High gas bill

rod1520052006

Hello all, and any help would be great. Every year i dread the winter. my gas bill goes from 60-100 to 240 to 300. House temp is set to 66 when away and home set to 70. I changed out the thermostat and my bill went down by 100 just due to the new thermo which is on a set schedule. I have a hot water boiler. What can i do to bring this bill back down to the low 100's while still being warm? In a rowhouse that is on the end and the house is almost 100 years old. Sq is 1314 for the house.

Gordy

The new thermostat is not the energy saver other than the ability to do setback schedules. If being on a setback schedule is saving 100 dollars a month. The best thing you can do to reduce your fuel usage is tighten up the envelope. Either by insulation, and or crack sealing. Which may not be feasible, or in your budget.

The next best thing would be to look into your boilers condition, and size verses heat load.

The third thing is to learn to live with reduced indoor temps, if one, and two is out of your budget.

Being warm, and reducing your energy consumption by over 1/2 is a bit unrealistic.

What else is using gas? Domestic Hot water, dryer, cooking? If your fuel bill in summer is 60-100. You are asking essentially by wanting your gas bill to be in the low 100 dollar range in heating season, the gas heat is near free.

Brewbeer

There are two areas you can work on to reduce the cost for heat: 1) increase the efficiency of the building envelope, and 2) increase the efficiency of the heating equipment. To figure out what might be most readily achievable, please post some photos of your boiler and radiators and a description of the building construction and insulation.

rod1520052006

The only thing on gas is the stove and hot water heater. Our gas use in the summer is only 20-60 Therms, in the winter it jumps to 220 to 300. Everything else is electric in the house. The boiler is old also. Is there a way to use the hot water tank to help heat the water vs the boiler only?

Gordy

can you post pics of the boiler?

Does the boiler heat the domestic hot water via an indirect, or coil? Or is there a separate water heater?

rod1520052006

Here are the pics requested.





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rod1520052006

Gordy

Boiler is older. Could upgrade to a higher efficiency, but I doubt that alone will trim that much off your fuel bill.

Im going with the heatloss of your structure needs to be reduced to cut fuel cost. I base that by how much you are saving using setbacks.

rod1520052006

This model boiler https://www.ecomfort.com/Peerless-MI-04-SV-WPC-N/p59716.html

Gordy

86 k DOE. Oversized. 65 btus a sf.

I recommend performing a heatloss using the online Slantfin heatloss calculator.

https://www.slantfin.com/slantfin-heat-loss-calculator/

See how that compares to boiler size.

GroundUp

$200/mo to heat a 100 yr old house that size? I'm sorry but you're not going to get much better than that without tightening the envelope. Newer heating equipment may drop it 10-15% but at $20-30/mo the payback would take forever if efficiency is the sole reason for replacement. One of my rentals is roughly the same size and vintage with LP forced air. October of 17 I installed new fanfold around the exterior with new siding and all new windows and doors, and the LP usage literally cut in half. Last winter they only burned 400 gallons of propane versus 750-850 the years before and last winter was below zero for over a month. Tight envelope goes a long way!

rod1520052006

Gordy said:

can you post pics of the boiler?

Does the boiler heat the domestic hot water via an indirect, or coil? Or is there a separate water heater?

each system has its own main cold water line.

JUGHNE

There is an arrow on the pump...is it pointing up or down?

I can't see the outlet of the boiler....is he pulling water out of the boiler return?

Robert_25

JUGHNE said:

There is an arrow on the pump...is it pointing up or down?

I can't see the outlet of the boiler....is he pulling water out of the boiler return?

Good catch. The circulator is installed upside down.

Gordy

Yes it is @JUGHNE.

DZoro

Pumping away LOL. Good catch! Hopefully it isn't a mono-flow system. A really good boiler cleaning should be in order when pump is turned around.
D

JUGHNE

Rod, your pump is installed backwards, the arrow should point into the boiler. The cooler water should go into the bottom of the boiler and hot out the top.

This has been seen here several times in the past.
Two times I pointed this out to DIY HO and that was the end of the postings, never had feedback.

So correcting the pump should help in the fuel consumption somewhat.....but not cut it in half as hoped.

I am guessing that the reverse water flow would transfer less btu from fire to water and more btu up chimney with higher exhaust temps?

IIRC, one case with reversed pump was sucking air into the system.

rod1520052006

JUGHNE said:

Rod, your pump is installed backwards, the arrow should point into the boiler. The cooler water should go into the bottom of the boiler and hot out the top.

