Alternatives to propane for home heating?

[Michael]

Many of us rural folk rely on propane to heat our homes. The price of propane is “supposed†to follow the price of oil, but whereas oil is presently trading at roughly have of its all-time price, propane seems to be hitting new highs; it is around $3.50/gallon in our area (southwest Ohio). At this price, my propane bill would be larger than my property tax!

 

Typically, the homeowner contracts with a propane provider to lease a propane tank. The company installs the tank, and grabs a monopoly on propane supply thenceforth; which can last for years, or even decades. I inherited a leased 500-gallon tank when I bought my house in 2001.

 

Questions…

 

1. Has anyone tried returning their leased tank, buying their own, and shopping around amongst competing suppliers for the cheapest propane prices? If so, how did the lowest local price per gallon compare with that of the monopoly supplier?

 

2. What other combustible substances can be pumped into a propane-fired furnace, in lieu of propane? How do costs compare, and how does furnace performance compare?

[bschiltz]

http://www.bergey.com/

 

[kiwi303]

Wood fire... F*k all propane fires in NZ, and no-one freezes to death because their gas tank runs low when there's the axe and the trees in the lawn/garden if the shed runs empty in the winter.

 

Edit, there are LPG fires, but they're 99% run off city supply pipe, not tanks, I beleive you chaps call propane, what we call Liquefied Petroleum Gas, which contains propane as a major part of the mix of petroleum gaseous fractions compressed until they condense to a pumpable liquid.

[cygnusx1]

Wood, if you can cut your own.

 

I also save all my bills, junkmail, boxes, and burn them for heat. My stove has a catalytic converter in it. I bypass it when I burn junk. I once heated the house for a few days with the actual oil bills I had saved over a 10 year period.

[Tony D]

In some countries, chips work as a fine heating medium. If you get them fresh, you can form them into bricks for more efficient packing into whatever furnace/stove you have.

 

Cow Chips, Buffalo Chips, Sheep Dip, etc... It all burns fine!

 

Buying a tank is not cheap, and they 'all' will have the same price when they factor in transportation costs.

[Mayolives]

My buddy, here in sc, just had the company who owned his 250 lb tank, remove it from his house. It was not buried. He purchased a 125 lb tank and now hauls it to be refilled and is paying about 50% compared to the original cost. But now he needs to deal with it himself. He only uses the gas for his fireplace and will go through about three of the new tanks per season. I'm not sure that the hassle is worth the savings.

[Dan Juday]

This is the future for heating and cooling our homes. www.mrslim.com

 

 

Rotten Japs got us again.

 

FYI, I'm a dealer and I have this system in my home.

[jasper]

I have been heating my 2800 sf colonial with this coal stove for years. I have no other heat . It is exactly like a pellet stove. But more, and cheaper heat. No big chimmeny required. Burns out side air. No smell. NO SMOKE. Easy to store.

About $200.00 a ton. Runs for days unatended.

Do some reading and homework. There are calculator charts available on many sites.

http://www.harmanstoves.com/products/details.asp?cat=stoves&prd=coal-stoves&f=DVC500

 

http://nepacrossroads.com/

 

http://nepacrossroads.com/fuel-comparison-calculator.php

[19762802+2]

 

 

But really wood works awesome, we had a wood furnace when my family lived in Missouri and it had a flat top so we would put a frying pan on it and cook off it if we felt like it. We also lived a mile away from a Chainmill and they had a huge pile of leftover uneven cut lengths of wood so we would go pick up truck loads and cut them to size. We filled a shed with about a years worth of wood.

[Michael]

Alright, so the accumulated advice is to:

 

- chop lots of wood

- dress like a Franciscan monk

- collect the dung of farm animals

 

I'll get right on it!

[proxlamus©]

man.. all my life living in suburbs around Denver CO.. ive never been in a house that has not been heated by natural gas!!

 

Ive only seen wood/pellet/propane heated homes wayy out in the boonies.

 

Interesting how different things are hundres of miles away

[Dan Juday]

Alright, so the accumulated advice is to:

 

- chop lots of wood

- dress like a Franciscan monk

- collect the dung of farm animals

 

I'll get right on it!

 

You obviously didn't follow the link I posted. Check it out. Ultra high efficiency, competitively priced, easy installation, environmentally responsible. No shoveling, chopping, or fashion compromises required.

