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What does it cost to heat your house?

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northeastpuller1

Member
I was wondering what it cost to heat a house in the places that see 0 and minus 34 for days at a time. I have a 1850s 4000 square foot farm house .That has a lime stone basement a slab and a crawl space. The basement is spray foamed the walls have been insulated the attic has two layers crisscrossed of insulation about a foot thick. The outside has 2 layers overlapped of 1 inch solid insulation house rap and 22 newer windows and insulated doors. I bet I have used 5 case of spray foam insulation over the years chasing drafts. So the house is as tight as I can get it. I live in north east Pa about 45 minutes from Larry on the corner. If I burn oil with hot water in a normal year and a wood stove burning most of the day. I average 4 gallons of oil a day 365 days a year. With the t stat set at 62. I have switched to 2 pellet stoves and electric hot water and no oil. I can burn 5 to 8 ton of good pellets depending on the year with the T stat at 68. So what does it cost to keep warm in Canada and Minnesota?
 
We have a small 1300 sf house in a slab and it is well insulated. We are also on natural gas which saves a LOT! We spend between $500 and 600 a year on heat, cooking, and hot water. That is very cheap. Our last house had propane heat and cost $1500-2000 a year for heat and cooking.
 
We live in PEI Canada on the east coast. Not as cold as northern Quebec Ontario or prarie Provences but it's close -40 both scales with wind chill. Our house is 2500'2 1 1/2 story 100yr old minus a 16x28' addition 4 yrs ago. We renovated the rest of the house at the time. We generally burn 10 -12 cords of mostly hardwood and half to one tank per year of oil,all forced air with electric hot water.
 
I now heat a 1800 square ft house 1.5 story with 3 ft crawl space , has sunk in area in crawl space for a valley comfort wood stove. At -25. / -35 the last couple weeks I?m burning 1x1/2 ton load a week. Walls are double 2x4 ceiling is a 2 ft rafter at 45 degree blown right full with fibreglass.
Crawl space is concrete with 5 inches of styrofoam on outside buried 18 inches. When it gets back to normal temps of 0 to -10 I almost heat with the sun coming in through the south windows. Use 1/3 the wood. I have no back up heat. Christmas Day we had sun shining and outside temp was -30 inside was 82.
 
I live in NNY where the temp can go down to a minus 30. I use about the same amount of wood as you do but I also use a full tank of fuel oil, 250 US gallons, each winter. My old house was built in the 1860's and it is 2 story but well insulated.
 
We are in central MN, with an 80 year old farm house. We have an outdoor wood boiler, which cost around $4000 when new. It has a life expectancy of about 20 years with proper maintenance. As far as firewood, we have quite a bit on our own land to use, but I do buy a 5 cord load of hardwood each year from a local logger to have on hand for very cold temps (like today) or deep snow. Cost of that is $375. Also have the expense of a chainsaw, gas, and oil, but living on a farm a chainsaw is a must have tool anyway. I?m guessing with buying the 5 cords of wood, my out of pocket cost is about $500 each year, and prorated, the furnace cost is about $200 each year, then with water treatments for the furnace at about $50, I?m going with a cost of about $750 per year.
 
Takes about 3 cord of firewood and and about 150 gallons of propane to heat my house through the winter. For red oak delivered costs me $80/cord but I cut alot here and around the neighborhood. Propane last I checked was $1.89/gallon. Sod Buster.
 
Well I am in central NY. I heat my house, cellar, and tractor shop with wood. It costs me a bit less than $200 bucks for gas, diesel, oil, perhaps a saw chain and files, for my saws and tractors. Depending on the weather, it takes me about a month in the summer when it is T shirt weather to fell, yard, block & split, plus stack my wood under cover. I am retired and I have all the equipment anyways. Been heating the house with wood since 1970 when we built it. It is a modified ranch with a walk-out cellar. Several additions have been constructed over the years, on frost walls. Total heated space for house is about 2400 sq.ft. Attached shop where my central boiler is located, is 24x40' with a 10x24' semi heated tool room at the rear. I will likely burn 14-15 cord of wood this year. (about 2000 cu.ft.)
Loren
 
We have an 1800 square foot ranch style house. Fully insulated with 6" outside walls. We have the furnace, water heater and kitchen range all on propane. I contract 1,000 gallons of propane a year and that usually covers it. Cost depends on the price of propane.

