Natural gas with A/C. Current month bill was $118. This includes hot water, cook top, and gas clothes dryer. Sometimes we run a gas heater in the basement too. Rarely use the gas logs in the fireplace - more of a backup. Bill runs about $45 in the summer.
House has electric radiant ceiling heat that was installed when the house was built. A PO added the natural gas back in '89.
oil, heat pump, and wood. heat pump worthless below 25, wood works great but i need to keep the fire going(wood furnace with separate fans/filter ducted into plenum above oil furnace), and the oil keeps it warm no matter how cold it gets, but costs a bit to run.
Oil fired forced air for most of the house with a propane stove in the family room addition. Waiting for the 20 YO oil furnace to die so I can replace it with a natural gas furnace and convert the family room stove to natural gas also.
Electric ... But havent used it in about a month.
The AC is running right now.
Was primarily wood, recently went back to using the late 50s oil furnace with a 90s burner more often. I kinda took it upon myself to make sure the thing was set up reasonably well, cause oil is expensive. Turns out literally everything was setup wrong. Air shutter open so far that after cleaning the gunk out of the intake holes, the fire was going out when the ignition clicked off. Draft regulator was set for max draft, presumably so the wood burner (shared chimney) wouldn't suck so much air through it. Thermostat anticipator was never set for the new burner(was .4, should have been .2). Blower pulley was adjusted to the lowest setting, the heat exchanger was overheating and the fan/limit control was killing the burner, sometimes twice a cycle. It's still all eyeballed, but at least eyeballed correctly now, and I have learned how every part of an oil furnace works.
Out here in california we put on long sleeves
914Driver wrote: ... A few years ago I went to a coal stove in the basement. (delivered in 40lb. bags) It runs 24/7 and can be unattended for a weekend. Much easier to deal with, easier to handle bags than wood and coal doesn't get bugs or mice. My oil consumption is down 40%. Dan
Coal stove? Everything old is new again. Seriously though, that's cool.
I miss the hot water heat from my old apartment. Currently have forced air gas in my house. Don't a need a secondary system for my tiny 800sq'. Insulated the daylights out of it during the remodel, but wish I had put in better windows.
My old house in CT had electric radiant basboards, but I ran a pellet stove 24/7 for most of my heat. It was a bit of work, much less than wood, but it saved on heating bills. My big tip would be to by quality wood pellets. They produce less ash and give off more heat. The Home depot stuff was good for shoulder season.
We upgraded out old natural gas boiler to a new one a few years ago. The new one is a wall mounted unit with a 14 gallon DHW tank, but enough burner capacity to run a shower forever.
Costs about $150/month to run during the coldest parts of winter with the house kept at 70*F and me constantly reminding the kids to close the door.
During the summer the bills drop to <$20/ month for DHW.
I still have the old 1950's baseboard, so when I change that out I should see the heating bills drop. The more efficient baseboard will allow some of the high efficiency feature to make a much bigger difference than they do now.
Gearheadotaku wrote: Coal stove? Everything old is new again. Seriously though, that's cool.
Coal is still somewhat popular in areas where it's easily available.
We pondered a coal stove for the ex's garage since we made periodic trips out to her parents' 2nd house in PA coal-country and it wouldn't have been a big deal to haul a ton or so back to NJ with my truck. The part we never figured out was where to store it all...
Amusingly, her house was originally coal-heated. In the basement is a coal bin and the chute from the outside is still there, but the boiler was converted to natual gas some 50+ years ago. It would have sucked back then as you would have to go outside and down into the basement through bilco doors to stoke the coal furnance.
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