How does electric heat compare to gas heat at today's prices.
 

In Southwest Ohio, I am currently paying about 1.01 per CCF for natural
gas and about .0704 per kWH for electricity, and I am looking at a
house to buy that has an old Williamsom electric furnace and heat pump.
With the approximate doubling of the cost of natural gas in the last
two years, I am wondering how the cost of electricity now compares to
natural gas. The cost figures I have used include the various riders
and other miscellanous charges that are part of both bills. Therefore,
I would like to how electricity compares to gas at these prices. The
house is a good deal in other ways, and I am still wondering if gas is
significantly cheaper than electricity.

Thanks,

MD

Mark wrote:
In Southwest Ohio, I am currently paying about 1.01 per CCF for
natural gas and about .0704 per kWH for electricity, and I am looking
at a house to buy that has an old Williamsom electric furnace and
heat pump. With the approximate doubling of the cost of natural gas
in the last two years, I am wondering how the cost of electricity now
compares to natural gas. The cost figures I have used include the
various riders and other miscellanous charges that are part of both
bills. Therefore, I would like to how electricity compares to gas at
these prices. The house is a good deal in other ways, and I am still
wondering if gas is significantly cheaper than electricity.

Virtually everywhere in the U.S. gas is still cheaper than electricity,
especially if you compare the energy efficiency of electric furnaces to 80%
gas furnaces. Consider a dual-fuel system for your new house - gas furnace
with heat pump.

Virtually everywhere in the U.S. gas is still cheaper than electricity
especially if you compare the energy efficiency of electric furnaces
to 80%
gas furnaces. Consider a dual-fuel system for your new house - gas
furnace
with heat pump.

Travis,

Do you have any figures as to what the difference is at
current prices.
Thanks,

MD

Mark writes:

Do you have any figures as to what the difference is at
current prices.

Historically the prices are about 3:1 for cost of electric radiant heat vs
utility natural gas. Of course this fluctuates over time with markets, and
regionally with local utilities. Electric (radiant) heat is absurdly
expensive.

Mark wrote:
Do you have any figures as to what the difference is at
current prices.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...heets/cb5.html

'In Southwest Ohio, I am currently paying about 1.01 per CCF for natural
gas and about .0704 per kWH for electricity, and I am looking at a house
to buy that has an old Williamsom electric furnace and heat pump. With
the approximate doubling of the cost of natural gas in the last two
years, I am wondering how the cost of electricity now compares to
natural gas. The cost figures I have used include the various riders and
other miscellanous charges that are part of both bills. Therefore, I
would like to how electricity compares to gas at these prices. The house
is a good deal in other ways, and I am still wondering if gas is
significantly cheaper than electricity.
Thanks,
MD'

Id contact each utility company, gas and electric in your area...and
have THEM convince you with documentation/calculations which is best to
go with. Here in Northern Illinois based on Electric prices...you are
insane if you go with electric. I have an 1100 sq.ft. home and my gas
bill for Dec. was $44.00 . (i keep it at 70 f. when im home, 68 f when
im in bed, and 50 f . when im not home ...although the coldest its ever
gotton in the house when im not home is 56 f. over and 8 hr period when
its 0 f. outside).

"Hello Friend"

Id contact each utility company, gas and electric in your area...and
have THEM convince you with documentation/calculations which is best to
go with.

In general, someone else doing your work for you will only convince you of
what will make them the most money.

1 kilowatt-hour = 3412.142 BTU
1 Therm = 100,000.4 BTU

Some bills charge you for therms, ie, heating value of gas actually
delivered to the house. Make sure to include that.

Derate the K-watts/BTU's/Therms by the general efficiencies of the furnace.

Electric - generally close to 100%, however I'd use 95-100% or so depending
on the condition of the unit.
Gas - generally less than 80%. 70% if older, 90+% if very new and well
installed.

The rest of the info you need is on your utility bill and the faceplate of
the furnaces. This will get you in the ballpark.

I have a newer 90,000 btu furnace running at about 90%.

The other inefficiencies of what actually gets transferred to the house
through your ventilation will be present in both systems, so can be ignored.


- Nate

"Travis Jordan"

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...heets/cb5.html

Nice article - until I read this:

Central heating, heat pump - 200+ [Efficiency (%)]

Damn - that puppy would probably pay for itself and set you up in the
business of selling power back to the utility company in no time!


- Nate

"Historically the prices are about 3:1 for cost of electric radiant
heat vs utility natural gas. Of course this fluctuates over time with
markets, and regionally with local utilities. Electric (radiant) heat
is absurdly expensive."

Yes, but this house has a heat pump. You have to read through it a
couple of times to get it. He wants to know how a heat pump vs gas
furnace compares at todays natural gas prices, I think.

Nate wrote:

"Travis Jordan"

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...heets/cb5.html

Nice article - until I read this:

Central heating, heat pump - 200+ [Efficiency (%)]

Damn - that puppy would probably pay for itself and set you up in the
business of selling power back to the utility company in no time!

Sorry, but it only deloivers heat energy, not electricity.

No Heat Pumps are really more than 100% efficient in terms of heat energy
delivered divided by electrical energy consumed. They do this by taking
in heat from outside. So you're not creating energy, you're just moving
some. Still the moved energy is still delivered inside, so it's worth
while to count.


John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Ask me about joining the NRA.

On 2005-01-14, Nate wrote:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...heets/cb5.html

Nice article - until I read this:

Central heating, heat pump - 200+ [Efficiency (%)]

That's perfectly correct, as I understand it. The Efficiency of a
heating system is presumably (Heat Captured)/(Input Energy). Since a
heat pump can move more than 1 KWh of heat using 1 KWh of electricity,
it will have an efficiency of over 100%.

