Efficient electrical heat for house??

[wyo george]

Greetings all,

I live on a hill in Wyoming where it's cold and windy. Despite being able to see a coal power plant and about 300 wind turbines from my house, the power bills are killing me and I've got to figure out something to help lower them. Currently we are paying around $400 a month in the winter months and about $100 during the summer. Where we live we only have electric and our house is a moderate, two story house of about 2,400 square feet.

Currently the heating is all baseboard heaters from the early 80's and before I rip them all out I thought I'd ask if there are any more efficient methods of heating this house than the traditional baseboard heaters? I doubt a heat pump would work since we regularly see -20F temps and cooler.

Thanks,
George

 

[JCByrd24]

There is a lot of heating to do when a heat pump will work well, don't count it out. Also, ripping up baseboards and installing new ones won't get you anything, electric heat has always been 100% efficient. Do you have a south facing roof, put up PV solar panels and create your own power. Pellet stove?

 

[brewchief]

Geothermal heat pump would be more efficient use of electricity but the install cost may be very high.

Resistance heat is 100% efficient, old baseboard heaters or new.

Look at other ways to cut the heat loss of the house, insulation upgrades, windows and doors.

Alternative heat sources a possibility? Pellet stove or wood stove?

Mini split heat pump may have some merit here, might not handle it at the coldest times but may take a big bite of power bill during moderate days.

 

[wyo george]

To follow up and answer a few questions:

~ All windows were upgraded last year, it helped some, but our old ones weren't very old so it was minimal. The 40-60 mph winds in the winter are the terrible thing to deal with.

~ I realize that heat strips are 100% efficiency, but someone had told me of some newer styles that had fans in them or something that made them more efficient at distributing the heat created. Not sure, just thought someone may know more about that

~ From the folks I have spoke with, solar panels would take about four lifetimes to break even on initial cost/upkeep verses benefit. Maybe I was misinformed, but I looked no further at solar.

~ I've been looking at a pellet stove, the house even has a place where a wood heater used to be, just not sure if I'd be trading $200 / month on electricity for $200 in pellets.

~ We also have coal mines nearby, does anyone know anything about coal heaters? I'm thinking it may be cheaper to buy coal than to buy pellets?

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate them all. When I question an answer given it's not because I think the suggestion is bad, I'm jut wanting to know more about the idea.

Thanks again,

Cold George

 

[JCByrd24]

What are your electric rates?

 

[theoldwizard1]

Geothermal heat pump would be more efficient use of electricity but the install cost may be very high.
.
.
.
Alternative heat sources a possibility? Pellet stove or wood stove?

Those are your ONLY realistic choices.

 

[Ratchet Guy]

The best one that I liked is the radiant electric heating that is embedded in the floor, it warms up the floor and the heat dissipated first into the flooring material before into the air slowly, compare to a baseboard heating, it heats up the air and heated air always goes up naturally, so it takes a long time to heat the lower portion of the house, most of the time if you have a 2 story house, using baseboard heating, the heat will warm up the 2nd floor of the house because warm air goes up and it will pass thru the stairway going up to the 2nd floor, which i find to useless, I always find that i feel cold in my hands and feet before i feel cold over the body, thats why If I'm in a house that has heated floor, I dont find it cold.

 

[theoldwizard1]

~ I've been looking at a pellet stove, the house even has a place where a wood heater used to be, just not sure if I'd be trading $200 / month on electricity for $200 in pellets.

Not likely. Check into $/bag and $/ton. It is a lot of work unless you are going spend a lot of money on a large hopper feed system.

~ We also have coal mines nearby, does anyone know anything about coal heaters? I'm thinking it may be cheaper to buy coal than to buy pellets?

Coal is any worse, messier solution.

 

[Ray916MN]

Plant fast growing dense trees to the north and west of your home to create a windbreak. In the early 80s I was a research assistant on a federally funded Princeton University energy study in New Jersey, and as I recollect, we saw something like 10% savings on heating from planting a tree break to the west of condominiums that we had instrumented.

 

[wyo george]

What are your electric rates?

