Comparing Efficiencies Between Gas-Fired 83% Atmospheric Boiler & Heat Pump

JUGHNE

Sal, I am amazed that your summer use is only 7 therms per month, mine is 25 for WH & cooktop.

But to stress the value of insulation, my Jan 2023 consumption was 99 total...-25....= 74 for heating.
This is Northern Nebraska with design temp of -10 degrees.

And BTW that 99 therms cost me $125.37....that is total cost delivered.

I am always interested in the NG rates around the country, especially the delivery costs.
Those NG bills look as detailed as a cell phone billing.

We get a postcard that includes electric KW, water, sewer, NG and garbage....with 10% discount on NG and KW if paid within 30 days. Pay with one check to one entity.

I try to convey to the locals how good they have it here for utilities.....there are always whiners!

(Also, we keep most of our house at 74 degrees 24/7)

jumper

I don't consider myself rich but I cannot be bothered by DMW + heat costing less than a couple of Starbucks a day. Disconnecting gas is dumb in my opinion. At least I can cook when electricity goes dark and I may be disallowed to reconnect in the future.

flat_twin

JakeCK said:

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the savings if one can eliminate gas service altogether. For my area the base charge is now $57 I believe. Or will be shortly. While the puco(public utilities commission of Ohio) didn't approve what Columbia gas was asking for, they did approve a pretty steep increase. 

What this means is that even in the middle of July when I use maybe 2ccf, I'm still paying almost 60$. If you can decommission all of your gas appliances and shut off the gas entirely. There is that. 60$ can buy a good amount of electricity.

Or put another way, in my neck of the woods that is 684$/year, every year regardless of outside temp and system efficiency until prices go up again in energy savings.

That's interesting. Glad we aren't dinged like that especially during the summer when we only use 8 ccf per month. Our central Ohio cooperative gets their natural gas from Columbia. We pay a $15 monthly service fee plus actual usage. Price per ccf ranged from 1.60 to 2.00 this heating season.

JakeCK

Solid_Fuel_Man said:

@JakeCK can you have propane where NG is available? 

That $60 a month would push me away from gas too! I know some utilities (poco) do the same thing with electric meters. 

Thankfully, our POCO only charges us for 50kW of electricity if we use it or not. That way if you use 55kW a month, you pay for 55kw. If you use 40kW a month you pay for 50kW. They do this in lieu of a base charge, which I think is more than fair, even though our electric rate is now over $0.20 a kW......

No way I could get propane. Even if the city would permit it my lot is simply too small.

Tbh I used to hate propane, had it growing up and the costs so high my parents opted to use a wood stove, kerosene heaters and electric space heaters, and the house still always had a chill in it. Looking back they were penny wise, pound foolish. So many things could have gone wrong. If I were to live in that house today the furnace would have already been ripped out and replaced with a heat pump, with the benefit of having ac too which we did not have, solar panels all across the 20x60 barn, a hpwh, a propane insert in the fireplace, and a backup generator. Hell I might even be tempted to go off grid. Sadly that is never going to happen, not only because my mother doesn't have it anymore but it infact just caught fire before Christmas and was torn down about a month or so ago. The current owners were using wood just like we did to heat the house. While they were away for a few hours the chimney caught fire. They lost nearly everything. Luckily no one was hurt. The irony? The husband is a volunteer firefighter for the township. 

It was one of, if not the oldest house in that township too.

JakeCK

Sal Santamaura said:

...I'm sorry, I got a chuckle from your 73 therms. I can burn that in a little over a week...

That was the average. Our January 2023 bill shows 83 therms. As a result of Sempra (SoCalGas' parent company) manipulating transactions between its wholesale and retail holdings, the cost to us for those 83 therms was $334.66. Please note that I'm not whining; we're fortunate enough to just pay it and move on. But many who aren't ought be provided with adequate support so they don't suffer in the cold. While those in rigorous climates might chuckle at low ambient temperatures "only" in the 30s F, people around here who simply didn't have the money found their homes becoming close to that inside. Not healthy or appropriate.

Wow. That's expensive. January I used 193ccf, and it was over 100$ less. 

And yea I know what a house is like when it drops into the 30's. I've lived that. It's not fun. 

Sal Santamaura

JUGHNE said:

Sal, I am amazed that your summer use is only 7 therms per month, mine is 25 for WH & cooktop...

