So, I called for heating oil yesterday.............
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muncybob
Posts: 2,981
We only use oil as a back up (thankfully!) to our wood fired boiler. Went to see how much oil was in our tanks and the gauge showed we were about empty. This seemed strange to me as I try not to ever get that low, but I called Monday for a minimal delivery of 125 gallons. Lady says it's $5.25/gallon...to which I almost dropped the phone. I needed it so I placed the order and she told me she cannot guarantee the price will be the same on day of delivery. Called a couple other places and their [rices were closer to $6!
Delivery was made today with 2 surprises...apparently my gauge is faulty because they could only put 40 gallons in, whew!! Surprise #2, cost went up .50 overnight to $5.75/gallon....wtf!! Our winter is predicted to be colder than average, I wonder if I can make some $$ by selling a few of my sweaters
I'll need to keep an eye on my stacks of firewood, they are almost worth their weight in gold right now.
Delivery was made today with 2 surprises...apparently my gauge is faulty because they could only put 40 gallons in, whew!! Surprise #2, cost went up .50 overnight to $5.75/gallon....wtf!! Our winter is predicted to be colder than average, I wonder if I can make some $$ by selling a few of my sweaters
I'll need to keep an eye on my stacks of firewood, they are almost worth their weight in gold right now.
Yep, my name really is Bob.
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I mean it's obvious you need a heat pump...
😜- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Ouch!When I was a kid my parents told me to turn it down. Now I'm an adult and my kids tell me to turn it down.
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solar plus high efficiency heat pumps = free heating and cooling!
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LP is way more than double, actually approaching triple what it was before Jan 2020. I don’t know how people can get by sometimes, especially the elderly or those on fixed incomes.
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There’s only one reason heating oil should be the same price as over the road diesel - price gouging. Normal times, it’s substantially less than diesel. We ain’t living in normal times.
That reminds me… I’ve got to order propane and I’m not looking forward to that bill. -
Just bought wood pellets this weekend. They were limiting to 10 bags. The price was $5.99 for 40lb bag of Lignetics, which didn't seem too horrible. Not sure if it was just this store limiting or is there a shortage.Stan
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LP is way more than double, actually approaching triple what it was before Jan 2020. I don’t know how people can get by sometimes, especially the elderly or those on fixed incomes.
My friend Mike in Medford MN is all LP on his place. He is Cr@PPING himself over the prices this year.
Heck my budget plan with Nicore went from $$60 a month to $175.Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's. -
Well at least we’re in an amazing economy right now, while I’m eating a big I SCEAM cone😳"if it's not fun, it's not worth it & remember folks, "It's All About The Music"!!
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My friend in Connecticut installed a couple mini splits that do heat and ac, said they worked great- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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We like our high-efficiency minisplits. They're running now and making the house comfortable while there's frost outside. Most of the juice they need is generated by the PV panels on the roof -- no oil well out back.
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I just bake a meatloaf or roast. Then a cake or pie later in the day. Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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In the case of heat pumps, they don't work very well in colder climates.
You can run underground loops for the heat source which generally works no matter how low the temperature drops.
But if you'reusing outdoor air for the heat source when it gets cold enough outside your system is going to rely on electric heat strips to supply heat
The Power Company becomes very happy at that point. 🤗
If you have solar panels (and some electric storage capacity) then you're good to go 👍
Sal Palooza -
We were fortunate to lock into a price for 2.5 years for our natural gas. We’re still locked in till next September.
Because I am The Pumpkinking
A Kind Word Is An Easy Gift To Give -
mrbigbluelight wrote: »In the case of heat pumps, they don't work very well in colder climates.
You can run underground loops for the heat source which generally works no matter how low the temperature drops.
But if you'reusing outdoor air for the heat source when it gets cold enough outside your system is going to rely on electric heat strips to supply heat
The Power Company becomes very happy at that point. 🤗
If you have solar panels (and some electric storage capacity) then you're good to go 👍
I can't disagree about cold climates, but I can say anecdotally that we can get heat from ours with an external temp. of -20 degrees F. The efficiency isn't great below, IIRC, -13, but they'd keep the house from freezing in the absence of any secondary heat. There's no 'emergency (electrical) heat' on these units.
Yeah, geothermal is pretty darned good but can be very expensive up here, since there's granite ledge pretty much everywhere.
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If I may respectfully ask Mr. H, what brand/model heat pump do you have in your system ?
Just very curious as to what manufacturer has a heat pump that can supply some heat at -20.
Thanks ! Again just curious 👍Sal Palooza -
Best I could find on CODFUEL.COM yesterday was $5.09/gal for cash, add another dime for credit/debit (which oil companies are leaning towards, they don't want their drivers turning into armored car couriers).
Post away, people, this thread will likely be gone before the weekend just like the prison thread. Shhhh,
can't talk about evil things here...So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?
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mhardy6647 wrote: »mrbigbluelight wrote: »In the case of heat pumps, they don't work very well in colder climates.
You can run underground loops for the heat source which generally works no matter how low the temperature drops.
But if you'reusing outdoor air for the heat source when it gets cold enough outside your system is going to rely on electric heat strips to supply heat
The Power Company becomes very happy at that point. 🤗
If you have solar panels (and some electric storage capacity) then you're good to go 👍
I can't disagree about cold climates, but I can say anecdotally that we can get heat from ours with an external temp. of -20 degrees F. The efficiency isn't great below, IIRC, -13, but they'd keep the house from freezing in the absence of any secondary heat. There's no 'emergency (electrical) heat' on these units.
Yeah, geothermal is pretty darned good but can be very expensive up here, since there's granite ledge pretty much everywhere.