It varies a bit, but if you take my total bill and divide it by useage it comes out to $0.125 per Kwh

This month I paid $412.45 and used a total of 3298kwh

 

[wyo george]

Plant fast growing dense trees to the north and west of your home to create a windbreak. In the early 80s I was a research assistant on a federally funded Princeton University energy study in New Jersey, and as I recollect, we saw something like 10% savings on heating from planting a tree break to the west of condominiums that we had instrumented.

Southwest would be better here, that's the direction of our normal winds, but yeah I get the point.

 

[JCByrd24]

Your rates are pretty low but the payback on solar will still be reasonable, under 15 years. In that time rates are likely to go up as well, ours here are going up 25% this year. Also, the equipment is pretty simple and has great warranty, there is not maintenance but usually inverters get replaced every 15 years or so. Compared to geothermal they are simple systems though. You might be looking at a similar upfront cost, but at the end of the day the solar provides free power, you still need to feed power to a geo system. A combination of the two would be good, but I believe studies have shown it just makes more sense to add solar vice install geothermal and solar.

I've just begun installing a 3.8kW solar array on my garage (doing the work myself). It will cost me $6K after tax credits (federal only) and at the new rate of $0.20/kWh it should give me $1000/per in electricity. It would have been 10 years instead of 6 if I'd paid to have it done. At the end of the day though, it's the only option that eliminates utility bills, so you have to factor that in when comparing it to any other upgrade.

That being said, we heat our house with a pellet stove and it works great.

 

[bazar01]

One option however would be to check if your baseboard heaters are 120V or 240V

If they are 120V you could lower your monthy cost by converting to 240V since they will draw less amperage.

Less amperage = less wattage = less draw on grid = lower electric meter reading.
In theory your heating load should be cut in half.

We pay for power consumption (watts/hr) and not on amperage draw.
Power usage is always a product of amperage draw and voltage.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Your rates are pretty low but the payback on solar will still be reasonable, under 15 years.

Geothermal, heat pump.

 

[ishiboo]

One option however would be to check if your baseboard heaters are 120V or 240V

If they are 120V you could lower your monthy cost by converting to 240V since they will draw less amperage.

Less amperage = less wattage = less draw on grid = lower electric meter reading.
In theory your heating load should be cut in half.

This is 240% wrong.

 

[JACDes]

Sorry, someone hacked my account...

 

[Jackfre]

I can't see geothermal on a retrofit. If you own a backhoe and can do the loops, then maybe, but you are going to be very close to the efficiency of geothermal, at much lower cost with mini-split heat pumps. Check out Mitsubishi's & Fujitsu's web sites.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I can't see geothermal on a retrofit. If you own a backhoe and can do the loops, then maybe, but you are going to be very close to the efficiency of geothermal, at much lower cost with mini-split heat pumps. Check out Mitsubishi's & Fujitsu's web sites.

Normally I would agree with you except that the OP said ...

I doubt a heat pump would work since we regularly see -20F temps and cooler.

The fastest and usually cheapest way to do geothermal is drill well(s).

 

[Highbeam]

The heat pumps could do the job down to 0 and then you need something else to supplement. Pellet, propane, electric, etc.

A pellet stove (with pellets at 250$ per ton, it's 200$ for me) will be pumping out heat at 20.67$ per million btu where your resistance heaters are costing you 36.63$ per million btu so almost double. The pellet heat costs you 56% of what the electric heat will.

This means that if your pellet stove could keep up, and it can, that your best case savings are 200$ a month.

 

[theoldwizard1]

The heat pumps could do the job down to 0 and then you need something else to supplement. Pellet, propane, electric, etc.

Geothermal heat pumps move heat from 100+ feet below ground level to your home. They are incredibly efficient because at that depth the ground is an infinite heat sink/source.

 

[toofart]

Your power rate is similar to what we have here in Quebec. You'll be hard pressed to find better than baseboard heat. If each room has its own thermostat, switch to the electronic programmable ones, well worth it. Close doors to rooms you don't use and don't heat them.

I went from a bungalow with baseboards and finely tuned programmable thermostats to a house the same size with central electric heat. My power bill went up since I can't regulate heat in each room as easily s baseboards.

