XLS Spreadsheet

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls

Yanche wrote:Yes, it's a very, very comprehensive objective comparison of heating costs. It should be required analysis for anyone thinking of switching heating fuels. I think it would be a good idea to host it on this site. It's not copyrighted because it was government developed. Admins what do you think? Perhaps it would be a good place to collect stove, furnace and boiler efficiency numbers.

Yanche

I can certainly host the file but isn't excel required to use it? I know I had to download the excel viewer to see it, forgive me but I'm unfamiliar with excel spreadsheets, my only experience was a short feeble attempt to use it fore my bookwork which I gave up and went and bought Quickbooks..

if you don't have Excel, Google offers online accounts for uploading and viewing Docs & Spreadsheets. YOu have to create an account, but it works pretty good.

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/tour1.html

Admin
Good choice on QuickBooks, that is a nice package.

To open and manipulate Excel spreadsheets you can also download and install Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/. It is an open source (free) office suite that will open and save Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc… files. At almost $400 a pop for MS Office, it is saving us a bundle at work.

I haven't looked at it but I'm assuming once you fill it out you can save the results? Anybody have a completed one they can e-mail me?

Yanche certainly has a good idea here and I would like to pursue it, maybe even to the point of exporting the results to MySql or creating my own web based form.

I posted a link before for this before:

http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.ph ... alculator/

What I'm thinking is doing something similar to this, however I'll make it so the info is submitted and added to a database. From there i can display or manipulate it anyway I want. I may be able to use the Excel spreadsheet... a quick google search brings up some excel to MySql converters. You may even be able to export as MySql directly from Excel or simialar program.

Even if the spreadsheet was used to get the figures and I had a form to enter them?

I'll have to keep investigating.

The layout on the spreadsheet is great.

I the best way to do it all would be a web form. With Excel on a remote PC is possible. But I have problems with that. Microsoft Excel works well with M$Sql, its possible to do an odbc connection to mysql… last time I was playing with stuff like that you needed a MySQL odbc driver installed. Secondly not everyone will have excel. You may have version compatibility problems(Have you used Excel 2007 yet, I haven’t). Then your need to save the sql authentication in the spreadsheet someone where someone wouldn’t crack it. On an intranet it might be feasible, but on the internet. Conversion might be possible, but I think a web form from scratch would be best.

Personally I have done perl and asp scripting, but that’s not my strong point as I’m a network guy. With the right background it isn’t hard to read some how-to’s and sample scripts to put together a working script. You already have the php/mysql server, so you have a good backend. You can use your server for dev, or your local box. You can easily install php and mysql on your local PC for dev, along with apache or windows. The hard part for me is to make the input and output looks slick.

Using a simple input like hearth.com has on http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.ph ... alculator/ with the nice output on the spreadsheet would be my goal. When everything is calculated, you would have an option to dump that to a database(the database part would be last, after your have your calculations and output down). Then you could build reports.

Once you have one built, it would be easy to do another one for say… How much do your burn per sq ft, with options for central heat vs parlor burner, boilers vs warm air, brand burner, stoker vs hand fired, hot water coil vs none, year stove made, etc.

I’d offer you what I could as far as help however my free time is far and few between with a young family.

Check your email for screenshots of the spreadsheet output.

The hearth.com site is pretty similar and you can easily write your own. But, what's good about the sheet is the pre-loaded data is up to date and you don't need to tweak it too much.

The referenced DoE XLS spreadsheet is the most comprehensive heating cost comparison calculator I have ever seen. The on-line one's are limited to the simple installations. In my several years of using the calculator you want to have it execute locally on your computer. You are doing many "what if" type calculations and want to save all your input data and resulting computations. This is best done in a spread sheet. There will be some that have no experience using a spreadsheet or do not have the software on their computer. For them the existing simple on-line calculators will suffice, even though many are misleading because most do not account for equipment efficiencies. The DoE calculator is appropriate for those situations where you are spending serious money. For example a central heating system where you are trying to decide between a ground source heat pump and a coal stoker boiler or furnace. To make that choice intelligently you need a lot of data; equipment performance data and iterative calculations. And it's very specific to the local weather conditions and fuel costs.

