Who gets excited to see their energy bills?

[ChadMc]

There’s many reason why I have a stove and love firewood but heating your house with it and seeing the savings is pretty darn sweet. We had a cold and snowy last month and it’s snowing now as I type this. Way different then last winter. Our neighbor with almost the identical house as ours had a $370 energy/gas bill!! Ours was $79!! We both have natural gas and forced air heat. I may have run my A few times on a cold morning to bring the house up to temperature. I’m guessing I save $600-$800 a winter. As we all know it’s a lot of work but I love it!

 

[SpaceBus]

Ours is creeping up from adding laundry and some other stuff, but yeah I don't mind. Especially with the cookstove preheating the domestic hot water. I suspect part of the creeping up is due to the water coil in my cookstove getting gunked up. I'll have to scrape it clean next time the stove goes cool.

 

[GENECOP]

Went from $1000 per month to zero...only cost me $12,000 to to get there..

 

[brenndatomu]

Went from $1000 per month to zero...only cost me $12,000 to to get there..

That's only a 2 year ROI though, no?

 

[Das Jugghead]

We went from $350-$400 a month for gas to roughly $20-$28 a month. Gas hot water heater and a teenage son are responsible for most of that - although I now set the timer and shut the hot water off after 15 minutes.

Gas company has been out to inspect the meter several times to see if we somehow bypassed it. The last time they were out two guys showed up with two trucks and a brand new meter. I walked outside to talk with the guys and they told me something was wrong with my gas meter and they were going to replace it.

Gas company employee 1: Between you and me did you bypass the meter?

Me: I did not.

Gas company employee 2 scratches his head: That doesn't make any sense

Gas company employee 1: You're going to be without heat for a few minutes while we swap this old meter out with the new one.

Me: That's not a problem for us - we heat with wood.

Gas company employees:

Me:

Gas company employees:

Me: You wanna come inside and see my stove - it's really quite the little amazing piece of equipment.

Gas company employees : <gruffly> NO

They picked up the replacement meter and marched back to their trucks.

 

[GENECOP]

That's only a 2 year ROI though, no?

3-4 months a year during the NY heating season...If I factor in my labor managing all the wood every winter, I come to the conclusion that I’m not that bright ..LOL
while you might save some money over many many years, for the most part I realize I’m doing it because I enjoy it..

 

[St. Coemgen]

I harvest some of my one wood, but I must buy most of it. The wood costs me about $500 a year (assuming heating for 6 months, that is about $85 a month) .

We have electric heaters in use for early spring and autumn when loading a wood stove would not make sense to simply notch up the rooms by a few degrees.

We have no gas lines. So heating by wood or electric is the only option.

In the end our monthly electrical bill (including spring and autumn heating at high wattage) is still only about $30 a month (and that includes cloth washer, fridge, the dish washer, the water heater, the lights, the computers, etc. etc. etc.). Which shows that heating can be a really huge cost on your electric bill if you heat only be electric (which we do not).

Meanwhile, I know some others here where I live, having a $1200 a month bill from gas and electric heating + accessories. I simply find that shocking..... And unnecessary.

 

[EbS-P]

I think I save about 10 KWH (we have a decent heat pump) a day or about 40$ a month if the temps don’t deviate to far from average. Last bill was 108$, includes 14 $ service fee and 7% sales tax.

Have not burned much this month as I have started running out of dry wood. First pic is mostly wood heat second is mostly heat pump. Low consumption days in February we burned a load or two in the stove.
House is completely electric. Family of six with 4 boys under 10. Duke has about 50% carbon free power. Mostly Nuclear in that mixture. With cheapish power and mild climate I probably won’t ever be as excited as the OP but I like knowing Duke isn’t getting any extra money from me. Maybe I should be more excited
Evan

 

[Highbeam]

If you get a thrill from the monthly power bill you would really enjoy a power monitor that provides constant flow and daily cumulative consumption. You can see how a load of laundry is huge. How refrigerators use hardly anything.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

I pay around $160 for electric every month, most of that being my hot tub, a freezer and 2 refrigerators and electric water heater. I figure i save $150-$200ma month on my gas bill by heating entirely with wood all winter. Pains me to pay the $10 a month just to have the gas service . I keep eyeing solar to help trim that electric side of the bill down.

 

[NickW]

I pay around $160 for electric every month, most of that being my hot tub, a freezer and 2 refrigerators and electric water heater. I figure i save $150-$200ma month on my gas bill by heating entirely with wood all winter. Pains me to pay the $10 a month just to have the gas service . I keep eyeing solar to help trim that electric side of the bill down.

Solar in WI is great in summer, not so much Nov - Jan. Our house is all electric (water heater, 2 fridges, 2 upright freezers, hot tub, electric baseboards, window ac). Summer bill is around $50, Dec was almost $300 (lots of Xmas lighlts), Jan was $205.

A better angle on the roof would help, we only have a 4 pitch. We do use a roof rake to clean them. Arch Electric over in Plymouth is a good place to deal with. If you do anything with them, use me for a reference and I'll get a little kickback.

 

[Gearhead660]

I don't get excited to see the energy bill, but I do enjoy glancing at the LP tank and knowing I don't need to call to have it filled...or deal with those bills.