 

[404]

To follow up and answer a few questions:

~ All windows were upgraded last year, it helped some, but our old ones weren't very old so it was minimal. The 40-60 mph winds in the winter are the terrible thing to deal with.

~ I realize that heat strips are 100% efficiency, but someone had told me of some newer styles that had fans in them or something that made them more efficient at distributing the heat created. Not sure, just thought someone may know more about that

~ From the folks I have spoke with, solar panels would take about four lifetimes to break even on initial cost/upkeep verses benefit. Maybe I was misinformed, but I looked no further at solar.

~ I've been looking at a pellet stove, the house even has a place where a wood heater used to be, just not sure if I'd be trading $200 / month on electricity for $200 in pellets.

~ We also have coal mines nearby, does anyone know anything about coal heaters? I'm thinking it may be cheaper to buy coal than to buy pellets?

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate them all. When I question an answer given it's not because I think the suggestion is bad, I'm jut wanting to know more about the idea.

Thanks again,

Cold George

Look in to coal stoker stove. Web site nepacrossroads is the place to read.
http://nepacrossroads.com/

Don't know if you have (brown or soft) coal where you are or Anthracite coal. Depending on which you have you want a different stove. Heat value of coal is about twice heat value of pellets per pound.

Your coal is Sub-bituminous according to wikipedia, should be very cheap if you can drive to the mine to get it.

 

[404]

Here is the specific forum for your coal

http://nepacrossroads.com/forum-68.html

 

[JCByrd24]

Geothermal, heat pump.

What's your payback on a geothermal system?? Solar or wind or other renewable is the only system that ever gets free. Any other system you still have to feed (electricity, wood, pellet, etc, etc) Speaking in complete generalities...you can pay 20K on solar PV and eliminate your electric bill or pay 20K on geothermal and cut your electric bill in half, which do you do...keep in mind, rates will go up, unless your bill is zero.

That being said, pellets are cheap heat if you don't mind doing a little work and are worried about the upfront cost. And I agree, a great compliment to a minisplit.

 

[AnonymousToolGuy]

I don't know your situation or costs, but would it not be possible to get a storage tank for natural gas installed and then you can supply yourself with a gas fired furnace (and water heater)?

 

[theoldwizard1]

What's your payback on a geothermal system?? Solar or wind or other renewable is the only system that ever gets free. Any other system you still have to feed (electricity, wood, pellet, etc, etc) Speaking in complete generalities...you can pay 20K on solar PV and eliminate your electric bill or pay 20K on geothermal and cut your electric bill in half, which do you do...keep in mind, rates will go up, unless your bill is zero.

I don't have data to support my opinion, but I think it would be impossible to heat a home with solar and wind with over night temperatures at -20F and day time temperatures at +10F, especially if you have a few cloudy days with low wind in a row.

That being said, pellets are cheap heat if you don't mind doing a little work and are worried about the upfront cost. And I agree, a great compliment to a minisplit.

Concur ! Except that the pellets would be the PRIMARY heat source for much of the winter.

 

[JACDes]

instead of pellets or coal try burning horse / cow dung in a potbelly stove.

I am sure there is plenty of free or low cost "raw material" in your area.

or wood.. any forests on your property that you can harvest ?

 

[jives]

Keep the baseboard heaters. The best way is to start off by making the house more energy efficienct. Lower the electrical usage. . .drafts, insulation, etc. Next, put in a solar collector (not PV panels), something that you can build if handy, like a solar greenhouse, trombe wall. Then assess electric heat needs.

Any solar panel arrangement that is close to being affordable will not be able to supply sufficient electricity to power the baseboard heaters. We are running an 8.1 kW system
(32 panels covering about 600 sq ft) that supplies only base electrical. . . no heat or hot water.) Our system cost about $35,000, of which 2/3rds being paid for by tax credits and grants. Otherwise, no way. Payback time is estimated to be 11 years.

I would not remove the baseboard, but add a biofuel burner. . . multifuel stove that can burn wood, corn, chips, etc. Yes, they are not "hands-off", but if you are looking to save money, the best way at this time is to burn biomass. The up-front costs of other systems are too much. (The estimate for use for geothermal that would supply heat and hot water for us was close to $50K! Incentives would have reduced it, but final cost would have been $35K. That is a lot of propane).

