Keeping Warm This Winter. Gas? Oil? Coal?

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Pete, if you have a globe handy you'll see that Rome is around the same latitude as New York City. That Italian lady was probably referring to similar winter weather as many parts of northern California experience, much like we're having today. Soupy and grey, and the sun is too weak this time of year to burn it off. Result: hazy, cold and damp. And I hate it!

Ralph
 
Heat pumps here. The new house has six-inch-deep exterior walls insulated to R30, and low-E glass everywhere, which helps a lot.
 
floor furnace

floor furnace...I know it's not efficient but I love the fact I have no air/drafts blowing around. I replaced it in September...considered installing centeral heat and air but it was going to cost about 12k for everything...I opted for the FF at 1800.00. We really dont have the hard winters like other parts of the country...usually about 60 days a year of temps in the 20's at night...I think last winter we had one night that dropped into the teens. I love to stand over it in the mornings while I drink my coffee.
 
Speaking of Italy

Sunny warm Italy... in summer ;)

I can say that you're part right... but only if you were thinking of the very south like Sicily or Apulia (beware of humidity there!) or Calabria, those regions are indeed hotter and temperature doesn't drop often below 0°C but in the centre-north you can easly get below freezing. Right now in Bologna we have 9°C and it's being a warm autumn... let's see what winter brings... :D
Like in the alps people is already preparing for the winter season for skying... brrrr too cold for me, I don't like snow!
 
I have forced air gas heat. The furnace is called a Ruud Achiever, but that’s all I know about it. It’s very compact; the heat exchanger (I guess that’s what it’s called?) takes up most of the bulk. The house and furnace are 7 years old, although I have not been here that whole time. I think it works well and doesn’t cost much to run, but then I don’t like the house very warm so I don’t set the thermostat too high. The only niggle I have is that the air flow is LOUD (as in turn up the stereo loud), as it is with the air conditioning too.

I enjoy these interim seasons between air conditioning and heat, but I do love winter, so when the time comes to turn on the heat, I won’t mind. I don’t anticipate doing it until sometime in December, though, unless we have an unusually cold snap.
 
Having come out of winter

And being blessed. We have a Heat pump split system, 1 unit on the main living level, and another on the top level.

For the 10 - 15 times we used it this season, the cost was unappreciable. The joys of a climate where the Winter lows are 4degC and Highs of 20degC.

We find the reverse cycle split system convienient and quick to spot heat the house. We bought an electric oil filled radiator to supplement the main unit, for in Michaels Study.
 
I'm still heating my house by jiggling electrons around vigorously.

I've been considering installing in-floor water heat using propane to hot-up the water, but the installation would be a major undertaking, and with the increased cost of propne lately the payoff would take deades.

So for now, I'll try to keep the house warm enough for me and my giant houseplants (my roommate minds the cold less than me) using electric resistance heat and Samoyeds. Two of the latter make good supplemental heat for a bedroom, even though they disturb one's sleep a bit what with their panting and unexpected hand-licking.

-kevin
 
We once lived in something called a three flat in Chicago back in the late 70's. It had these huge cast iron radiators. I think they were hot water. We didn't have a thermostat, that was in the landlords floor. The only way we could adjust our heat was to adjust the knobs on each radiator. It seemed that the place was always very hot all thru the winter. And then there was all the clanking during the cold Chicago winter nights. It was bothersome at first but then later it was kind of soothing.

My parents had forced air oil heat with big tank in the basement. My Mother was always bitchin' about how dusty/dirty it was.

Our current house has forced air gas heat. In the winter we pay about $65.00 per month to heat, and that includes the gas lanterns on the sides of the driveway wall.
 
Gas forced air furnace here, gas stove, water heater and dryer(Maytag DG906,thank you very much) In our area, it is still much cheaper to make heat with gas rather than electricity, with a few exceptions where there are private municipal electric companies in some little towns/villages.

With oil going sky high, I am wondering if I should get electric suppliment heat at the lake house that I keep at 55 degrees when not there to save on oil, since there is no gas in that remote area.
 
My parent's home had forced air heat, and always hated the thing. Besides the dust, that darn dry air sucked all the moisture out of my skin so always had "winter itch". Used to slather on tons of cream after a bath to keep my skin from going red raw.

Sad thing about oil heat is many seniors homes are heated by the stuff in the Northeast, and while they do own their homes, they aren't always in a position to replace an oil burner with a gas. That ghastly Hugo Chavez has teamed up with Kennedy from upstate New York, for a program that donates oil though Citgo to poor and or elderly households during the winter. Sad thing is if the Feds simply increased the HEAP income limits many Americans who are "middle-class" or thereabouts wouldn't have to go hat in had to the little swinehunt.

Launderess
 
new home

We are looking for a new home now for weeks and month - we thought it 'd be easier to find the place we want - but isn't...
But our new home is to be a house, an antique one and I insist on solid fuel heating for main heating or with gas in combination for splitted heating.
So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Ralf
 
David:
~Heat pump w/ a natural gas back up.
I had heard that gas is very expensive in some areas in the south. Is this the case in your location? Why have a heat-pump?

