Disappointed w/ my heating bill for 1st yr burner.

[Seasoned Oak]

Good idea on the sunroom, but it is a part of our kitchen with a breakfast bar pass through, not really feasible. Maybe I can think up some way of measuring if the 3rd zone in the sunroom is kicking on or not.

My sunroom would suck heat out of the house all night long when i used to keep the door open in winter. I was shocked at how much less fuel i used when i started closing the door at night. I swear it took 3 times more heat at night than it gave during the day and it gives a lot during sunny days.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

since i started burning wood i turned my furnace off completely. Still iks me to have to pay the $10 service fee every month just to be hooked up even if im not using any gas.
Guess if i was you i'd start setting an alarm and getting up in the middle of the night to stoke the stove, course im cheap like that.

 

[nola mike]

I can't see the original bill, but if it's anything like mine, there's a ton of charges on there that are fixed (my gas bill also has water and trash, + fees just for being hooked up). So a 50% reduction in the bill for me translates to a much bigger reduction in gas use. And I'm not sure how the price of NG this year compares to last. It's also difficult to compare 1 month this year to 1 month last. I've posted this elsewhere in the past, but you can see how many degree heating days you had in 11/12, and figure out the number of CCFs used per degree heating day. Compare to this year.

 

[Oregon aloha]

Lucky your not on propane. I save $12-$1500 a year by burning wood and still spend about $600 a year to cook and heat water with a tankless. Also another $1000 a year to pump water and have lights. My savings can pay for a wood stove very rapidly.

Your gas bill wasn't high enough to begin with to save the money that quicky. A 50% reduction is huge you should feel good about it.Now when the price of gas goes up you only have to pay half the increase instead of the whole thing.

 

[eclecticcottage]

What if you turn off the boiler for a few days as a test, to see if it really does stay warm without it. It might be kicking on while you're not home, sleeping, etc.

 

[Bster13]

The bill is in the first post. The calculated savings are based off the CCFs used, not the $.

I can't see the original bill, but if it's anything like mine, there's a ton of charges on there that are fixed (my gas bill also has water and trash, + fees just for being hooked up). So a 50% reduction in the bill for me translates to a much bigger reduction in gas use. And I'm not sure how the price of NG this year compares to last. It's also difficult to compare 1 month this year to 1 month last. I've posted this elsewhere in the past, but you can see how many degree heating days you had in 11/12, and figure out the number of CCFs used per degree heating day. Compare to this year.

 

[trophyhill]

I have electric baseboard heat in my home. my electric bill jumped from 30-40 bucks a month up until October to $110 on the first of November. after using my wood burning stove a little over half a month in November my electric bill for this month dropped to $79. I anticipate an electric bill for the month of December below $50. I love my stove.

 

[Bster13]

In any event, 2 of 3 zones are not kicking on, it's the sunroom. I guess I can take some comfort in knowing right now we are hitting January's average low (19F) during this cold snap. I always figured the NG would kick on during the coldest times.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

In any event, 2 of 3 zones are not kicking on, it's the sunroom. I guess I can take some comfort in knowing right now we are hitting January's average low (19F) during this cold snap. I always figured the NG would kick on during the coldest times.

I would turn that sunroom tstat way down.Your only losing all the heat you pump in there anyway. Get a programmable tstat and have it go up just before you get up in the morning. IT will warm up fast as the sun comes up.

 

[mass_burner]

I would turn that sunroom tstat way down.Your only losing all the heat you pump in there anyway. Get a programmable tstat and have it go up just before you get up in the morning. IT will warm up fast as the sun comes up.

Yes, and find a way to allow it to be closed down in the winter.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Most likely your only paying about $25 or less for the hot water and cooking stove. So the rest is all going to heat ONE room.
$75 a month to heat one room is crazy.

 

[Bster13]

Does putting up the clear film over the windows with the heat gun do much?

 

[mass_burner]

Does putting up the clear film over the windows with the heat gun do much?

didn't work for me. i could feel the cold air coming right through it. Luckily, my 60 yr old single pane windows came with the option of adding a storm pane on both sides of the window. So I just had to get extra panes cut and now I have triple pane.

 

[Hoozie]

Can you put some heavy-ish curtains in the window thing to the sunroom? Close at night, open during the day?

