Summertime : Oil Vs. Electric DHW

4.59 a gallon vs. Electric for hot water. Who uses what ?

Coal

Sounds like coal. I'll know for sure next summer. My son asked me if I was going to heat the pool with coal next year. That might be worth looking into. 1200 for solar panels or a pump and plate exchanger. Sounds like I might have a project for next summer.

No reason why it can't be done. Most pool heaters run on NG or Propane and can cost a fortune to keep that pool comfortable.

As far as heating a house, oil at ~$ 7.20 assuming an overall combustion/heat transfer efficiency of ~78% is equal to electricity at $.22 per KWH at 100% efficiency.(CT price is 22 cents, you maybe less). So once oil goes to 7 bucks, don't need oil no more, isn't that reassuring ? The same above cost trades seems reasonable to more or less use for heating water, so oil at $ 4.50 is still cheaper than electricity, see calculator at http://pelletheat.org/ for other energy types including COAL. (though we don't DO pellets).

coal hot water for me too. Costs $6 a week on average.

Electric water heater for now . Once electricity takes its jump I will just use coal . Right now I am about $35-$40/month for EWH . Dave

wood right now

coal soon

The oil burner on the 30 gallon Aero has been shut off for a week now. We seem to be able to manage on the heating supplied by the loop in the Alaska, although the recovery is slow. During hours of non-use the water in the top of the tank can reach 140 degrees, and the circulator pump forces the heated water down towards the bottom of the tank. This is with the Alaska on a low burn, about 1" to 1 1/2" of fire on the grate.

It seems to be working out quite well.

Our electricity is 16 cents per kwh. Latest oil offer was to prepay at $4.66, which is about a break-even with electricity. I am still burning last years prepaid oil at $2.48, so depending how you look at it I'm still ahead of the game with oil, or not.

Natural Gas!

Electric 50 gal. w/timer box. It is only on for 4 hours a day in the morning (5am-9am),
it stays pretty hot most of the day, sometimes have to override if wife is doing laundry, dishes, etc...only ran out once.

There was no easy way to vent the Gas exhaust pipe, it was a good 30' horizontal run to the chimney and the moisture would condense and rot the pipe out.

Adding hot water Coil/pump for next winter into the stove.

I didn't use a timer, but I wired the hot water tank's thermostat through a switch by the kitchen sink. I was tired of waking up at 2 am, hearing the oil burner firing to bring the tank temp back up for all us in-bed people. Now we just run it once a day, generally, or turn the switch on 20 minutes before running the dishwasher or the bath water.

Hardest part of the whole thing was convincing my wife that it is worth it. She's like an old dog, barks at anything that is different. But I got caught in my own trap last week -- came in all stinky and sweaty from working in the garden and found there was only COLD water to shower with.

Coal. Heating showers for five teenagers( either they do alot or they don't alot ) and the laundry. 25lbs a day. Scott