What this forum can do is show how high end coal equipment is significantly less expensive to install and operate compared to the high efficiency alternate fuel systems. Then the homeowner can decide if the savings is worth the inconvenience and added work of coal. I would propose doing this by specific examples using the DoE calculator. For example I can show a comparison of a Weil Mclain oil fired boiler to an AHS S-130 boiler. Forum member "coal_kid" has recently done a comparison using a 92% efficient gas furnace. I don't know how many others would contribute but I think over time it would become a valuable resource.

If you decide to add an on-line version of the DoE calculator be sure to look at the spread sheet cell formulas to understand how the various inputs are used. The most difficult one to put on line would be the heat pump, especially if you include the local weather conditions.

Yanche

I think you have misunderstood my intentions, let me start over. What I would like to do is set up a form where members can input information. I'll keep it members only so the results do not become skewed. This data would be inserted into a MySql table. This data could include anything, fuel type, manufacturer, BTU's the unit can produce, coal size, house size, insulated.... etc.

From that point I can dynamically display, manipulate or do calculations however I want. PHP and MySql are quite powerful tools. Once that information is in a database i can dynamically generate pages displaying that information or cross referenced information. Basically what I'm suggesting is having real information as opposed to "what if"information.

I could for example have a page that just pulls up information for the manufacturer type and calculates the average cost based on 2000 sq. foot home, or the yearly cost based on 2000 sq. foot home. This can even be done on say a yearly basis where you would be able to compare the different heating seasons from the same person or as a whole.

I could even have people use the spreadsheet to get the figures to input into the form but that may be too much to ask and I'm not sure there would be much interest to do both. Lastly I may be able to export the information directly from the spreadsheet into a MySql table.

Right now I'm looking into what I can do but any of the things I've suggested above will take a while to implement. I know a little about PHP programming but this is a little beyond my current knowledge but I'm certainly willing to learn.

Thank you Yanche for the link to the spreadsheet, that is the best spreadsheet I have seen for heating comparisons yet.

Two years ago a client of mine asked me to put together an application that could be used for comparing different fuels, at that time he was only interested in the costs of oil and pellets, I added a coal calculation for my own reference. I wrote the application in javascript so that he and his employees could run the program from their desktop machines that did not have a whole lot of software installed on them.

I have updated the original javascript by adding the other fuels from the spreadsheet. It is still not as thorough as the DOE spreadsheet but for a quick calculation it will suffice. I have left out the electric heat pump calculations and may put them in later if time permits..

Here is the link:
http://www.lawrenceconsulting.com/heatcost/
The page has been tested and works with IE6, IE7 and Firefox, also javascript has to be enabled in the browser for the page to work. The initial values from the spreadsheet for cost (somewhat outdated) are in the page so that you may compare the calculations. The “Cost per Million BTU's” column is blank on startup, if you “mouse over” or change any value in the input boxes the costs will show.

P.S. If the page fails to load it's because the server is being upgraded this weekend.

He is one alaskastove.com I tried to send the link but it would let me so i just typed it in . the spread sheet is on home page on the left side under fuel costs .

coal berner wrote: I tried to send the link but it would let me so i just typed it in .

? if you want to post a link it has to have the preceding www http://www.alaskastove.com will work alaskastove.com will not.

NEPAForum Admin wrote:

coal berner wrote: I tried to send the link but it would let me so i just typed it in .

? if you want to post a link it has to have the preceding www http://www.alaskastove.com will work alaskastove.com will not.

Sorry I missed it to many things going on.

How do gas bills come? By therms or cubic feet? Or both?

I have no idea, I have a basic working calculator but still need to put some figures in.

Never mind I see on the spreadsheet it says that most times it's sold by therms. I'll add both eventually...