It's only the two of us here. And, after retirement, we have maintained our working life habits. That is, we use the cooktop and grill every once in a while in marathon sessions, then prepare our own bagged "frozen meals" for later consumption. A minute or two in the microwave and it's like the stuff was just cooked. With respect to water heating, as a photo hobbyist I happen to know what our "cold" water incoming temperature is. High of around 81 degrees F in August/September, low of 62 in December/January. So the heater doesn't need to pump many BTUs into it to make "hot."

JUGHNE said:

...But to stress the value of insulation, my Jan 2023 consumption was 99 total...-25....= 74 for heating...

There wasn't much choice in housing here 30 years ago, even less now. Unless one was/is fabulously wealthy, it's virtually impossible to purchase land and build a home of rational design. Thus, ours, like typical tract houses, is all show and very little substance. Developers seek to maximize how many lots they can fit per foot of street, so everything's narrow and deep. Other considerations/compromises led me to select one where the front faces east and the rear west. South side has but two small windows, and they're shaded in winter by the house next door. Of course, to my wife's delight, there are lots of windows front and back, making the place "open and bright." Uggh. Combined with ridiculously high ceilings, that means in a climate where rational design could achieve 100% solar heating 99.9999% of the time, we burn far too much methane. If things get electrified down the road, it'll still be a waste of energy, just what's incorporated into the solar equipment generating what we consume. As for insulation, there's a fair amount, not very well installed based on my visits to the attic, and the windows are double-pane, but door weatherstripping was a joke. Insulation improvements might help a bit, but I'm convinced one could have no insulation if things were designed/sited properly and still heat almost entirely on solar.

JUGHNE said:

...I try to convey to the locals how good they have it here for utilities.....there are always whiners! ...

Feel free to show them my posts and smile when you say "I told you so."

JUGHNE said:

...we keep most of our house at 74 degrees...

Go ahead, rub it in, why don't you.

JakeCK

jumper said:

I don't consider myself rich but I cannot be bothered by DMW + heat costing less than a couple of Starbucks a day. Disconnecting gas is dumb in my opinion. At least I can cook when electricity goes dark and I may be disallowed to reconnect in the future.

This house hasn't had a gas stove in decades as far as I can tell. There is a hole in the subfloor where I believe one used to go plus a capped T in the gas line below. But it's been capped for a very long time, long before I owned this house. And if/when I ever do buy a new stove it'll be an induction cooktop. No gas for me, to each their own, but I have heard of too many stories where a pilot gets knocked out and blows up the house, or a pet turns a knob and catches the house on fire(of course this is a good argument for why you never leave anything on the stove).

And no matter what anyone wants to believe the bottom line is NG is a finite resource. Eventually it'll run out, but long before it does the costs are going to skyrocket. When that happens who knows, but it will happen. I'd rather prepare for that long in advance, because guess what? labor isn't getting any cheaper.

JakeCK

flat_twin said:

JakeCK said:

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the savings if one can eliminate gas service altogether. For my area the base charge is now $57 I believe. Or will be shortly. While the puco(public utilities commission of Ohio) didn't approve what Columbia gas was asking for, they did approve a pretty steep increase. 

What this means is that even in the middle of July when I use maybe 2ccf, I'm still paying almost 60$. If you can decommission all of your gas appliances and shut off the gas entirely. There is that. 60$ can buy a good amount of electricity.

Or put another way, in my neck of the woods that is 684$/year, every year regardless of outside temp and system efficiency until prices go up again in energy savings.

That's interesting. Glad we aren't dinged like that especially during the summer when we only use 8 ccf per month. Our central Ohio cooperative gets their natural gas from Columbia. We pay a $15 monthly service fee plus actual usage. Price per ccf ranged from 1.60 to 2.00 this heating season.

https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2023/01/26/rate-hike-coming-for-columbia-gas-of-ohio-customers/69837142007/

In the pictures below you can see my fixed charges for this past month, Feb, and July of 22'. It doubled with my latest bill. I will actually be over $60 come this summer. I feel it is time to fully maximize the investment that is my 42 panel solar system.

March



February


July 22'

D107

Well, here's mine from northern Westchester....

JUGHNE

I suppose I have to show you mine. July and this January.

An actual postcard with hand applied stamp.

We got this billing system in the early 1980's. Adapted it as needed.

Sadly, we will have to "upgrade" to the type of billing info shown on your bills.

Info that no one cares about, it is only the bottom line that matters.

BTW, in 40+ years, here I did miss paying the bill on time and lost the discount....once.

Used to be that if a major user was about to lose the discount, the clerk would call them for a head's up.