heating costs-hydro vs propane

[Jake]

ewfwf makes a point worth debating. Are people spending nearly the same amounts (in some cases). Keeping in mind, the capitol cost, the fuel price, maintenance, convenience, personal habits etc. If you only have to heat a portion of your house is centralized heat NG the best way?

Understand I am not siding with anyone just trying to stir constructive debate.

[ewfwf]

TXV: One point you may have missed is that I live out in the country. NO NG.

Oil has more than doubled in recent memory. Electricity has not. Most poorly built houses use a fossil fuel of some sort. If the "code" was actually turned into something meaningful to ensure contractors built energy efficient homes then any fuel would be of less use/cost.

As for electrical fires most are caused by people doing their own connections. Easier than hooking up your own gas fittings. And an electrical fire rarely causes a home to completely disappear, and it most certainly does even when a "competent licensed gas fitter" is used. I can take you to several, (many more than one) in Brampton that simply blew up.

"Heating directly with electricity is extremely inefficient" is a complete bare-faced lie. Any REAL engineer will tell you electric heating is 100% efficient. Everything going in is used. Also you need to do more research on the 30% to 40% efficiency of a power plant. Where do you people get your data????

Ontario generates electricity from various sources: about 26% from hydro (100% efficient) 37% from nuclear generation (>80% efficient), 29% from coal (bad and needs to be changed) and 7% from gas (high-efficiency >80%) and 1% from wind/solar (100% efficient and needs to increase dramatically).

My source for this information is from a close friend of mine who is a Prof. at RMC with an Engineering degree from Queens and a PHD in Nuclear Engineering and has done design work on the Candu reactors. (and lets not get off on an anti-nuclear tangent much of these anti-nuclear folks data is flawed also)

[57]

Jake: I agree. The point is that many factors come into play to perform the calculation.

- Cost of fuel is just one.
- Concern about the changeability of the fuel cost over time.
- TOU factors
- Amortized Capital cost of heating equipment
- Amortized Capital cost difference of home insulation/sealing
(bringing about lower capital (if new)/operating costs of the heating system.)
- Heating source efficiency
- % of home heated over time (zoning costs, operating costs)
- Amortized Maintenance Costs
- Convenience
- Comfort
- Danger concerns - fire vs "fast fire" (explosion).
- Noise
- Option for summer A/C.
- Etc.

Some people may put more value on one or more of the items above, thereby ruling out a (lower overall cost) alternative.

[ewfwf]

And thank you Mr. Moderator... my point exactly.

Everyone says "electric bad/expensive" that's only because we are willing to accept poorly built , poorly insulated cookie cutter homes then spend thousands on a heating plant to heat them.

Spend the money on a properly built/insulated home and electric is cleaner, safer (if people keep their hands out of it) and equally cost effective as many other heating sources and cheaper than some like oil or propane. Oohhh and I forgot to mention quiet.. you never know it's doing anything.

A typical heating plant for a home can run $10k. (furnace, ductwork, labour etc)

Baseboards are $49 each x however may you need based on heating assessment software.

That difference buys a lot of electricity.

One other thing I would like to point out just for interest sake, you don't have to have individual room thermostats either. I have installed a single touch screen thermostat in the centre of the home which controls all of my heat via relays. Works wonderfully well. (Mind you I am also called the local nerd, because I have a microprocessor on my sailboat that can phone me when the bilge gets to full or the air gets to damp, or there's smoke and a bunch of other things also.)

I built this house in 1998 and have never had to do any maintenance on any part of the system since the install. Now that's reliable... or as Toyota would say "that's epic reliablilty)

How much do you folks pay a month for electric AND fuel compared to my $156 for both?

And how much do you pay annually for maintenance compared to my $0.??

[txv]

Ontario generates electricity from various sources: about 26% from hydro (100% efficient) 37% from nuclear generation (>80% efficient), 29% from coal (bad and needs to be changed) and 7% from gas (high-efficiency >80%) and 1% from wind/solar (100% efficient and needs to increase dramatically).

The boilers for steam driven power plants could be 80% efficient (if well designed, maintained, etc - that's about the maximum for non-condensing boilers), but the steam cycle itself is generally no greater than 40%.

Nuclear, coal, and conventional power plants utilize steam engines to convert heat to kinetic energy as you probably know.

The generator which converts kinetic energy into electricity isn't 100% efficient either. You can also take off 5-10% to compensate for transformer and line losses.

The new peaking gas fired plants ontario is building use gas fired turbines (no steam involved), and they're around 30% efficient.

A couple of the larger plants in Ontario (portlands energy center for example) are combined cycle, meaning that the heat in the exhaust from the gas turbine is recovered and used to drive a conventional steam cycle plant in the same building.

Combined cycle plants are roughly 55% efficient.

As for wind, there are inherent losses in converting kinetic energy into electricity. (same goes for hydro)

There are also inherent losses in converting the electricity which wind turbines output into a form which is compatible with the grid - alternating current frequency and voltage varies as the wind speed changes. (same goes for solar)

[txv]

It's seems like ewfwf is hell bent on seeing the the residential hvac industry disappear.

All baseboard heaters can do is heat - no cooling, ventilation, humidification/dehumidification.

Comparing baseboards to a full hvac system is silly; it would be more reasonable to compare electric forced air to gas forced air.

