Propane Cheaper Than Oil

A guy I know claims his friend installed a propane tank and effecient heating unit and is only spending 60.00 a month for heat/hot water. I have a propane tank for cooking and pay around 5.00 a gallon but only get it filled once a year so I have no reference. I always thought it was expensive. Anyway, the numbers seem way low for heating and hot water. Does anyone use Propane or have experience with the cost for an average home.

traderfjp wrote:. I have a propane tank for cooking and pay around 5.00 a gallon but only get it filled once a year so I have no reference. .

Propane is going for about 1.75 Gallon, of course if you pay 5 Dollars a gallon, is like having to pay 8 Dollars or so per gallon of gas, and yes, that is expensive !

I'll take propane over oil anyday, oil has more btu's per gallon ( 140.000 versus 90.000 ) but propane burns cleaner, does not contaminate the soil if it leaks, and you don't need to rely on pumps or gravity to get it to your heater, propane furnaces/boilers are less costly than oil furnaces/boilers and require almost no yearly service , and you can obtain a variety of appliances to run on propane : Cooking stove, gas dryer, lanterns, heaters, hot water heaters and tankless heaters, you may even have more option for more savings, if you own your own propane tanks, and don't forget propane does not freeze in low temperature and does not require any stabilizer.

Of course you can not compare the cost of propane to coal when it comes to heat, if you have a coal stove as a heat source, you pay almost half what you would pay if you use propane !

I was paying about 400 a month heating with propane when it was about 3 a gallon. It's still more expensive than 1.75 here but I see no way anyone could heat for that small an amount unless they have a tiny, well insulated home, or keep temperatures abnormally low, or have a passive solar house. Either he's dreaming or he's not giving you the whole story.

I have heard a boatload of friend of a friend of a friend stories. Some actually were true. This one's a stinker. Heck,I've even known guys that were over 55 and still had their childhood birthday,Communion and Christmas Gift money tacked up on their wall at home,and I don't think those pikers could pull off 60 bucks a month. With that being said,in my book,coal isn't always just about being the most economical. It is also about access to supply,market price stability,quality and reliability of heat and domestic hotwater year-round,and the possibility of years worth of fuel purchased and safely stored on the property. All that's just a start. The cost of purchasing,installing and maintaining the control electronics of a high efficiency propane furnace can be prohibitive. If your local power company's feeder and/or distribution system isn't up to snuff....bad news. If your home wiring,especially the neutral and grounding circuits are not up to snuff.....worse news. Amerigas has or had a lock-in program on pricing as many of you know. My lock is 2.10 per gallon. That ends this June. My declared primary heating system is propane. My declared domestic hotwater is electric. With that,I'm not seeing 60 bucks a month being realistic for anyone who's not making their Family or animals suffer in a less than a decent warmth and a shower a day home. I'm thinking this cat's out in his driveway wrestling a nickel he found trying to turn it into a dime.....

We've got an 1800 sq ft 6 year old single story well insulated house that just my wife and I occupy. Hi efficiency furnace, hot water, stove, clothes dryer are all propane.
Propane would cost us $3200-$3400 a year if we weren't burning coal. As it is, I see my propane guy once a year now. I can't imagine anyone getting by on $60/month.
-Len

I have Suburban Propain & the last I checked my price was $2.99. Of coarse that was when they had called to try & sell me a furnace cleaning (to get into the house to see how I`m heating). When I asked about "my price" I then asked if anyone else got a better price & she got kinda snotty with me. Sooner or later they will hit me with all type of fees, most likely sooner.

A 'Fantasy' cost, unless it is an 8' by 8' by 12" thick Styrofoam block and you take one shower a month. I'm very happy for anyone buying at 1.79/gallon. Here expect 2.69 unless you are a HUGE user.

We all know folks who are happy with whatever form of heat they have, but propane will never equate to oil in performance, but surely in it's ability to be GREEN, it's a winner.

I know about the "I don't have to pay $200.00 each year to tune my propane heating device" however even propane devices should be checked and cleaned each year, especially if you are one of the many who have had igniter failure issues.
Nothing lasts forever, but steel plate and cast iron won't give up any longevity to light gauge SS or stamped steel.
How about the expensive controls that can't be bypassed easily. I am very much in favor of efficiency, but 96.82 may be a higher efficiency number, but steady state efficiency of a continuous run solid fuel device will win every time.

traderfjp wrote:A guy I know claims his friend installed a propane tank and efficient heating unit and is only spending 60.00 a month for heat/hot water.