My house was built in 1946 for returning war veterans / soldiers. One generally sees hot-water heat from 1950 +/- and on in my area. F.A.G. heat is rare here.

My house has oil-fired steam heat with a tankless coil in the side of the boiler to produce domestic hot water for the taps. Heat distibuted via convectors in large metal enclosures, located under the windows.

I have a mechanical (non-electric) thermostatic mixing valve to temper the outcoming hot water (for the taps) temp. to a safer(lower) temp. as the boiler obviously reaches 212*F (100*C) to make steam in winter.

Burnham brand boiler.
Riello brand oil-burning head.
Honeywell brand controls (pressure limit and aquastat for water temperature)
LUX and Honeywell thermostats.
 
Toggle: Yes, gas can be expensive in the South for some reason. Natural gas varies a whole lot depending on where the service comes from, though. Up until a few years ago, we lived in a suburb of Huntsville named Madison, an incorporated town which had its own gas board, and it is notorious for having some of the highest gas prices in the state. In Huntsville proper, natural gas is cheaper, but it's not available in our neighborhood. Propane is very expensive here -- it's actually cheaper to heat with electric resistance heat vs. propane. We do have a propane tank and gas fireplaces, but they are just for ambience; we don't rely on them for heat.

We have three heat pumps, one for each floor. They are all Frigidaire units (made by Heil, I think). There's a 2-1/2 ton unit for the main floor and 1-1/2 ton units for the upper floor and the basement. Right now I don't even have the basement one on; it probably won't be needed for a few more weeks. Our new house is over 2X as large as the old house was, but we heated it last winter for about the same cost as what we had to pay for gas heat in Madison.

Nearly all residential heating installations in this area are either forced air gas, or heat pump. Since you absolutely have to have central A/C here (for house resale value, even if you don't like A/C yourself), which means the ductwork has to be installed anyway, the incremental expense of installing forced air heat is minimal. If you go with hot water or steam heat, the incremental cost of installation is much higher.
 
I have an all electric house with a heat pump heating the upstairs, and forced air electric and a wood burning fireplace downstairs. My house is a split entry, so the downstairs consist of one large room, the laundry room (off the garage and unheated), and the garage. The house is 2200 sqft total.

We use programmable thermostats, and the power bill year round runs between $175-$250.
 
Gas price in the south

Toggleswitch,

Currently we are paying .91 cents per therm locked in rate from our gas company. When Katrina hit it the rate more then doubled in price.

The reason for a heat pump. Here in the south it does not get brutal cold until late December, January, Feburary and some times early March. Once the outside temp go below freezing the heat pump loses efficientcy causing it to run much longer for it to heat the house. When it was time to replace our clothes dryer we changed from gas to electric since gas at that time was so expensive. A kilowatt of Electricity was cheaper then natural gas. The only other gas appliance we have in our house is a 50 gallon hot water heater. We like that so if during the winter we get an Ice Storm and loose power we still have hot water.
 
Forgot to include

We also use a programable thermostat. We also keep the heat set at 68 degrees. We bump it up when my elderly parents come to visit. They say our house is like an igloo. They heat their house with a wood buring heater. Sometime they have up to 85 degrees when we visit. My parents live in a 1956 track house. They have been there for 51 years. They moved in just 2 weeks before I was born. They upgraded in 1980's too add insulation in the walls since the house did not have any. Plus put up storm windows and doors.

We also just purchased a Whirlpool Duet FL washer to cut back on water usage which will be delivered/installed on Monday.

Our house was built in 1998 so the house is pretty air tight. We have changed out most our lighting to the curly flororesent (not sure of the spelling) bulbs.
 
I just ordered 300 gallons of propane @ $1.99 per f$@!ing gal. It was $1.93 on Monday & $1.79 just 2 weeks ago. The most I paid last year was $1.39 in the dead of winter. When I installed propane 7 years ago it was a whole $0.50/gallon.
 
My wife's uncle paid $1.58gal. for 250 gallons of LP on 7/21. Don't know what it is right now, only time will tell, OUCH!
 
We could have locked in our oil for 10 or 12 months at $2.599 4 weeks ago (could have, but didn't since we were waiting for the boiler replacement estimates). Just signed the paperwork to have the old boiler replaced with a Weil McLain boiler and indirect water tank, and was able to lock in at $2.849 even though the time for locking in at any price passed and the price Monday was in the $2.90's. Leverage for having them do the boiler job helped, but it's still not $2.599. We did get a couple other considerations though.

It was a long time coming to replace the boiler as it was too big for the house (you saw it Toggs). All the single-pane windows don't help though! We'll get to those eventually. Until then, we heat where we need to, only to the temp we need to. I prefer a cool bedroom myself. More reason to cuddle up to my little Italian furnace!

Chuck
 

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