What does it cost to heat your home currently ?

[fastfredracing]

I spent all my fun money on diesel , propane, and heating oil this week . No hookers and blow or even Porsche parts for me this weekend.
Freakin' hate Pa. in the winter. Every year, about this time , I question why I live in this god forsaken tundra .
Last few years have been pretty easy , as we've had mild winters , but old man winter is back this season, and weve had a week with highs in the 20's . 1 deg, when I woke up this morning .
I just pulled in my first car of the day , a Toureg for 4 tires and inspection , and the thermometer on the dash read 5 deg, at 8 am.
My shop, if i keep it warm( well, not warm, but surviveable ) , can eat up $700 + a month easily .
Im guessing I spend about $4 a month in the cold months at home. between heating oil, electric heaters ( my elec bill goes up about $100 monthly in the winter ), and wood . I don't keep the house very warm with the furnace . We are gone from 7:45 am, till around 6;30 every night, so I leave the thermostat on low all day, and crank it back up when I get home .
I struggled financially for quite a few years when my wife and I were just getting started out with buying a home, then getting my shop off the ground, and purchasing a building and all that fun stuff . We pinched pennies, and never really kept a warm nouse . We were really only home a few hours every evening , before it was off to bed , so wed just turn on the furnace when we got home, and wear sweatshirts till bed time . I got used to not being warm , from spending Pa winters working on cars , with wet feet and salted slush dripping down my neck every day, therefore, I got to be comfortabe in a cool home . I know sometimes when I visit friends, I get uncomfortable and start shedding layers after a few hours in their 78 deg house . Id be in shorts and a t shirt .
I am currently heating my home with a boiler running heating oil, and my furnace is on its last legs . Im limping it home with one headlight for the rest of this winter, but plan on going into next season with at the bare minimum ,a new oil furnace, or maybe geothermal or some sort of electric heat .
Curious how much this bites into your budget ?

[mgatepi]

I have a HEat Pump with Oil as the back up. If we relied strictly on this it would run probably $400+ per month easily to heat our house. About 10 years ago I put in a Harmon wood pellet stove and use it in the evening. Our house warms up very quickly and is comfortable. We burn about a ton of pellets a year at about $280 a ton. So bottom line we are spending about $225 a month and have a comfortable house. Our house is 2500 sq ft.

[wdfifteen]

It's not a big hit here.
We heat our 6000 square foot house with gas, some wood, a small amount of electric. If I'm not working in the shops downstairs, I heat the west half of the house with wood and keep the other half at 68 degrees. I keep the bedroom at 66 degrees and use a bed heater to heat my side of the bed before I crawl in. Vicki likes the bed cool.

In December, when we had a week of temps in the 20s we paid $278 for gas.

Lately, Vic is having some kind of issue where she is cold all the time. I find the thermostat set at 73 degrees now and then!! With a week of nighttime temps in the single digits, I'm expecting the next bill to be $330 to $350.

[fastfredracing]

I should probably add, that my teenager was home for 3 weeks. Even though I asked him to keep the fire burning , he never once did, and every day , when I got home, the house was blistering warm , oil furnace just crankin' away .
I bet it drops by $100 this month now that hes gone

[Sooner or later]

2600 sqft. HVAC with gas heat. Variable speed compressor and fan. Gas water heater. R79 insulation in most of house. Terrible windows.

Gas and elect combined. Summer and winter about the same. 12 month avg $152.
2024
Dec 138
Nov 104
Oct 134
Sept 193
Aug 167
July 166
June 75
May 109
April 132
March 179
Feb 241
Jan 181
2023
Dec 167
Nov 101
Oct 100
Sept 152
Aug 164

[ryans65]

$123/ month avg year round

[oldE]

We started out with electric baseboard heat and electric water heater when we built 40 years ago. Small (1500sq ft) back split with 6" walls and insulated basement. We added a small airtight wood stove when we retired and a few years after that an air source heat pump. Because of the solar panels installed in 2020, our net expense for electricity is 0. Our annual cost is for two cords of split hardwood. Oh yes, an 8 x 16 room in the garage is also heated electrically.

Best
Les

[GH85Carrera]

Our house is just under 3,000 Sq Ft, and we are home all the time as my wife is retired, and I work from home. We keep the house at 72 during the day when we are up. The thermostat dropes it to 68 and night and back to 72 just before the alarm goes off.

I have my gas bill and the electric bill averaged for 12 months at a time, so it it always the same.

My natural gas bill is $87 per month with averaging it with the summer use, which would be the natural gas water heater, and any cooking on the range.

Of course the fan on the central heat uses a little electricity. In the really cold months I have a small ceramic heater under my desk to help heat my office. It is on the northeast corner of the house, and for whatever reason when the house was built there is no return for the central heat in this room. It can be 69 in here when the rest of the house is 72.

I would add 40 bucks a month for the electricity to run the central heat and my little heater.

We don't have a wood burning fireplace. It is a decorative gas burning fireplace that has only been used a handful of time in the 26 years we have live here.

So I would put the total at $120 per month to heat and cool the house.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mgatepi

I have a HEat Pump with Oil as the back up. If we relied strictly on this it would run probably $400+ per month easily to heat our house. About 10 years ago I put in a Harmon wood pellet stove and use it in the evening. Our house warms up very quickly and is comfortable. We burn about a ton of pellets a year at about $280 a ton. So bottom line we are spending about $225 a month and have a comfortable house. Our house is 2500 sq ft.