Cheers, Wayne

Greg wrote:

Heat pumps are great if it really doesn't get very cold where you live. They
are pretty popular in south Georgia and north Florida

Or ground loop systems can effectively extend the range at the cost of
somewhat higher installation cost and (some say) maintenance although
the system I had has been no more trouble-prone than any other of
equivalent quality I'm aware of.

Heat pumps are great if it really doesn't get very cold where you live. They
are pretty popular in south Georgia and north Florida

I would like to thank everyone for their help. It has been very
useful.

MD

I live in Nebraska, 2400 sq ft ranch, 16 seer two stage heat pump/natural
gas furnace, turn down the temp at night to 67 during the day 69 till
3PM...... then 73 till 10:30 PM, weekends ...24/7...73 degs. never had a gas
and electric bill combined more than $168 a month during the winter...Heat
pump maintains 73 deg's @ 17 deg's outside temp, 16 deg's outside temp....
nat gas furnace kicks in.

Tom
"Mark" wrote in message
oups.com...
Virtually everywhere in the U.S. gas is still cheaper than electricity
especially if you compare the energy efficiency of electric furnaces
to 80%
gas furnaces. Consider a dual-fuel system for your new house - gas
furnace
with heat pump.

Travis,

Do you have any figures as to what the difference is at
current prices.
Thanks,

MD

Id contact each utility company, gas and electric in your area...and
have THEM convince you with documentation/calculations which is best to
go with.

'In general, someone else doing your work for you will only convince you
of what will make them the most money.'

To be sure youre getting the correct story from each Utility
Company...you take what they give you by way of calculations,
comparisons, etc...and have it verfied by a non biased entity. Id have
the Utilities provide thier info, then, go about doing your homework to
see which (if either) is credible.

Mark wrote:
In Southwest Ohio, I am currently paying about 1.01 per CCF for
natural gas and about .0704 per kWH for electricity, and I am looking
at a house to buy that has an old Williamsom electric furnace and
heat pump. With the approximate doubling of the cost of natural gas
in the last two years, I am wondering how the cost of electricity now
compares to natural gas. The cost figures I have used include the
various riders and other miscellanous charges that are part of both
bills. Therefore, I would like to how electricity compares to gas at
these prices. The house is a good deal in other ways, and I am still
wondering if gas is significantly cheaper than electricity.

Thanks,

MD

Your electric power company probably uses natural gas to generate
electricity, losing some significant percentage of the energy during the
conversion and transmission.

Is there anything to think about? Really?

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:44:52 -0700, "Nate" wrote:


"Hello Friend"

Id contact each utility company, gas and electric in your area...and
have THEM convince you with documentation/calculations which is best to
go with.

In general, someone else doing your work for you will only convince you of
what will make them the most money.

1 kilowatt-hour = 3412.142 BTU
1 Therm = 100,000.4 BTU

Some bills charge you for therms, ie, heating value of gas actually
delivered to the house. Make sure to include that.

Derate the K-watts/BTU's/Therms by the general efficiencies of the furnace.

Electric - generally close to 100%, however I'd use 95-100% or so depending
on the condition of the unit.

All electric heaters have 100 % efficiency . Like all electric
appliances if heating is the wanted energy, That includes your fridge
with the door open.

Vlad

Gas - generally less than 80%. 70% if older, 90+% if very new and well
installed.

The rest of the info you need is on your utility bill and the faceplate of
the furnaces. This will get you in the ballpark.

I have a newer 90,000 btu furnace running at about 90%.

The other inefficiencies of what actually gets transferred to the house
through your ventilation will be present in both systems, so can be ignored.


- Nate

Go gas if you possibly can!
100 CCF of natural gas is approx 100,000 BTU of heat. assuming convential
equipment burning at 80% efficiency you'll recover 80,000 BTU for your $1.01
spent. 1 kWh of electricity will provide 3413BTU (at 100% efficiency) so
you'll need about 23.4 kWh of electricity at a cost of $1.65 to get the same
net 80,000 BTU of heat so your electricity cost for heating will be about
163% of the cost for nateral gas w/ a conventional (non condensing) furnace
or boiler. With a high efficiency (say 90%) condensing natural gas system
the differance is closer to 184%. And this is w/ a favorable electric rate!
it would be worse at say 0.09/kWh or even higher, as it is in the North East
US. If propane is used instead, a gallon of propane is about 92,000 BTU and
the efficiencies of 80-90% still apply, so cost differance to electricity
may be less (depending on your propane prices) but I'd guess propane's still
a much better deal. Heating oil (140,000 BTU/ gallon & 82-85% efficiency) is
another potential opton perhaps similar in price to natural gas, but I'd
guess a lot less common in SW OH than New England. Note too, gas is cheaper
to heat hot water and to dry cloths with and nicer to cook with in addition
to cheaper to heat with, however indood gas lighting went out of style in
the early 20th C!


"Mark" wrote in message
oups.com...
In Southwest Ohio, I am currently paying about 1.01 per CCF for natural
gas and about .0704 per kWH for electricity, and I am looking at a
house to buy that has an old Williamsom electric furnace and heat pump.
With the approximate doubling of the cost of natural gas in the last
two years, I am wondering how the cost of electricity now compares to
natural gas. The cost figures I have used include the various riders
and other miscellanous charges that are part of both bills. Therefore,
I would like to how electricity compares to gas at these prices. The
house is a good deal in other ways, and I am still wondering if gas is
significantly cheaper than electricity.

Thanks,

MD