If I wanted to heat a portion of a house, I would go for zoned hydronic or mini-split heatpumps.

Where electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels and the fuel of choice for new plants is gas anyway*, using resistance heaters is a losing proposition; over the life-cycle of a heating system, the cost of energy always exceeds the capital cost of the equipment.

*No new nuclear, coal or hydro station has been built in the last 15 years. At the rate things are going, no new nuclear will ever get built.

You would have to spend only $500 per year on electricity for heat to break even ($10 000 capital cost) over 20 years; most houses built prior to the mid 90s would cost will in excess of $1500 per year if they were all electric.

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[/QUOTE]

I built this house in 1998 and have never had to do any maintenance on any part of the system since the install. Now that's reliable... or as Toyota would say "that's epic reliablilty)

How much do you folks pay a month for electric AND fuel compared to my $156 for both?

That's all fine and good for you.

The majority of houses in Ontario were built before 1990; as you know, it's nearly impossible to bring the efficiency level of an older home built with 2x4 studs up to modern standards without spending tens of thousands of dollars.

Very few are lucky (or unlucky, considering how houses are built these days -> glue, sawdust, vinyl, pex pipe ) enough to live in new builds

Oil has more than doubled in recent memory. Electricity has not. Most poorly built houses use a fossil fuel of some sort. If the "code" was actually turned into something meaningful to ensure contractors built energy efficient homes then any fuel would be of less use/cost.

Out in the country electricity is a option worth considering (especially if a cold climate heatpump is involved) due to the cost of oil and propane.

In the city, not so much.

[ewfwf]

This is my last post on this board...

HVAC will probably be severely reduced in coming years as fossil fuels will become to expensive and will be replaced by electric energy. New batteries have already been developed which will reduce the cost of electric vehicles and dramatically improve their range.

The world will change and electric will be the way of the future.

[txv]

Everything which consumes energy will be reduced in the coming years, because the all of the new powerplants are gas fired anyway.

In the meantime, might as well take advantage of what's available (as efficiently as possible to get the best bang for the buck) - whatever we don't use will be burned up by the chinese anyway.

[Davee]

Is there a good source for price trends on propane for Ontario

What is expected direction with natural gas dropping like a stone ?

I have 3000 litre propane requirement except I have found I can save about $300 annually using electric baseboard heaters in chosen rooms on off peak power & about breakeven on mid peak. Guaranteed price on propane was high last winter . probably better on when delivered price but with commitment (Tank) from supplier how good would the time of delivery pricing be?

I have a spreadsheet to compare delivered to house pricing comparisons which is good if you use realistic efficiency - not quoted BS#'s My free standing direct vent gas fireplace is probably 70% & HWT 55% when set at high temperature
Can't seem to post here??

[txv]

I think propane is derived from oil, so the price trend should be similar.

Gas is really cheap now and has got to bottom out at some point, then rise.

Factors which may increase the price of nat gas:
- Tar sands
- Coal power phase out in favour of gas
- Declining conventional production of existing wells

Factors which may keep price of nat gas low:
- Weak economy
- (Temporary?) shale production glut

[wawajake]

New here live , near Sault Ste Marie , Ontario Canada but rural so no natural gas service.
Reading this 5 page thread now has me worried I made the worng decision.
My well insulated 1994 bungalow home was heated with a interior wood fired boiler , but I had as backup electric baseboard ( actually four wall mount units) . I found us heating the home 30% with wood and 70% with electric heat. Also have electric water heater.
This year the woodboiler gasped its last life so need replacement for next winter, Interior Wood boilers are very rare, and we like the radiant water heat (baseboards) and soon retiring . So we decided to go all out and get a combi boiler propane fired that would utilize our already in place water rads in every room (three zones) But now I am worried that propane cost is far higher than I anticipated.
The Laars Mascot II Combi boiler will heat the house and the domestic water, so no more electric water heater, but the high efficency (95%) unit being installed next month is $12,000 . I am wondering if I will be sorry I made the choice . Maybe I can mitigate some of the costs of propane by only taking delivery of propane in summer at lower rates (will have 500 gal tank leased installed behind my house) Then maybe I should use the electric heat when time of use rates are their best so that one tank of propane gets me thru the winter.
Am I agonizing over it too much !!! Did I make a mistake ?? Any guesses howe much propane I will use each year (1000 sq ft , only two people )

[Davee]

With your high efficiency unit You should be fine. I have a spreadsheet for comparing & used it to prove that off peak power is cheaper than propane at about 60% efficency . But just barely!
I have looked at upgrading but the cost is prohibitive until my current unit dies

[wawajake]

Thanks Davee. I hope your right. I do see how it is very hard to find out posted propane costs in Ontario. It is sort of like trying to find out the secret handshake of The Freemasons
Any other thoughts from other posters experience?

[Jake]

I had read that Canadian propane prices are set in Texas. With that said there are a few places online that will show you the spot prices for propane.

Here is one I am looking at right now.

http://205.254.135.7/dnav/pet/hist/L...RS_NUS_DPG&f=W

I see it going up modestly since 2002 from 1.12 to 2.86 last month. About 10% per year if my math is right.

[Darsam32]

Did you look at the new mini split units imho perfect for a bungalow,I am sure the average low temperature in Wawa is a little colder than Orangeville but my Mits has no trouble keeping my house warm in the winter and cool in the summer.