If we had the room in our house, or my wife was not anxious about burners, we would have bought something like this to replace our propane:

http://bioburner.com/

http://www.sedorestovewest.com/

 

[Freejack]

Sounds like the information is all over the place in this thread, some of it close, some of it off the mark...

First, how big is the house and are there provisions for central-forced air? Do you have an A/C system today? Also does it have a basement?

How many rooms are you trying to heat?

What is the square footage of the home?

Jake

 

[JCByrd24]

oldwizard. You would think wrong, the outdoor temp has nothing to do with it. Gridtied solar feeds the grid when the system produces excess and takes from the grid whenever it needs. The system does not limit you in any way. I'm not talking about off the grid electricity with batteries.

For all the PV solar naysayers. Assuming the OPs monthly electricity bills at $400/month for 4 months and $200 for 2 months and $100 for the remaining 6 months at the OPs $0.12/kWh I calculate annual usage at 22000kWhr per year or around 1800kWh per month. From the site I ordered from a system that will supply all of that would be $25K. Assume another 5K for install and subtract the 30% for the federal tax credit and you are at $21K. Assuming the same electricity rates the payback is $2600/year (his previous electric bill) and almost exactly 8 years.

Buying a renewable energy system is like buying an annuity. Pay a lump some of money up front and get money each month for the rest of your life.

Jives, you obviously bought your system a few years back as that price is very high. In addition you are using tons of electricity if that's not doing any of your heating or hot water.

 

[theoldwizard1]

oldwizard. You would think wrong, the outdoor temp has nothing to do with it. Gridtied solar feeds the grid when the system produces excess and takes from the grid whenever it needs. The system does not limit you in any way. I'm not talking about off the grid electricity with batteries.

You are correct, I was not considering PV with grid tie.

For all the PV solar naysayers. Assuming the OPs monthly electricity bills at $400/month for 4 months and $200 for 2 months and $100 for the remaining 6 months at the OPs $0.12/kWh I calculate annual usage at 22000kWhr per year or around 1800kWh per month. From the site I ordered from a system that will supply all of that would be $25K. Assume another 5K for install and subtract the 30% for the federal tax credit and you are at $21K. Assuming the same electricity rates the payback is $2600/year (his previous electric bill) and almost exactly 8 years.

Your numbers are in the right direction, but I think they are optomistic.

Here is an online story about someone who did as you suggested. His system generated 12050 kWhr in 1 year and the net cost was $29,205 (initial cost before rebates, etc was $51,865). Using these numbers the OP initial costs before rebates would be over $100,000 !!! But then again, the OP would never have another electric bill !!!!!!


Still this is an option to be considered !

 

[nick2010tundra]

Just a comment on Mini Splits, I live in Canada where it hits -20 f all the time, my mini split ( Fujitsu) still works at that temperature. The newer High end mini splits work very well. Ps I researched the heck out of heating when I built my house and went Mini Split versus a heat pump system ( almost twice the Seer rating and HSPF).
You should make your house tighter first then look to reduce heat costs, sounds to me like you need some more attic insulation.

 

[Randy in Maine]

If it were me the first thing I would go for would be a lot of spray foam insulation to eliminate the infiltration. Good windows hopefully facing the sun.

Then I would go for some sort of radiant floor heat powered up by a good cheap source to give me good warmth at my feet where i can feel it. When I lived in Wyoming in 1980, propane kept my Airstream quite toasty.

 

[Kogashuko]

Insulate insulate insulate.

By doing a load calc without spray foam in my addition to with I was able to lower the load from 25000btu to about 10000. This was by making the walls 6 inches thick with foam instead of 3.5 with fiberglass. I have improved it a little bit more so the load should be even lower.