Maybe the friend is on the utilities' "budget plan" and the cost is averaged per month over the year. That comes out to around $720 a year but that still seems way low. Lisa

I just checked my bill and I paid just over 2.50 a gallon not 5.00. Anyway, from all the posts the 60.00 a month amount seems like a fantasy. Even with a condensing boiler there is no way unless they are wearing down in their home. I heat my basement with oil and my hotwater. I have a 48' coil in my stove to help heat the water in the boiler and I'm still averaging about 25-30 gallons a month in oil (90-120.00). Still was better than when I was averaging about 180 gallons a month in the cold months without coal. I may go to electric for heating my hotwater but I like the fast recovery of oil.

I am glad it was 2.50 and not 5.00 Dollars a gallon, I did many computations couple of years ago, and when PPL ( Pennsylvania Power and Light ) rates were approximately 0.10 Per Kilowatthour, the break even point was at 2.34 Dollars, meaning if you pay 2.34 Dollars per gallon for propane, you can get the same exact amount of heat by using electricity ! I have convinced couple of friends of mine to switch to electric, and later they thanked me after receiving their electric bill ( I had faith in my calculation, so I was not worried about giving them the wrong financial advice )

I understand the electric rates are going up, and in few months the rates will stabilize, along with all the fees in the fine prints, then I'll do the calculation again.

As far as the 60.00 Dollars a month, it's not a fantasy at all, I just realized, that I have used on the average 45.00 Dollars a month, starting Nov 2009, keep in mind, my place is not properly insulated, but I live alone, and when I leave the house, my CoalPilot hooked up to my Alaska stoker, keeps the place at 60, and I turned it up to 68 when I am in; at night time I bring it back to 62 after 11:00 P.M. and I use an electric blanket ( instead of a warm woman ) which costs about $0.06 a night to keep me warm. ( much cheaper than a woman in the long run ) I buy the coal at the mine site, bulk price is 145.00 Dollars a ton, but I was able to buy couple of other loads at 100.00 Dollars a ton n Cl.

The stove fires up nicely every morning to 70 , and I have the blower hooked up to a sensor, so it's really quiet at night, but starts every morning automatically as soon as the stoker heats up.

Here in CT, the price of propane is all over the road. My brother heats with the stuff and switched from the local mega dealer to a little guy and cut his heating bill in half.

I'm paying about $3.50 a gallon for propane (kitchen stove and clothes dryer). I have a friend that pays about $2.25. He has three 1,000 tanks and heats his business with it.

Electricity for ten cents a KWH? Must be nice! It's so close to twenty cents here it might's well be. Noooooo one heats with electricity. Not even the Amish!

My family of 4 uses propane for a floor furnace with programmable thermostat, hot water and cooking in a 1,100 ft2, 100 yr old house in RI. Without coal or wood heat, I estimate we would use about 650 gal/year. Pricing varies a lot by volume/yr, and by size of provider. Recent estimates are around 3$/gal. I was planning to buy my own tank this year, at an installed cost of $600, to get a lower delivery price. Initially I calculated owning a tank would pay for itself in 2 years. Now that I heat with coal, I will have to recalculate to see how long my payback will be, since I will use less propane each year.

spiker wrote:My family of 4 uses propane for a floor furnace with programmable thermostat, hot water and cooking in a 1,100 ft2, 100 yr old house in RI. Without coal or wood heat, I estimate we would use about 650 gal/year. Pricing varies a lot by volume/yr, and by size of provider. Recent estimates are around 3$/gal. I was planning to buy my own tank this year, at an installed cost of $600, to get a lower delivery price. Initially I calculated owning a tank would pay for itself in 2 years. Now that I heat with coal, I will have to recalculate to see how long my payback will be, since I will use less propane each year.

I made the same calculation myself a few months ago. Here in NY it cost about $1,100 for a 100 gallon, ASME propane tank installed and filled with propane. My local dealer charges about $1.20 less a gallon if you own your own tank and you have the flexibility of going with the lowest cost providor. My calculation was a payback of just over 4 years at my current rate of usage which is 200 gallon per year (for hot water, stove, clothes dryer).

One thing to consider is your consumption has greatly decreased by burning coal and woad. Most propane providors price based on projected consumption (to pay for tanks, delivery costs, etc). You may end up paying quite a bit more per galon with your lower consumption.

propane will never be cheaper per btu than oil. if you install a high efficiency 90+ furnace, you may be able to bring your heating costs down closer to oil, but usually it will more expensive than oil as a heating fuel. I greatly prefer oil heat over propane. Not only is it less expensive, but it's simpler, safer, and relatively easy for someone with basic abilities to maintain themselves. Additionally, the heating equiptment, being more robust, if taken care of, will last at least twice as long as a propane or NG appliance - especially forced air furnaces.