 

[Bster13]

I talked about insulated curtains with the wife and she said she'd rather put the $ towards new windows if we're eventually going to do them anyway and I can't say I disagree..

 

[Bster13]

If my house is poorly insulated with sub-par windows.... would cracking open the window in my stove/living room right next to the stove possibly help here? My stove/living room is 76-78F and then just outside that is 68F-69F, then it drops 2 or so degrees the farther out you go every room. I wonder if my house is drawing in cold air from the rest of the leaky house?

 

[chken]

First, I'd wait another month to see how the bill comes out. Maybe your house sitter used a lot more heat than you thought!

Let's say she used about 5ccf per day for 4 cold days or 20ccf of your month's total 67. So, without her usage, you used about 47 or 1.5ccf a day.

Second, you are paying more per unit ccf the less you use. Last year, you paid $1.4/ccf, where as now, you're paying $1.57/ccf. That's 11% more.

Third, you were only paying around $1400 for heat last winter, which is pretty low compared to us oil users in Maine. The average oil burning house here uses about 800 to 1000 gallons a winter which at about $3.50 a gallon works out to some ungodly number. So, you were starting out from a relatively low cost to begin with, which means your savings are not going to be as dramatic.

Remedies. I would give serious consideration to trading your labor-intensive stove with fan setup for an efficient NG burner. Think of all the labor you'd save. You're on pace to save about $800 in NG, but at the expense of your labor, the cost of wood, etc. The alternative is to really think about how to curtain off that sunroom. Is it double-paned or single-paned?

 

[nola mike]

Your mean temps aren't comparable to last year. If you extrapolate the mean temps and gas use (and making a lot of assumptions), you could have expected to use about 5.6 ccf/day last month without the stove. If you take out the 4 days for thanksgiving (at 5.6/d=23 ccf--thanksgiving was cold, so it was probably more than that), you're looking at averaging 1.5 ccf/day last month while you were home, or somewhere around 1/4 of what you would have used. Keep us updated on how this month plays out.

EDIT: Chken beat me to some of it, but many of us don't use the stove for the money savings anyway.

 

[DMbekus]

I cant help but to chime in, only because my avatar speaks to the topic. I have a big house, a regular stove and was pleased to reduce oil costs 50%. Not counting labor (if I did, I'd go broke ) my pay back is less then 2 years. But my initial costs are much higher.
If the home is poorly insulated (bad windows, doors, leaks) you'll get more bang for your buck and comfort by putting your money and effort into correcting the home.

 

[Bster13]

Well a little update.

Went away for a week for the holidays with the pet sitter here burning up the NG (necessary evil) and when we got home the wife said "Hey, what if u just humor me and we try not using any fans?"

I told her the extremities of the house will be colder and she said "I don't care, I hate the blowing air at my ankles and the constant sound from the fans, plus tripping over them in the doorways."

And so I turns the thermostat in the sunroom down to 55F and it sits at ~58F most of the time, but that zone is not kicking on. The rest of the house is normal (76-78F in the living room, 67-68F in adjacent dining room and hallway to the bedrooms, and 64-66F in the master bedroom.) so I guess that works for me!

I wanted to thank the collective for working through things in this thread. My sunroom clearly is not the ray of sunshine for my house.

 

[bluedogz]

That is great to hear! I've had to work out some little kinks here and there but still enjoyed a HUGE usage drop right upon installing the 30... glad the gang helped steer you right.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Well a little update.

Went away for a week for the holidays with the pet sitter here burning up the NG (necessary evil) and when we got home the wife said "Hey, what if u just humor me and we try not using any fans?"

Every time the subject of fans in the doorways comes up ,i think ,that wont last long.Eventually you will figure out that if you do really need the fans you will hide them somewhere.

 

[Bster13]

So where would u hide them? Mine are hidden in the closet now haha.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

So where would u hide them? Mine are hidden in the closet now haha.

Mine blows up thru a floor vent in the living room floor.Stove is in the basement. Its visible in the basement but i could hide it in between the floor joists if i used my finished basement more often. If my stove were on the living floor i would find places where they could go in the wall or thru a closet. The "fan in the doorway" gets old fast.

 

[bluedogz]

I have two of these little guys tucked in nooks across from critical doorways... never tripped over 'em yet...
http://www.amazon.com/Lasko-4000-St...UTF8&qid=1388247726&sr=8-5&keywords=tower+fan