This has been seen here several times in the past.
Two times I pointed this out to DIY HO and that was the end of the postings, never had feedback.

So correcting the pump should help in the fuel consumption somewhat.....but not cut it in half as hoped.

I am guessing that the reverse water flow would transfer less btu from fire to water and more btu up chimney with higher exhaust temps?

IIRC, one case with reversed pump was sucking air into the system.

Will look, if it is back ward is very weird. Didnt install this XD the boiler is older then me

JUGHNE

That circulator pump is fairly recent to this boiler.
Perhaps about the age of the newish expansion tank.
There may be enough flex cable to flip it around without having to rewire.
New gaskets/O-rings would probably be needed.

There is a shut off valve above the pump, is there one on the top supply pipe? If so, that would avoid having to drain the entire system of water for the change.

rod1520052006

The hot water goes up on mine. The left smaller pipe goes into the boiler from the top

Gordy

Right, the way it’s suppose to move water through the boiler is into the return, and out of the supply on top. Presently it’s doing the opposite, because the circulator is backwards.

The heat exchanger heats from the bottom of the boiler. So that’s why they bring the cooler water in at the bottom, and exits out the top.

How much it will cut fuel costs is debatable. Never know until you put the pump in the right orientation. Certainly not a heck of a lot.

rod1520052006

Gordy said:

Right, the way it’s suppose to move water through the boiler is into the return, and out of the supply on top. Presently it’s doing the opposite, because the circulator is backwards.

The heat exchanger heats from the bottom of the boiler. So that’s why they bring the cooler water in at the bottom, and exits out the top.

How much it will cut fuel costs is debatable. Never know until you put the pump in the right orientation. Certainly not a heck of a lot.

Currently the main cold water line is going in the top of the boiler, So your saying it should be going in the bottom and out the top?

Brewbeer

No, just reverse the direction of the circulator.

What is the construction of your walls, and how much insulation do they have in them?

Gordy

Currently the way the pump is oriented it is making it do exactly as you describe. Simply turning the pump 180 degrees so it pumps INTO its present port will change that. Then the hot supply water will exit out of the top of the boiler like it is suppose to as designed.

Another thing is that the supply on top of the boiler has a baffle in the HX so it helps direct air in to the baffle, and out the air elimination device. The way it’s running now it takes little advantage of that.

JUGHNE

Is the "cold water" you refer to the small water supply pipe (finger size)? That will not matter for this discussion.
The cooler water, in the larger pipe, from your heaters should go into the bottom of the boiler and the hot water comes out the top, large pipe, and goes to your heaters. The pump should push the water into the bottom and it will come out of the top to heat your house.
The water is running thru your boiler backwards with the pump the way it is. It needs to be flipped.
This will improve the efficiency of the system somewhat.
Do you think you can do this yourself?

DZoro

No insulation would be the second reason for high gas bills. There are insulation companies that can fill the gap with insulation.
D

Brewbeer

Your wall assemblage has an r-value of about 3.5: 2 for the brick (assumes 10 inches thick), 1 for the airspace between the brick and plaster, and 0.5 for the plaster (guess) . Typical modern construction has a wall r-value about 4 times greater.

Old single pane windows with storms have an r-value of about 2.

Each sq ft of wall has a heat loss of 20 BTUs/hour at 70F inside/0F outside. If you decrease that differential to 60F, the heat loss is 17.1 BTUs/hr, or about 15% less.

Assuming your 1300 sq ft house is 20x65 with an 8 foot ceiling, that's 840 sq ft of wall per level. Throw in some windows, and you are looking at 20,000 BTUs/hr per level when it's 0F outside. And this doesn't include heat lost through the roof or basement or infiltration.

In your original post you asked "What can i do to bring this bill back down to the low 100's while still being warm?" A full gut remodel which allows proper insulation and air sealing to be installed is probably the answer.

Gordy

What’s your NG cost? How has it been over the last few years in comparison?

If you have past NG bills. A good history to compare therms used in the heating season, you should get a pretty good idea if they are about the same if you compare them to the degree days for the month. Easy history to find on a weather site like weather underground.com.

If it’s pretty consistent you can bet it’s insulation, and air sealing.

I would try airsealing everywhere accessible as first step. Cheapest, and will help considerably. See how much that helps, before doing a gut job. If a gut job is necessary to insulate it’s time to do a cost analysis as to how long you plan on living there, and cost of the Reno.