Home Heating

[PC Master Blaster]

I'm seeing peoples home heating bills sky rocket recently and was curious what people are doing to offset the cost, if anything at all. 

 

What do you heat your home with?

What temperature do you keep it at?

Monthly Cost to heat?

And finally what steps are you taking to lower the cost?

If you want to include Square footage feel free.

 

 

I'll start:

2500sq. ft. I have a oil furnace, pellet stove and a propane heater. I mainly use pellets and keep the house at 78f. Oil furnace (also makes hot water) and propane heaters are backups in case of mechanical issues with the pellet stove. Costs roughly $230-$330 a month depending on outside temps to heat with pellets.  Another $140 a month or so in oil and basically don't use the propane heater. 

 

Change? I'm installing a new heat pump water heater which will take the hot water off the oil furnace. Should save me $140 a month. No other plans.

 

 

 

 

[Lurking]

Probably should include the location/climate zone. You keep your home at 78°F How do you even survive that, let alone pay for that? 69°F here in Wisconsin at -10° outdoor temp at night. 

[PC Master Blaster]

24 minutes ago, Lurking said:

Probably should include the location/climate zone. You keep your home at 78°F How do you even survive that, let alone pay for that? 69°F here in Wisconsin at -10° outdoor temp at night. 

I didn't include location cause the question is more about the general increase in cost of living. Adding location didn't seem so important but it would help people understand cost  regionally. 

 

Lol, Not sure why but I like it to be super warm in my main living area. Bedrooms are at a cool 64f for sleeping purposes.   

[PC Master Blaster]

2 minutes ago, Caroline said:

I'd like to cool my home tbh

 

It's almost midnight and it's 34C outside, and inside too since the windows are open. 90% humidity makes it even better /s

 

We have a boiler and steam radiators but we don't even use them during winter, there's no need thanks to climate change. When the house was built there was snow here, now it's a rainforest.

lol. It gets real cold where I live, sometimes I think about adding a 4th heating source.

[Lurking]

7 minutes ago, PC Master Blaster said:

I didn't include location cause the question is more about the general increase in cost of living. Adding location didn't seem so important but it would help people understand cost  regionally. 

 

Lol, Not sure why but I like it to be super warm in my main living area. Bedrooms are at a cool 64f for sleeping purposes.   

Climate would be very important to put that in perspective. Someone living in LA probably won't spend any significant portion of income on heating. Also the options to heat will differ. Air source heatpump, for example, won't work in cold climates. Natural gas isn't available everywhere and so on.

[Godlygamer23]

I have a boiler that uses oil as its fuel source, which also provides hot water. I keep it at 65 degrees F, with only one thermostat in the house(it's in the living room). Depending on outside temperature and how much water we use, it costs about $250 a month to heat my house. My house is pretty old, almost a century old, so getting my boiler changed out or supplemented with heat pumps is going to be expensive. I think it would be wise to have my boiler as a backup in case my heat pumps cannot keep up with the outside cold air if I ever do decide to go through with some kind of installation.

[FmPhenom]

Texas, central heat A/C . all electric. 4000 sqf.2 story. $320 month to heat $250 to cool. Temps stay at 72 f. House was built with triple payne windows, 2 feet of attic insulation , radiant barrier, 3/4 inch drywall. Spray insulation. Solid mahogany front door with storm door.

[YellowJersey]

I once tried to heat my apartment by disconnecting the venting duct from the dryer. It... didn't work.

[vetali]

RTX 3090 ti.

 

Electricity here isn't too expensive. We have ductless heat pumps, and some in wall heaters. 2000 sqft single story built in 2006. Power bill is about 230-250 a month. Properly insulating the attic made a huge difference.

[BondiBlue]

My house has a natural gas furnace. When running the furnace I don't usually set the temperature above 20°C (68°F). I honestly couldn't tell you the difference it makes to the gas bill though since I rarely need to use the furnace, even in the winter. During the summer I keep the indoor temperature around 24°C (75°F), and summers here are quite warm. 

 

During the winter I tend to run Folding@home on spare GPUs, so that offsets my need for the gas furnace quite a lot. This does increase my power bill though. If I needed to lower the cost I could stop running F@h and just use the furnace for heat, but electricity is pretty cheap here (nuclear), so I really wouldn't be saving a whole lot that way.