We have a heat pump with electric backup, and the whole system is from 1991. Our highest bill of the year is usually Jan, and yeah, $400+

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It's not a big hit here.
We heat our 6000 square foot house with gas, some wood, a small amount of electric. If I'm not working in the shops downstairs, I heat the west half of the house with wood and keep the other half at 68 degrees. I keep the bedroom at 66 degrees and use a bed heater to heat my side of the bed before I crawl in. Vicki likes the bed cool.

In December, when we had a week of temps in the 20s we paid $278 for gas.

Lately, Vic is having some kind of issue where she is cold all the time. I find the thermostat set at 73 degrees now and then!! With a week of nighttime temps in the single digits, I'm expecting the next bill to be $330 to $350.

Yowza, 6000sqft! That's a big place. Still, your bill seems very reasonable for that size home.

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

I should probably add, that my teenager was home for 3 weeks. Even though I asked him to keep the fire burning , he never once did, and every day , when I got home, the house was blistering warm , oil furnace just crankin' away .
I bet it drops by $100 this month now that hes gone

LOL! That sounds about right for anything associated with a teen. Thinking back, I think that could have gone 2 ways, either 1 the way it went, or 2 he had a blaze going the whole time and you going through a month's worth of wood for each week that he was home.

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

2600 sqft. HVAC with gas heat. Variable speed compressor and fan. Gas water heater. R79 insulation in most of house. Terrible windows.

Gas and elect combined. Summer and winter about the same. 12 month avg $152.

Wow, nice, lots of insulation and efficient HVAC, FTW!

[Rot 911]

We live in Lincoln, Nebraska. We are having our typical cold Nebraska winter. Our house was built in 1913 by a guy that owned a lumber company. It is 2 stories and 3200 ft.² and is heated by hot water radiators. We have a full attic. The house is well insulated. The boiler for the heat is fairly new. Our gas bill last month was $200.06 and the electric bill was $83.32.

[Baz]

I'm in Florida. Maybe $100, if that, per month.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Dantilla

We heat with wood.
Plenty of trees to take down on our own property.
As long as we're physically able to cut, split and stack firewood, which we enjoy, we'll get by cheap.
Propane furnace, stove/oven, and water heater.
Propane tanks get topped off once a year during summer when prices are lower.
Last time the bill was just over $600.

Our place had propane at some point in the past. I am not sure why it was pulled out. Seems crazy. Propane seems like the way to go for us in our area for cooking, heating, and water heating. But we are all electric. We're super lucky that the portion of the grid that services us seems to be very stable. < knock, knock, knock on wood >

I'd love to have propane and/or wood for heat for when the heat pump can't manage.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rot 911

We live in Lincoln, Nebraska. We are having our typical cold Nebraska winter. Our house was built in 1913 by a guy that owned a lumber company. It is 2 stories and 3200 ft.² and is heated by hot water radiators. We have a full attic. The house is well insulated. The boiler for the heat is fairly new. Our gas bill last month was $200.06 and the electric bill was $83.32.

Wow, very nice!

[rfuerst911sc]

We are in north Georgia with a 1650 sf ranch house with basement . HVAC is dual fuel heat pump with propane furnace . Our winter electric bills run 140 to 160 per month and we keep the thermostat at 72 .

Up until last year we were running a 500 gallon propane tank . We fill once at summer rate and that would last until the following summer . Generally we would have 30 % in the tank when refilled .

Last year I added another 250 gallon propane tank as backup/emergency stock after we added the propane whole house generator . Overall we are happy with our heating and cooling costs .

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by masraum

Wow, very nice!

The house was definitely well built. And the other thing that helps is natural gas is cheap. Why the country would ever want to move away from natural gas just boggles my mind.

And we love having hot water radiators for heat. The heat is always constant. No up and down like you get with HVAC and unlike steam heat radiators, I can set the temperature of the water that I want to have running through the radiators. So you never have to worry about burning yourself on a radiator. They get hot, but not burning hot.

[john70t]

Now that it's nice and cold...
Take a piece of paper. Draw a basic blueprint.
Infrared thermometer is ~$30 and available anywhere.
Walk around the perimeter measuring wall temps. Especially around windows and doors.
Don't forget the ceiling and basement rim joists. Most important actually.

Also feel for drafts or use smoke/candle. They will negate two feet of insulation.

=Energy audit in half an hour.

[Cajundaddy]

We live in southern ID and do get 3 months of real winter with typical ambient temps 20-40F. Our current home was built in 2021 and is a retirement downsize at 2000 sq ft. Very well insulated, double pane windows, relatively low cost NG from Wyoming so our worst month is typically $100 for heat. We do need A/C for 3 months in summer but with solar we have no electric bill.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Baz

I'm in Florida. Maybe $100, if that, per month.

Yea, but the AC bill is from March to December.

[juanbenae]

My PG&E bill has pretty much doubled in the 5 years I've been up here in the southern sierras at about 3900' elevation. Electricity only during the winter months has grown to about $170 a month. Use propane fireplace to heat with a 250 gallon tank that lasts about with a year, including an on demand hot water heater. It was filled a month or so back at a cost of $500 for 180 gallons.

I am fortunate being on top of a mountain with southern facing windows that get direct sun, when sunny all day. Will heat the upstairs, where my living space is to the high 60's by dark if it reaches 50* or so outside and is clear. I prefer a cold room for sleep which my north facing bedroom provides year around except when it's 100* out in the summer so I don't heat it. Set my fireplace at 64* and flip it on before bed and it kicks on at some point during the night and has a fan to move heated air out the box.

[Alan A]

200-260 gallons of oil a month in the winter depending on outside temps.
oil does heat and hot water. the 3600sf. house is kept at 66.
one fill lasts may to october for hot water in the summer.

electric is equally insane.