Earlier this fall, we had new siding with 1 1/4" foam backing installed, and that might help.
 
With propane it would cost me 2,000 to 2500 hundred a year. They finally ran a gas line in front of my house. It cost me 4 grand to hook in but my cost is about 800 to a 1000 a year. It didn't take long to get my 4 grand back. I heat 2500 hundred sg ft in a house that was built in 1990.
 
Our house is big and old but never cold. Good wind break on North side helps a lot. 3-400 bucks each month for propane for furnace, and I cut junk wood out of fence rows for parlour stove. Cost might go as high as $3000.0 a year, but spend nothing on cooling in the summer. Life is a trade off.
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I built an earth sheltered house of 1500 sq ft in the late 70's now owned by my daughter. It had a crawl space and no wall insulation other than dirt but had about 8 inches of clg insulation. I live in Western Tn where it is not uncommon to have zero or single digit weather in Jan and Feb. I heated except for clg heaters in baths entirely with wood. The most wood I ever used for the winter was 2 cords. Now they use central gas powered unit.
 
Our house in town in MN has natural gas, it costs about $100 a month for the 3 months we are gone, heating the house and the shop to 50. Our cabin has electric baseboard, the only one on is a small one in the crawlspace, 500W, it uses 12 kw a day when it's cold. Our son is running a paper mill in N WI, there is a natural gas shortage because of the cold, they are using a 9,000 gallon tanker of propane about every 12 hours.
 
We heat about 2800 square feet with a crawl space and a bonus room over the attached garage. There is a covered deck on the front and back but not the full length of the house. The crawl space is about 4 ft with 2" insulation on the walls. We have propane fired hot water heat with the tubes in the crawl space so the temperature there is about 60 degrees year around. The house had 2 6" batts crisscross in the attic and 4 years ago I added a foot of blown in insulation. This year we have spent $1470 for the propane. Our thermostat is set at 72 or 73 depending how cold Diane feels. That propane also runs the bbq all year long plus the kitchen stove to cook on. We open the doors in the spring and fall to heat the house. This house is never hot in the summer. Bud
 
I have a 2800 sq ft house built in '49 and live in MN. I heat with lp and usually figure on 1500 gal per year. I do tend to keep it warm in my house because when I come in on mornings like this, I don't want to be cold in my house. I would rather leave the pickup sit and spend the gas money in the house. I usually cut a few loads of wood from down trees every year, but I deliver it at my neighbors who have outdoor furnaces. They always seem to return the favor. Think I live in the best neighborhood around.
 
I built a 5-star-plus energy star rated house and am heating just under 3k sq ft. It cost me just under $800 in propane last year (almost exactly 500 gal). Costs me about $20 a month to air condition in 3 summer months.
 
I have a 2800sf house and 600sf apartment upstairs on Long Island- I spend about $1200 a year for natural gas for heating,hot water,cooking and gas dryer
 
3 or 4 chainsaw chains and gas to haul the wood in,did buy a new $2000 wood splitter a couple years ago.Wood I burn is mostly Black locust,Oak and Hickory that are dying or get blown over
during the year on my farm.Plus I'm probably saving on medical bills the Doc says my heart sounds better and overall health is better than most he examines half my age.I really enjoy the
wood stove in the Winter anyway.
 
It looks like I am the only one who has posted that heats with coal? Our house is a big stone house, 220 years old, drafty. Our attic is insulated, have good windows and doors. We burn between 6 and 7 tons of anthracite rice coal and that also heats our domestic hot water. Cost is between $1200-$1300 a year. I can't think of any heat that would be cheaper with the exception of wood.
 
We have a small ranch style,aluminum sided, home with a crawl space.It is poorly insulated,and has poor windows,that have the add on storm windows.We live in northern Ky. After the first winter here using the electric wall heaters,I put in a wood stove in the living room.It saved us almost $200 a month in electric.I ,like others ,cut downed trees on my farm.The only thing I ever bought was a wood splitter,used for $325; had the saw,tractors,and wagons.I bought the wood stove used,and just needed to buy chimney pipe.When that stove wore out,I got lucky,and found an identical one on craigslist. Easy swap out! I burn about a wheelbarrow load of wood every other day,a little more in extreme cold,and a little less in fair temps.I store wood in my barn across the drive way.My electric bill is around $100 a month,and higher if we are not here to keep the stove fed through out the day,and the electric kicks on.I hate a cold house-it's not homey!Mark.
 
