trying to control heating costs

todnd

I have an electric water boiler with fuel oil burning boiler off peak. My electric bills seem very high and I am looking for alternatives to lower my costs. I am thinking about adding an indoor corn burning boiler. Last month (January) I used 7424 kWh on a 2000 sq ft house. My bill for off peak was $411 alone! Having a fuel oil burner already installed all the exhaust, pressure release, and everything is in place. Am I looking in the right direction? We have only lived in the house a year and a half so this is a long term solution. Located in the upper midwest corn is very easy to obtain. Any input is appreciated. Thank you.

Fred

Do you have natural gas available to you? That is probably the cleanest (maybe next to electric) most cost effective option. Im in the cornbelt too, Ohio. I just got my gas bill for the last 30 days, yesterday. Total bill $310.00. 5000 sq.ft house, 113 year old house, temp @ 66 degrees, 7/24, no set-backs, includes gas steam boiler, water heater, gas clothes dryer and gas cook range. 0.3986 per CCF gas charge and $66.00 carrier delivery charge, included in that $310.00.

icesailor

How much does corn cost per bag, and how many bags will it take to heat your house? How many BTU's in 10# of corn and how many bags of corn do you need to burn, and will the savings in electricity make up for the cost of the corn? When you add transportation and BS in?

I bought a Coal Stove once. Burning Coal cost me more than the cost of the stove and no savings on energy cost, Where the coal stove was, became unbearably hot, the rest of the house was cold.

35 years later, my wife still **** about the dust and ash all over everything.

Just because something is cheap (or free) doesn't mean it saves you money.

Gordy

Other direction. Insulation, and weather sealing is the gift that never stops giving. Control the heat loss control heating costs. electric heat is not cheap just about anywhere. Corn is subject to market conditions just like any other fuel. Pellets are not cheap either. Your just giving your money to someone else instead of a utility maybe more.

njtommy

Insulating and making your house tighter is where you will see ur biggest ROI. Other then that. Gas is not always the cheapest option. But wood burning boilers or corn could be they beat solution for you depending on prices. Woods cheap or free but it's a lot of labor and you need to enjoy logging todo it.

Gordy

Everyone thinks because they are decoupling from a utility in their attempt to lower heating costs through alternative fuel sources that they are saving money. Sweat equity is indeed money it may not be tangible money's but your time is worth money. I can think of much better things to do than chop wood feed the fire, and clean up the ash, or buy, and store corn, or pellets. The sun is free energy, but the up front costs are a bite in the wallet.

Unless you enjoy all the work encompassing a bio burning heat source, or its your only choice because no utilities are available I would avoid it.

Gordy

I look at woo burning like this. Every face cord if free, and I own I could cut and sell for 85-100 bucks a face cord in my area. So the wood is worth money even though it's free for you to burn,

Jamie Hall

If you are reasonably young, pretty vigorous, and happen to own a wood lot you can sustainably log, wood heat can appear to be free. It's not. There's the time and effort you put in. There's the initial cost and upkeep of the saws. If you use gas powered saws, there's the cost of the gas and oil. There's schlepping the wood out to where you can cut it and split it. There's splitting it.

There's also the property tax on the wood lot.

Wood is not free heat.

But -- if you enjoy doing the work and don't get hurt, it can feel good and very virtuous.

JUGHNE

In the late 70's I did part time line work for our (small) local power company. A big part of that job was doing long neglected tree trimming around power lines.
I had a forced air wood burning furnace in my basement that would take a 28" log.
I would "chunk up" the wood right off the tree in the air using their bucket truck, saws etc. The ground helper would throw the chunks into a dump truck and unload it into my back yard. There was very little splitting needed. We would be paid to haul off all brush and non usable trunks.
It didn't get much better being paid to cut your own firewood and deliver it to your own back yard. But......I left that part time job to be self employed and suddenly realized that one or two day's income/profit would pay the monthly NG bill.
The furnace was sold eventually and the NG furnace upgraded.
But you always remember the comfort of an 80 degree house when it hit -29 degrees. Also the satisfaction of being self reliant in any power failure. (the furnace would gravity flow thru the duct work)

Gordy

And how many face cords a month did you burn?

JUGHNE

We could store in the basement: 8' x 6' x 6' If I recall it took 2?? of this stocking per season. We call a true cord to be 8 x 8 x 4???
This was some time ago and since then my children have convinced me to forget about burning wood again.
Also when wood was "free" you never worried about overheating the house. Leave the doors open once in awhile!

Now you made me curious, so digging out utility bills from 1989-1990. (With Out Wood) Dec/Jan consumption was about 235 CCF average monthly at a cost averaging 80 to 124 per month. This includes hot water which averaged maybe $20 per month. These are rough numbers as the billing CCF cost varied monthly.

Gordy

3 face cords is a cord. 1 face cord is 8 ' long x 4' tall x16" wide.

So a cord is 8 ' long x 4' tall x 4' wide. By your dimensions that was a little over 2 cords. Or about 550.00 fair market value today.

JUGHNE

So if you see my edit that one season of gas 1989-1990, cost me about 500-600 max. Also other variables; most of that fire wood was low BTU cottonwood and Chinese Elm (No, it didn't come here on a boat, it was a fast growing weed tree planted here during the 1930's to prevent more dust bowls) There is very little hard wood here available for firewood.

What was the value of a full cord in the early 1980's?
Again this is an apple/orange comparison of soft wood versus hard wood.

icesailor

Doing absolutely all I possibly can, myself, I've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital gains tax on all my and my wife's "Sweat Equity".

Robert_25

Corn stoves can be very fussy. I would spend some time trying to figure out where you heat is going. If your home has a lot of small air leaks, you can probably take a noticeable chunk out of the heating bill with a few afternoons of air sealing work.

Gordy

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Thank you IRS like my quote reads