electric vs gas

[badgolferman]

How does a 10-year-old electric furnace compare to a 10-year-old gas furnace in efficiency and cost to run?

[hallerb]

electric is near 100% efficent, but in nearly the entire country gas costs less for heat.

gas furnace can be from 50% to 95+ efficent, but even the 50 percent gas piggie likely costs less to operate than the electric furnace

[ransley]

Nobody can answer your question. Maybe 3 years ago elec was double the cost of Ng for me at my rate of 0.125 Kwh but its all changed. Electric rates vary across the country from maybe 0.07 kwh to maybe near 0.18kwh. Ng costs vary dramaticly as well and might go up 50% next winter! Both are going up, with gas going up the fastest since electric utilitys usualy get locked into rates for lengths of time. My elec utility ComEd would like to double my rate tomorrow if they could for profit , now im near 0.14kwh. So nobody can tell you "cost to run" its all your local pricing. You tell us the efficency of your furnace, how can anybody know. 10 years ago I think 82% was the minimum sold and 96.7% the max for Ng, so whats yours? Electric is basicly 100% efficent. Poor leaky ductwork can loose you maybe 20%, an oversized Ng furnace thats dirty maybe another 5%. Do an energy audit, insulate and figure it all out

[HeyBub]

We just had a report here in Texas of a couple of electricity providers going bankrupt. One was charging up to THIRTY-CENTS per kwh, prepaid, to people with no credit.

[ransley]

I just had a tenant run out after his power was shut off, his mexican wife liked it hot so he ran electric heaters all day, in 2 months he got an 800.00 electric bill for a one bedroom apt, normal is 25$, he cooked electric too and kept his lights on, I later found out he screwed the gas co so he had no cooking gas and he never changed the billing name on the electric, so he screws everyone, but I know where he works, and the utility companies will soon know too. But Thirty cents, that must be a dead beat charge, not your local rate.

[HeyBub]

Yeah, it's for people with no credit - like pre-paid 'phone cards I guess.

Still, they were buying watts at, oh, seven cents per kwh, paying one cent for distribution, and charging thirty. Still went bankrupt!

I guess you can't trust deadbeats.

But you knew that.