High Oil boiler electric use- too many zones?

mamm561

Our 2500 sq ft home was built in 2003. It has a main floor and a walkout basement. We bought it in 2012. We were new to oil heat. One thing I was told and read was that oil boilers' electric use is minimal. That has not been my experience. In the coldest months, our electric bill doubles (we use only a small electric heater in the bathroom for a total of an hour a day) and I try to keep the thermostat set near 66 degrees. I am wondering if our excessive electric use in winter is caused by having too many heating zones. Our main floor had 3 zones. We use the whole main floor so having three thermostats makes no sense. Questions- is a doubling of an electric bill with oil heat normal? Would reducing 3 zones to 1 for our main floor help? Is it possible to consolidate zones? Is it a major expense!

New England SteamWorks

Some thoughts:

1. In dealing with splitting a combined electric bill for tenant apartments I have always observed that electrical consumption is highest in the winter (with a steam boiler). I have attributed this to the vastly increased use of lighting in the winter months when it is dark.
2. Your system might use circulators for each zone instead of zone valves. Modern circulators are pretty efficient though. The older ones were energy hogs. So this probably isn't it.
3. Do you by chance live in the NE? The last couple of winters the gas pipeline capacity has been insufficient to meet the demand. Heating has priority, so the electric utilities are forced to buy electricity on the spot market, which is considerably more expensive. They pass this along of course in the form of a higher kilowatt rate during the winter. Then it goes down again in the summer. Check your rates and see if there is a seasonal variation.

An oil burner consumes electricity when running, but not enough that anyone generally notices really, so maybe a combination of all items, or a mystery still to be solved.

As always, pictures of your boiler and controls would be helpful.

mamm561

Thanks for responding. I do live in the NE and I am very aware of rate hikes. I monitor kWh usage, though, and it was doubled. Just two of us live in the house. kWh use averages 600 monthly in non heating months. Last winter in one month, we used 1450 kWh. I will post photos of boiler.

mamm561

mamm561

SWEI

Zone circs! ~70W each for the little ones, possibly 100+W for the larger one (unless that's a perspective error and they're all the same.) Replace them with zone valves and a single ECM circ and your pumping power consumption should drop by 90%.

New England SteamWorks

Even with the zone circs you have to wonder... are they running 24/7?!

That is an enormous jump in electricity.

mamm561

mamm561

Thank you. I will try to find someone who can modify it for us.

Jamie Hall

An 800 kwh per month jump does seem a bit high -- but... maybe not. That's on the order of 30 kwh per day. Some of it, as has been noted, may be lighting -- but each 100 watt bulb, on for an additional 5 hours, will chew up half a kw right there. An electric heater will soak up 1.5 kwh per running hour. Look around and add it all up. I know that I was surprised at what happened in the place I care for when I replaced everything with LEDs...

hot_rod

These are handy for running down energy consumption numbers

JUGHNE

Seeing the blue tank in the picture, do you have your own water well or is that something else?

How do you heat your DHW....hot water?

Electric clothes dryer?
More cooking with electric range?
And as said, less daylight.....more incandescent bulbs on.