Natural Gas. Sask Energy has me on $70 per month equalized payments year round and I figure that is not bad for a nearly hundred year old house. High efficiency gas furnace in the basement and a small wall unit in the office. I can work outside in the cold but don't ask me to sit in the house at less than 68 degrees or I'll be wrapping up in blankets
Good trees for a windbreak to the North and West help a lot. I don't ever spend a cent on air conditioning as it never gets that hot here.
 

My house in NH is 1,800 sq. ft, and fairly well insulated. We keep the temp at around 68 during the day and 60 at night. We burn around $1100 in oil and one ton of coal at $450.00. I burn around $500.00 worth of propane in my shop which is 40x50x17.
 
I live in south eastern VA, about 45-50 miles from VA Beach, so we deal with high humidity summer and winter. Our house was built in 1885, about 1600 sq ft of living space, not really well insulated. Been meaning to rent one of those machines to blow insulation in both attics. Oil fired forced air down stairs and a heat pump for upstairs. I buy #2 off road fuel from two mini-marts, whichever one's cheaper. Paid $2.10 a gallon in early November, and used about 220-230 gallons since then, mild weather helped, just cold as a blue nosed bit"h with this Arctic blast we're all having now. My cost on average with electric upstairs, oil down stairs probably runs $400/450 a month.
 
my only heat source is a free-standing wood/coal burner in my living room. I burn a mix of wood and coal (mostly wood that comes from my property).

Chunk coal is $100/ton, 1 ton of coal will last me 3 years. Wood, I fell,block split and stack about 4 cord for 1 winter season....so I probably spend about $200 to $300 to heat my house for 1 winter.

I'm tired of fighting (Been doing it for 26 years) the dust, soot, firebox going out at 3 a.m., felling, cutting, splitting, stacking, etc.,....just another reason that I am in the process of packing and have sold out.
 
Have a 3400 sq.ft. three story with basement, built in 2000, heat with geothermal ground source heat pump, never use the electric heat coil backup, costs $300-400 a year. Western PA
 

North central Ky, we don't get below zero much but have seen -20 one time.
1400 sq ft vinyl sided all electric modular home, 6" insulted walls, 8" in floors, 12" ceiling, all insulation is fiberglass batt.
32" block crawl space uninsulated, home is setting on a 8" concrete slab.
Winter heat adds 250-300 per month to the electric bill.

Mon's 1200 house built in the late 1800's, remodeled in the 50's, 70's and again in early 2000's, coal stoves when I was a child, then wood heat, now well insulated with propane for heat and cooking.
Takes 150-200 gallons of propane per month during winter months.

Poultry barns are a completely different story, 3 500 ft long buildings, takes 3-4000 gallons of propane per month to heat the buildings during winter months.
If I lived any farther north I'd be out of the poultry business.
 
In SW WI house is 3 years old. 1530 square foot with finished basement, 6 inch walls well insulated with in floor radiant heat. Floor set at 70 with forced air slightly lower to lower humidity some. Last year took 415 gallons of propane to heat the house and water for 12 months. Cost dependent on propane price. I think last year was $1.15 while this year contracted at $1.25. I expect more gallons used this year due to colder and old dog takes longer to get out and in the door. Temps this week single digits above 0 daytime and teens below at night.
 
small 900 sq ft ranch on a full concrete block foundation, 2x4 construction, 60's windows, drafty needless to say, I have a parallel FHA oil and FHA wood furnace, burning no wood, I would go thru 3 tanks of oil, burning no oil, I go thru 8 cords of hardwood.

starting a fire @ 5pm and tending it till bedtime and letting it die overnight, I use less than 1 tank of oil and about 2 cords of wood
 
Above zero F I burn about a bushel of corn a day to heat an old farm house in Mn with a St. Croix Auburn corn stove whereas otherwise I could burn 5 gallons of fuel oil on a cold day. Below 0 the oil furnace does run now and then but I only have the stove set on 2 out of 5. Today at -15F it has only run a time or two this afternoon. Last winter I burned about 120 bushels of corn all winter and around 150 gallons of heating oil. Corn is nice, dry, cheap heat.
 