At lower loads you should consider VRF or Minisplits instead of geo. I looked hard at geo and even got a flow center in preperation. However, with my modified heat load and efficency of the new units I decided to go with minisplit and eventually replace my traditional ducted heat pumps with split VRF units. Geo guys will hate me saying this but after you factor in pumping costs the mini splits are just as efficent. Also, you get an inverter system which has many advantages. You can get Geo inverters but they are very very very expensive. You will still have pumping overhead and duct loss. Not to mention install costs. Even if I did the install myself and went ahead and did the whole house, I was looking at most of my acre lot being excavated to bury the loop. Either that or having to pay someone to use those underground conduit runners and run them into the woods behind my house and hope no one ever found out...

Now if you have a 2 ton to 5ton heat load and a 100gpm well along with somewhere to send the water you are in a good spot. I would still consider a mitsubishi or lg ground source pump with phase converter instead of a ducted system. I am also betting if you have baseboard heat that you dont have ductwork or your ductwork is not designed for a heat pump.

I tell you that running this minisplit refrigeration line is like runing a strip of pex next to a strip of coax cable with foam around it. I only ran the refrigerant on the outside of the house because I wanted easy access to the flare fittings on my first install and I plan on redoing the drywall in the room anyway. After doing all of that though I see that it would have been much easier to have the flare connection inside the house under the mini head. This is how I will do my addition. 6 inch walls filled with an inch of closed cell foam followed by open cell for the rest of the cavity. I will then have another 2x4 service cavity that will have all my electrical, data, and refrigerant runs. As an added bonus, after I run everything, I will fill the cavities with either rock wool or fiberglass before adding drywall. Giving me a true R40ish wall.

 

[nadogail]

Have you considered adding solar heated hot water radiators to your mix of possible BTU sources?

 

[Kogashuko]

Have you considered adding solar heated hot water radiators to your mix of possible BTU sources?

Yep, solar hot water is much more efficent and more cost effective than PV!

 

[theoldwizard1]

Yep, solar hot water is much more efficent and more cost effective than PV!

Solar hot water requires very careful planning and construction to really be effective. Not typically a good retro-fit solution.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Then I would go for some sort of radiant floor heat powered up by a good cheap source to give me good warmth at my feet where i can feel it.

Your statemnet about radiant floor heat is correct. However it is difficult ($$$) as a retrofit.

The "cheapest" (to operate) heat source would be wood or coal or geothermal heat pump. I'm too damn old for feeding a boiler with wood or coal !

 

[BadgerBoilerMN]

Old electric elements get dirty. They are not as "efficient as a new fin.

Geo, no ROI, 20 year payback, wind worse, solar not even a serious subject of space heating.

Pellets depend on the local market and your back.

Solid fuel would be my choice in this application since you have coal and perhaps wood and pellets as an alternative.

I would start with a air-to-air heat pump (I, in fact did) since, as High points out, the cost of operation will be a third of your current down to 5° of so and the lowest cooling bill you can get. Much depends on the layout of the house.

If you buy a solid fuel stove for coal, I have a Morso wood but they make a coal model, or a hydronic boiler for coal, you could have radiant floor and domestic hot water (about a third of your fuel bill).

As for insulation, the attic to R-50 and the rim-joist foamed.

A wind break is a good idea and could start with a simple snow fence and wait for the low shrubs and the high trees to grow.

 

[volleyball]

You are spending how many hundreds of dollars to heat each year? Not your monthly bills. The total. How much will another system cost you? How much will that cost to provide heat all year? Take the annual payment for baseboard and compare to the annual payment for the other heat system and the amortized cost of the new equipment per year and see what is lower.
Heat pumps whether air or water will give you A/C during warm weather. That has value to many of us. A geo system can also take the waste heat from the A/C and give you real cheap hot water.
The mini splits are ugly and you may need lots of them if you like to close doors. Geo means finding a place for the unit. And more initial cost. I think the Federal Tax Credits are gone or reduced.
How hard is it to run ductwork? I did it so I know. Lost room to duct runs but gained space due to electric baseboard removal.
Is this house a long or short term home? That makes a major difference.
Insulating the home, maybe a vestibule, can go a long way to reducing the heat load and makes any other system less financially sensible.
No system change ever made sense in my house until the need for A/C and air filtering became important.

I wonder if the baseboards have been cleaned out and things are not blocking them.