[Drax240z]

Most LPG appliances I have dealt with can easily be converted to natural gas. Usually it's just an orifice and pressure change. (ie: inexpensive)

[cygnusx1]

Alright, so the accumulated advice is to:

 

- chop lots of wood

- dress like a Franciscan monk

- collect the dung of farm animals

 

I'll get right on it!

 

 

There is a reason they get $$$ for electric, gas, and oil. Partly because you cant just get or make it yourself. Partly because you don't have to. I found that shopping around and juggling contracts with other suppliers for gas and oil usually saves me a little bit (5% or so over a competitor). You also need to watch the quality of the product. I use both sources in my home. Both delivered by truck. With oil, I own the tank. With gas, I rent it. You need to follow the commodities and decide if you want to lock in rates or let them float. Lately, I have not locked in anything. I also keep the wood handy in case the price of oil rises, I will hedge with wood until the prices come down. Another thing you can do IF you have some extra cash is to go to buy some stock in the resource you are using. I bought lots of oil stock. If the price of oil rises, so does my stock value, offsetting the oil cost. If it drops, well, I don't need the offsetting. Win-Win.

 

 

Or this:

http://www.floridamoves.com/real_estate/Florida/Florida.htm?WT.mc_ID=301116020200000&WT.srch=1

[jasper]

You obviously didn't follow the link I posted. Check it out. Ultra high efficiency, competitively priced, easy installation, environmentally responsible. No shoveling, chopping, or fashion compromises required.

 

I don't understand the term Ultra High Efficiency?? This system is electricaly powered. Electricty to heat can be 100% effecient, and no more.

If you are using the air conditoning in reverse, there are some mechanical losses(compressor), so not 100% efficient. This assumes I read correctly......

 

As far as AC performance, I can see many advantages. No heat loss from ducts, easy zone control, etc, which can lead to savings.

 

And lastly, propane and electric are the MOST COSTLY ways to heat. Cost per BTU.

Please correct me if I'm in error.......

[tfreer85]

Answer is Geothermal, tax credits and the like can keep your initial costs down. I've always wanted to do one of these setups.

 

http://geocomfort.publishpath.com/

 

http://www.geoexchange.org/

 

http://www.waterfurnace.com/residential.aspx

 

If you have the land you can go horizontal with your system and save money. If not you go vertical and spend a little more. Just my .02

[Michael]

About buying stock in oil-industry companies to hedge against the rise in oil prices....

 

1. I bought lots of stock in Conoco-Phillips about 2 years ago, at around $64/share. That was before the great spike in oil prices. Later that year, Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) bought a bunch of Conoco-Phillips stock at around $80-$90 per share. Now COP is trading at around $50/share. Some hedge....

 

2. Oil prices are presently half of their all-time high; they've fallen so far, that the scramble for shale-oil and new exploration has all but entirely petered out. But propane is trading at near its all-time high.

 

Because I really only use two rooms of my house, my short-term solution is to use an electric space heater in the whichever room I happen to be occupying, while turning the main thermostat down to 49 degrees (its lowest point).

[cygnusx1]

But you are paying less for oil so you don't need the hedge effect. You were happy when it spiked. No? Sounds like you needed to invest in Propane for your benefit, not oil.

 

http://ezinearticles.com/?Propane-Futures---What-Are-They?&id=2887798

 

Ouch! Electric heat is way expensive.

[Mike kZ]

I'm with tfreer85, Geothermal is the best way to go. That is what I plan to use when I move to north GA on my 7.5 acres.

[Dan Juday]

I don't understand the term Ultra High Efficiency?? This system is electricaly powered. Electricty to heat can be 100% effecient, and no more. ...

 

These systems don't convert electric energy into heat, they move heat. 300% efficiency. They are heat pumps, but unlike any other heat pump you have probably ever seen.

 

... propane and electric are the MOST COSTLY ways to heat. Cost per BTU.

Please correct me if I'm in error.......

 

You are right if referring to resistive electric heating.

 

Geothermal is fantastic, those systems use heat pumps as well. But it takes many years to recover the high initial installation cost. Maintenance and repair costs can run very high as well.

 

These ductless systems from Mitsubishi (and other manufacturers) reach very close to the efficiencies of geothermal without the high install costs. Having 18 years experiance with Mitsubishi equipment, I can tell you with all certainty that you can not buy more reliable heating and air conditioning equipment at any price. Maintenance consists of keeping the filters clean and washing out the outdoor coil every two years or so. So maintenance costs are virtualy nil.