elec heat is cheap? huh?

I just read this from an AP article: "Households are expected to pay an average of $783, nearly 12 percent less than last winter, for natural gas, and $1,821 for heating oil, about 2 percent lower. People using electric heat will pay $933, a decline of 2 percent and those using propane $1,667, or 14 percent less than last winter, the agency said."

Isn't electric the most expensive of all? Or are they saying that people who use electric heat have that as their average bill, but they're in warmer climes so they don't need as much heating anyway?

Reply to
ST
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Gas, particularly propane, is getting expensive compared to electricity. We all know what happened to oil prices. You see the signs on the pumps at the shop and rob (heating oil is basically diesel) I suspect the "warmer climate" thing is part of it but anyone in a cooler place than South Florida probably uses heat pumps and they are pretty efficient until it really gets cold.

Where I am we just have toaster wire heat but the heating season is about 5 nights a year, maybe a day or two.

Reply to
gfretwell

Depends on where you live. It is probably the cheapest in the TN Valley- maybe the most expensive *per btu* in the northeast. But it has advantages of no tuneup required, no waste & room by room zoning.

These 'average' bill reports always make me chuckle. Have you heard about the mathematician who drowned in the lake that was an average of

1foot deep?

And to make them doubly funny, I like when they mix imaginary averages with WAG predictions of the future. Especially when they are predicting not just market vagaries, but also mother nature's fickle future. [Remember last year- "$5/gallon oil- *very* cold, long winter." Mine never hit $4 & I used exactly the same amount of oil as the year before.]

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Andy comments:

A better comparison would be the cost of each item per BTU, since we would expect to pay less for energy if we have less useage, and that changes each year....

I have NEVER seen the cost per BTU of electric decrease.

I HAVE seen the cost per BTU of gas,oil,coal go up AND down each year....

But to say that the "cost for gas" will go down might just mean that a warmer winter is being forecast...

Andy in Eureka, Texas

Reply to
AndyS

AndyS wrote: ...

a) you've simply not watched fuel surcharges on electric rates follow the energy markets then;

b) oil and particularly gas are significantly cheaper than they were last year and one wouldn't expect the prices to rise drastically in the short term given that economic recovery is likely to be longer term. This could, of course, change overnight if OB decides to do something precipitous in Iran, for example.

c) not seen longterm projections/predictions that for the NE or either coast but the longterm in the midwest for winter last I saw was for more nearly normal or perhaps below and dry which would be colder than last year in most areas.

I do agree such articles are essentially meaningless as they mangle the data from which the stated conclusions are drawn so badly as to be totally unable to separate out what is weather driven as opposed to the energy costs.

--

Reply to
dpb

We've got about 12KW of electric heat at our place, plus a 500gal propane tank - last Winter costs were probably evenly split between the two (but we keep the house at 65 unlike a lot of folk who run up in the

70s, and the baseboard electric heaters are all on an off-peak rate, so work out quite economical to run)

Lucky. We turned heat on about a week ago - and expect it to go off again sometime around next April... :-)

cheers

Jules

Reply to
Jules

It would be interesting to compare heat to A/C bills.

Reply to
gfretwell

-snip-

I just checked mine. Last month's propane was 30% lower than last year's Sept delivery.

Got a start when I looked at my electric history. I track both the stated KW/hr *and* the total bill/kWh. The stated hours have gone down almost 50%- from 9.3cents to 4.7. But the delivery charges and other crap has almost made up for it- 14.8 last year, 14.5 this year.

So in reality my propane has gone down 15x as much as my electricity.

Mine went from $3.86 to $2.59. cheapest it's been since '06.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

The numbers could be due to the fact that homes with electric heat tend to be smaller, in warmer climates, etc. So trying to compare average bills is meaningless. Also, does "electric" just mean electric resistance heat, which we know is expensive, or does it include heat pumps?

We just got notified here in NJ that nat gas prices are dropping substantially and we are getting a substantial refund in the form of credit this month.

Reply to
trader4

I had to pony up $5k ($4.95/gallon) up front for 2008-2009 "price cap" savings, BUT, you only pay the current price at time of fill-up if it's less than the "cap" price. So...when the winter was over they still had $3k of my money so not only is this year's oil paid in full, they had to give me back nearly $700. I used 300 gallons less last year than the year prior because we insulated and got new windows, etc.

Reply to
h

Places where lots of people use electric heat would tend to be places with cheaper electricity.

Reply to
Bob F

Your electric heating is 100% efficient. It ALL turns to heat somewhere in the house and none is lost out the "stack". It CAN be cheaper than propane or oil. Sometimes. I've told many people who converted from electric to gas to leave the electric heat installed - if gas prices spike, use the electric.

Reply to
clare

The winter is not over, and I'm sure one tank won't last the winter. A refinery problem, or more politics in the east COULD double the cost of the next tank - - -

Reply to
clare

Or places where Natural Gas in not available and Propane and Oil need to behauled a good distance or locating the oil/rpopane tanks for access is problematic.

Reply to
clare

Generally, electric heat is 10 times more expensive than fossil fuels. It has to be one hell of a fuel price spike for electric heat to be worth it. The only time electric heat can be remotely reasonable is if only one room is heated.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

You don't have to use resistive elements to have electric heat. There are also heat pumps. If your climate is mild enough for a heat pump they could beat gas and certainly oil or propane. I know a heat pump pool heater is cheaper to run than nat gas in SW Fla because I know people with both types and very similar pools. That is with a fairly warm ambient tho. The country club where my wife works uses heat pumps on all 7 pools they have because they are cheaper to operate..

Reply to
gfretwell

On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:21:11 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote Re Re: elec heat is cheap? huh?:

Here is northwest Alabama, gas has increased from $0.08 to $0.12 per kWh delivered into the house (assuming 85% efficiency). Electricity is $0.09/kWh this month.

Reply to
Caesar Romano

Caesar Romano wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Well her in New Jersey electricity is more like $0.14/kWh, according to

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(googled as one of the first sites)

Reply to
Han

-snip-

Despite the weasel word 'generally', I'd like a cite on that one.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

What locales have that sort of ratio?

Reply to
George

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