Expected Heating cost for attached Northeast 3 family home

Branimal - FYI $450-600/mo in winter heating gas bills for a poorly insulated multifamily property in NYC is not uncommon from my experience. It'll probably be even higher if we weren't having a fairly mild winter here in NYC this year.

Just to give you some context, my parents have a 100 year old detached house in the city; 2 story and 1200 qsft per floor. Similar to your's; it has no insulation, original windows, and steam heat. Years ago it cost $5500/year avg in oil bills to heat the house. Converted it to gas and a new steam boiler and it dropped to ~$2700/year. And this was setting the thermostat at just over 60 degrees during the winter. Then we re-caulked the windows and added R45 attic insulation and the bill dropped just over $2000 a year with the thermostat set to a much more comfortable 68 degrees. Your biggest bang for the buck will be caulking/insulating the windows as much as you can during the winter to prevent air leaks and adding insulation to the roof if you have a crawl space. I also tried insulating the exposed steam pipes in the basement but it only made a minimal difference in the bill and we ended up with a freezing basement. At the end we removed some of the pipe insulation on the return pipe to help keep the basement warmer.

Similarly I own a 100 year old slightly smaller un-insulated semi-detached house in NYC where the tenants controlled the thermostat and the gas bill was roughly $600/mo last year during the winter.

housefix said:

Branimal - FYI $450-600/mo in winter heating gas bills for a poorly insulated multifamily property in NYC is not uncommon from my experience. It'll probably be even higher if we weren't having a fairly mild winter here in NYC this year.

Just to give you some context, my parents have a 100 year old detached house in the city; 2 story and 1200 qsft per floor. Similar to your's; it has no insulation, original windows, and steam heat. Years ago it cost $5500/year avg in oil bills to heat the house. Converted it to gas and a new steam boiler and it dropped to ~$2700/year. And this was setting the thermostat at just over 60 degrees during the winter. Then we re-caulked the windows and added R45 attic insulation and the bill dropped just over $2000 a year with the thermostat set to a much more comfortable 68 degrees. Your biggest bang for the buck will be caulking/insulating the windows as much as you can during the winter to prevent air leaks and adding insulation to the roof if you have a crawl space. I also tried insulating the exposed steam pipes in the basement but it only made a minimal difference in the bill and we ended up with a freezing basement. At the end we removed some of the pipe insulation on the return pipe to help keep the basement warmer.

Similarly I own a 100 year old slightly smaller un-insulated semi-detached house in NYC where the tenants controlled the thermostat and the gas bill was roughly $600/mo last year during the winter.

that is not the best thing to do i would use a good weatherstripping like this https://thecraftsmanblog.com/how-to-install-spring-bronze-weatherstripping/
to keep the windows functional then add a good storm window to help even more do not make the mistake of replacing them if you properly maintain the they could be just as energy efferent as new and last as long as the steam system itself

@luketheplumber

Interesting tip for the weatherstripping, I'll have to check it out.. never heard of spring bronze. Parents actually just caulked the edges of the glass panes and installed the thin window film/insulation kits in the winter. Its cheap and it works, but its definitely a pain to put on and take off yearly.

Some people tight fit styrofoam in window frame. But same as with heavy curtains inside air moisture condenses on cold window and wood framing rots long term.

Closing curtains or pulling down shades DOES help stop IR radient heat losses. One morning when it was -10 deg dad opened a large window shade. In ~ 15 seconds my skin felt the cold and I was a long ways from window. Told him to close shade and in ~ 15 sec my skin felt warmer

Brooklyn also, 6 family, 3 stories brick, 28 radiators. Building is over 100 years old. One pipe steam. 45 windows about 20 years old. WM EG-75. Thermostat is set to 70/72. building 25x68

My gas bill for the 31 day period from 12/18/18 - 1/18/19 I used 93.23 therms and paid $50 (because they charge me the same amount every month and I use very little gas in the summer -- indirect hot water heater attached to my boiler. The bill does say the gas charges that month were $91.11. My house is pretty near Brooklyn. It is 1150 square feet, with downstairs radiant slab at grade and upstairs is very long baseboards. I heat the upstairs to 68F and the downstairs to 69F. I tried using setbacks, but gave that up. It makes no sense for radiant slab at grade, and the outdoor reset is so tight that it takes over four hours to recover from a 3 degree setback in the baseboard zone.

Is the 347 therms for all three units, or just yours? If yours is for three 20x60 units, it is only a little more gas than I use for my one and only unit, a small cape-cod house with pretty good insulation, and in a location that cannot be very different from Brooklyn. I am near Red Bank, NJ, if you want to look it up.