Which fuel is cheapest to heat with?

Kaos

Colder climate, near me a quite large 1906 house that is heated with electric resistance, there is a 400A service to the house. Probably don't want to see the power bill though, but possible.

My air to water unit has a max draw of 25A, that is less than my welder. Not something that needs a service upgrade for most homes.

Sample of one, but I have a 10kW PV array at the cottage that is coming up on about 15 years. The output dropped a bit over that time but it has been zero maintaince since install. The cost is so low on these that if you have a surface you can put it on, it is almost cheaper than roofing.

Heat pumps are about the same maintaince as an AC unit. There is more electronics in there that could go wrong and troubleshooting is more challenging, but they are also surprisingly reliable. I have to maintain about a dozen mini splits and issues have been pretty rare. Biggest problems are with wall mounts and the drain clogging, not really a heat pump technology issue.

@ethicalpaul Geo offered a big advange about a decade ago as they cold work in cold climate. Now with vapor injection technology, lot of air source heat pumps run down to 0F without loosing capacity, so the cost of drilling those 1000' wells is simply not worth it. Geo is also more maintaince. I would say, residential geo, along with solar thermal, is pretty much dead.

There is some pretty interesting district geo coming out of oil drilling technology though:

https://eavor.com/technology/

hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1854452#Comment_1854452

Im not convinced a time will come when everyone on LI will be forced to go 100% electric?

If it did would you move, downsize, come up with an affordable solution?

These are questions all your neighbors will have also.

We just started on an 800 sq ft ADU (accessory dwelling unit)on our property, my son will get the 3600 sq ft home either now or later anyhow. ADUs are popular mow with the lack of affordable housing.

We like small homes, they need more room, and they make more $$ than we do.

Throw in free babysitting, what do they have to loose😉

With PV, an A2whp, some passive solar tight construction. I may even sneak in a small woodstove.

leonz

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1854290#Comment_1854290

If I had been financially able to invest in a VAnWert VA400 coal stoker boiler with a domestic coil in 1982 I would have done that and not bothered with a hand fired wood and coal boiler and I would still have have it 43 years later.

hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1854533#Comment_1854533

You mentioned wood burning boilers not meeting EPA requirements, how do coal fired boiler?

leonz

Hello Bob,

Anthracite coal boilers benefit from it being a high carbon low sulphur fuel. Western Sub Bituminous coal has a low sulphur content with a lower carbon content.

Eastern Anthracite coal burns with no smoke and Western Sub Bituminous coals produce little if any smoke when burned.

Eastern Bituminous coal has a high carbon content and a very high sulphur content with a higher content of toxic metals in its heavy dead ash and fly ash.