vent means you take outside air from a vent and exhaust your combustion through another vent. Usuually one nestled inside of another. They work.

Oh, get two of the digital battery readout models for your RV. If you have CO combustion in your RV your not going to have much time!. Those CO meters are worth every dollar you spend on them.

Since most people in Washington are all-electric they tend to forget about gas and safety.
 
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