 

[peakbagger]

Except for my monthly connection fee I have not bought any electric power for six years due to net metering. My surplus credit is creeping up so I heat my house with a minisplit on days over 20F. I dont use gas or propane, but I did buy 200 gallons of heating oil after 6 years or not buying any. So the only utility bills are a land line and internet service.

Yes I do battle snow. I have three arrays and my roof array is on a second floor shallow pitch roof. Unless I get a ladder out I cant rake it except for the bottom edge. Yesterday that array was almost entirely clear with just a 2" strip of snow along the bottom of the 4 upper panels. Despite bright blue skies I barely got any production. I can get to my other two arrays with a snow brush pretty easy and they were banging out the KW. 10 F and bright blue skis and they still put out over nameplate despite being over 10 years old on occasion due to an adjustable angle and extra light reflected on them from the snow. Days are still short so I make more in late spring and fall but still nice to see a good day of production.

 

[BigJ273]

I used to get excited. But then realized I prob spend what I save on chainsaw parts, gas for saw, oil for saw, gas for splitter, etc etc......however burning wood is something u can’t beat. I think initially most people get into it for the “savings” and then realize it becomes quite the obsession.

 

[NickW]

No obsession here. I COULD STOP IF I WANTED TO!

 

[brenndatomu]

I used to get excited. But then realized I prob spend what I save on chainsaw parts, gas for saw, oil for saw, gas for splitter, etc etc......however burning wood is something u can’t beat. I think initially most people get into it for the “savings” and then realize it becomes quite the obsession.

But those chainsaws, splitter, etc, will still be worth something in the end...unlike the gas or oil most heat with...use it once, then its worthless

 

[Caw]

No obsession here. I COULD STOP IF I WANTED TO!

Suuuuuuuure you could

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

I just think of those people in texas freezing their butts off hoping power comes back on before they freeze to death. I like gazing at my wood piles knowing that will NEVER be me if the power goes out here in the dead of winter

 

[Caw]

I just think of those people in texas freezing their butts off hoping power comes back on before they freeze to death. I like gazing at my wood piles knowing that will NEVER be me if the power goes out here in the dead of winter

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first read the stories from Texas.

Now unfortunately for me I have in insert so we rely on the blower and one tower fan to get good convection going through the house but the insert protrudes a good 8 inches so we still get some heat off it in a power outage. We would be living in the stove room/bedrooms if it were a long term outage but we wouldn't be cold!

A small generator from HD or Lowes solves that issue tho.

 

[marty319]

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first read the stories from Texas.

Now unfortunately for me I have in insert so we rely on the blower and one tower fan to get good convection going through the house but the insert protrudes a good 8 inches so we still get some heat off it in a power outage. We would be living in the stove room/bedrooms if it were a long term outage but we wouldn't be cold!

A small generator from HD or Lowes solves that issue tho.

Yup .got a small generator in the shed and wired underground to the cottage.run my tv and fridge.last year we had a power failure for 26 hours.had extension cords running to both neighbors to keep their fridges going.great investment.4500 watt for 399 cad

 

[Seasoned Oak]

We went from $350-$400 a month for gas to roughly $20-$28 a month. Gas hot water heater and a teenage son are responsible for most of that - although I now set the timer and shut the hot water off after 15 minutes.

Probably most of that is the customer and the meter charge. Mine is that much using nothing. Get a HPWH and tell the gas company to come get their new meter. You will be down to $10 for HW.
.

 

[Grizzerbear]

My house is all electric and if it weren't for the wood stove the upcoming bill would have been pretty high. I'm guessing somewhere around 400-500. My normal electric bill in the summer and winter using the wood stove for heat normally runs around 95-115. Not too bad considering I have three kids. Like stated above....it's not so much the savings to me as is the peace of mind knowing I will never be without heat. I would like to one day be totally self sufficient. I would love to have a solar system some day when the batterys come down to a reasonable price. Or maybe wind?

 

[paulnlee]

I was happy with last month's bill ($16.89) until I embarrassingly realized I paid twice the previous month.

 

[spudman99]

The OP lives several miles from me and our homes are roughly the same age. This is my 2nd year with the BK princess insert. My last electric bill was $186 which annoyed me for being so high (that was for most of January). My house has a heat pump which in this notoriously high $$ cost for electric is a bummer. I also have propane for back up (2nd stage) heat and is used when temps get below 20 deg or so.

Two years ago I burned about $1,200 in propane during the winter and an average cost of $3.75 p/gallon. Last year I burned less than 1 gallon of propane and this year they have stopped automatic delivery. Comparison of electric bills showed about a $100 p/month savings on heat (I guess the 2 PS4's use more electricity than I thought since the teenagers run them 24/7...hehe)

So all told I estimate my savings from wood burning (not counting time to CSS the wood supply) runs in the $1500 to $1700 per year range.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I enjoy the lack of utility bills. I went from paying over 6k a year for electric, ,oil and LP to less than 700 a year.. I went solar and have net metering, still have oil but use my stove for heat and ditched the LP for NG and installed 2 gas fireplaces both on remote thermostats. In fact with my serac I'm making 4500 a year having solar and no electricity bills.. I get charged a monthly connection charge to be grid tied .. but who cares.. I like to see my gas bill.. its like 25 bucks in the winter.. 12 in the summer..