Electric Bill With Heating Water With Coal

Flyer5 · Post by **Flyer5** » Wed. Jan. 30, 2008 9:16 pm

My bill went down quite a bit .The bill showed last January vs this January consumption . Using 18kw /day less avg . Gotta love coal . Dave

ken · Post by **ken** » Wed. Jan. 30, 2008 10:24 pm

stokerstove · Post by **stokerstove** » Thu. Jan. 31, 2008 4:10 pm

In my all elec. house the bill drops significantly once the heating season starts and I fire up the Alaska with the water coil. I do have a couple of fans and a pump running but that's nothing compared to what an elec. water heater and baseboard would draw. Couldn't be happier with the setup - well maybe I could as I plan to look into adding some radiant floor heat in a couple of rooms above an unheated crawl space.

e.alleg · Post by **e.alleg** » Thu. Jan. 31, 2008 4:21 pm

my house has forced air heat, so even with coal supplying the heat the 3/4hp blower uses some power. I'm on the feast or famine plan, (estimated bills). Some months $30.00, other months $130.

WNY · Post by **WNY** » Thu. Jan. 31, 2008 5:35 pm

Ours goes up a bit (the stove draws about 2.5 amps max when stoking), but everything else is electric hot water, - (coil to be added for next year) Cook Stove and dryer are all electric.

lincolnmania · Post by **lincolnmania** » Sat. Feb. 02, 2008 5:14 am

e.alleg wrote:my house has forced air heat, so even with coal supplying the heat the 3/4hp blower uses some power. I'm on the feast or famine plan, (estimated bills). Some months $30.00, other months $130.

i'm curious as to how that works? do you have a water to air heat exchanger?

e.alleg · Post by **e.alleg** » Sat. Feb. 02, 2008 9:20 am

It's a simple system. I have a water to air heat exchanger, basically a car radiator, mounted on the top of my forced air furnace inside the plenum. 8" above the heat exchanger is a fan/limit switch mounted in the plenum. When the house thermostat calls for heat it simply turns on the stoker and circulator pump which pumps hot water through the heat exchanger. After a minute or so the plenum heats up and the fan switch turns on the forced air fan. The fan shuts down when the plenum cools off to 90 degrees, which is a few minutes after the stoker shuts down. My house stays within 2 degrees of the thermostat setting so it seems to be working OK. It looks like this: (I don't know this seller) ebay item #150210360007 There are 2 advantages to doing it this way, one is the cost. My house already had forced air so all I needed was about 20 feet of pipe and I was done. second is I can add a bypass humidifier to the ductwork and have whole house humidity fairly easily and fully automatic. I'm going to buy one in April when they go on clearance. I have 2 large filters in my furnace which takes care of any dust. The furnace can also be used as backup if I ever run out of coal, it is on standby 24/7, it has a separate thermostat set to 55 degrees.