Whooooowa: I'll start with I'm about to down size. My wife and I live in a ten bedroom south of Kalamazoo Mi. . 5400 sq ft home built in 2004. 2x6 walls with bats. Propane furnace set at 63. We go though 1500 gallons of propane a year and this also take care of hot water. Are electric runs around 100 a month winter. 200 summer. Before we got married. Electric ran 25 to 35 a month and I would use 500 gallons of gas, but I ran the heat lower and only had the hot water on when I needed it. Also didn't run air only a fan.
 
Jim,

My dad built an earth sheltered home..in 1978..it's about 1500 sq foot also...he put rolled insulation on the inside..then paneling over that...he used corn cobs(from the corn crop) in a wood stove to heat the house and it was always hot..in the winter. Only problem is it( to this day and even when it was 2-3 years old)still smells musty in there...so we don't rent it out and nobody lives in it....we keep it 50 degrees inside with electric baseboard heat...dad's been gone for 2 years now...sometimes I wonder if that house was part of my parents health problems....I tried bombing the place with concrobium mold spray,opened all the windows all spring and summer, ran fans...etc..and it still smells musty..i think maybe he should have dry walled instead of paneling. I will most likely tear it down...property taxes,insurance and heat and nobody even lives in it....sheeesh.
 
Cooking, water heating, heating, about 500 gallons of lp per year - contracted propane last spring for $1.09?? Per gallon. Have ad on wood stove that takes 1-2 pickup loads of seasoned firewood per season. Its been below zero here most of the week and sounds like it may stay that way all of this week. Good luck and happy new year.
 
You're going to think this is crazy but I have no idea. 1000 gal lp tank out there. When it gets low I have it filled. Wife pays the bill when it comes.
 
I heat with coal. EFM boiler/stoker. Right now with the temps of 0 to 10 degrees I am burning (4) 5 gal pails a day. That heats my house and domestic hot water. The furnace is located in the my detached garage and the residual heat keeps the garage fairly warm. I am heating a old farm house.
 
Old 2800sqft farm house in central lower Michigan. About 3/4 of it is insulated well, will get to the rest some day. In the cold months last winter, we were going through about $300/month in wood pellets and fuel oil. They ran natural gas down our road last spring and we just received our first full cold month bill. $150. Did burn a few of bags if pellets, so around $175 this past month.
 
Costs me about 2 chainsaw chains and maybe twenty bucks of chainsaw gas and oil. It is 4 degrees outside now, to drop to 3 below tonight. Time to go down and throw a couple logs in the wood stove. Few people would work this many hours.
 
It has been a long time since we had a winter like this one but I figure a 100# lp every 7 days. 23.6 gal. The last time I filled the 500 gal, it lasted 12 months.
 
Brick, Craftsman style home from the 1920's, we remodeled and added on about 15 years ago- so all new windows, doors, stripped the interior bare with new insulation, finished the attic, etc. I think there is 2400 sf plus a full finished basement. We have natural gas for furnace, gas fireplace and one gas water heater (one electric water heater as well). Budget billing is for $55 per month year around.

Under two miles inland from Lake Michigan we stay a little warmer than other areas, but cooler later in Spring, single digits right now. I got a new Ecobee thermostat through work last year, I can keep track of the house from my smart phone while away- wife likes to turn the heat up to 75 in the evening, then forgets it and goes to bed and opens her windows. Now I can remedy that while working nights.
 
We built our house in 1978 as well as utility costs were going out the roof. My daughter and her family have lived in the house for over 20 years and occasionally when I go in I will smell a little musty odor but not bad. It doesn't appear to have affected their health at all. We only papered the inside exterior walls. We could cool the house except for a couple of weeks each Summer with one 110 window ac. My daughter eventually put in central hvac. I live in the middle of Western TN. Thanks for your reply.
 
1300 sq foot early 70's vintage ranch in the suburbs in SW Michigan, a few miles from Lake Michigan. Full basement that is mildly heated. 16" of cellulose in the attic, newer windows, 96% efficient natural gas furnace. Only the wife & I anymore, and we both work, so heat is set back 8 degrees most of the day and all night. Including stove, dryer, water heater & grill, gas budget comes in around $550 annually.

Also.......I laugh at some of my co-workers. Built large houses, tall ceilings, lots of glass windows, and complain about high heat bills. Great windows are hardly an R-4 in insulating value, surrounded by walls that they brag at a composite total of R-20 to R-25.

Pete
 
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