I decided to go with electric baseboard. It's actually more efficient than even a mini split heat pump, but last year the electric rate in my state nearly doubled and then I got a letter in early summer that said it was going up about 30% more this year, so this summer I had a 17KW PV solar electric system installed. Now my summer electric bill is (-$) and my winter electric bill should be >$175 monthly. Next step is a Keystoker or Erie coal stove that runs on rice coal with a feed mechanism similar to a pellet stove. When I lived in the house I lost to my X-wife, I heated the entire house all winter with coal for about $7/day. I like coal because it produces 2X the BTU's of wood pellets per pound, so a full hopper will last up to two days. The downside is that coal is dirty. That fly ash goes everywhere!Sources: Technics SL1200MKII | SME3009 Tonearm | Monster Alpha 1 MC cartridge | Oppo UDP203 disk player | Nikko NT-790 analog tuner | Musical Fidelity Trivista 21 DAC | Preamp: Threshold SL-10 | Amplifier: Threshold Stasis 2 | Speakers: Snell Acoustics C/V | Kimber 12-TC bi wire speakers | Analysis plus Oval 1 preamp to amp | Wireworld Eclipse 7 DAC to Preamp | Wireworld eclipse digital IC Oppo to DAC | Audioquest Quartz tuner to preamp | -
I mean it's obvious you need a heat pump...
😜
Nah, firewood is a lot of work but it's free for me. Even if I paid for it(right now it's around $150/cord) we normally use just under 4 cords per season for both hot water and heat. Only spending about $600 leaves more $$ for music and tubes
We also have solar panels on the barn roof, most monthly bills are around $17 and then we get SREC $$ every 6 weeks or so.
As mentoned, I agree it's all about price gouging....makes me sick. There are plenty of lower income households in this area that are going to have a really chilly winter.Yep, my name really is Bob.
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I got off .my lazy butt and starting looking up the latest info on heat pumps.
For background the last bunch of heat pump systems I worked on was about 12 years ago.
These were at a major defense contractor that has, of course, more money than Cartwr has little liver pills so ALL their systems involved HUGE ground loops
(Everyday I prayed God don't make me replace a defective reversing valve 🙏)
Any-who, the big big differences now are:
1 Redesigned compressors
2 Improved coil designs
3 Super efficient fans
4 Better motors
Basically the compressors and motors are all PWM variable speed.
The motors are better wound and handle PWM better (more durable)
The coil designs used to be basically a copper tube with a boatload of fins.
But the heat pickup would basically occur across the relativelyvsmall surface area of the inner tubing.
The new coils are, from what I can tell, kind of like a Twizzler licorice stick. Provids a LOT more surface area.
So it used to be (ballpark) that at 20°F it was time to give the heat pump some help with electric heat strips.
But no more; 0°F is a "No Big Deal" and -20°F is a "Okay, I got to work a little harder". 🤯
So I learned something today !
😳
Mr H has once again proven himself correct ,! 🤗
Not that I ever dounted him but....you know it's stsrting to tick me off ! 😳
But in a good way so it's all good 👍🇺🇸
...I'm going to have to take a nap now, my head hurts 🥴
Sal Palooza -
mrbigbluelight wrote: »If I may respectfully ask Mr. H, what brand/model heat pump do you have in your system ?
Just very curious as to what manufacturer has a heat pump that can supply some heat at -20.
Thanks ! Again just curious 👍
They're Mitsubishis. They supply warm at -20, and they no doubt go through some machinations to do it... but they do it. I think they rate them to -13, because the efficiency drops precipitously below -13 (IIRC).
No one up here would go all heat pump without some form of secondary heat, though. It's only a week or two every year, but it gets hella cold every year for a little while!
Don't get all on my case about the different roof slopes on my little ice/snow deflectors! I need to re-do the shallower one, but it involves angles, cutting, and unscrewing... and I believe I may have mentioned before that I am preternaturally lazy...
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Yeah, these things literally didn't exist when we built the house. We put in one as a beta test a few years ago, mostly to get some A/C on the first floor (summertime with that full southern exposure gets pretty toasty in the LR and DR mid-day), liked it, and put in a second, larger one to do our BR/upstairs and... umm... the hifi room.
Their primary purpose for us is A/C, but they're ideal this time of year for heat in the morning and at night, too. We do use them in the winter to some extent, as well, augmenting the LPG hot water heat (mostly radiant) in the house.
Subjectively, the best thing about 'em is that they're quiet, both the inside units and the outside units.
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I was considering solar panels earlier this year as well, but had to have too many trees removed to make them worthwhile and even then, the payback time even with tax credits meant I would be funding reduced electric bills for the next owners. And though this is our "forever" home, forever is subjective and realistically, I doubt we will be here in 12 - 15 years. So the budget was spent on a Generac instead. That reminds me, I have to see how much LP is going for...So, are you willing to put forth a little effort or are you happy sitting in your skeptical poo pile?
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One thing folks used to complain a bit about heat pumps was that the supply air coming out of the vents was like 90 degrees.
If it was super cold outside, that 90 degree air circulating about the house felt kind of "drafty' for folks used to vent air from a gas fired furnace (up to 130 degrees).
I imagine things might be different now, anybody notice any difference from days of yore ?Sal Palooza -
mrbigbluelight wrote: »One thing folks used to complain a bit about heat pumps was that the supply air coming out of the vents was like 90 degrees.
If it was super cold outside, that 90 degree air circulating about the house felt kind of "drafty' for folks used to vent air from a gas fired furnace (up to 130 degrees).
I imagine things might be different now, anybody notice any difference from days of yore ?
Are there any that work in radiant systems? I guess you can't exactly install separate radiators or tear up floors, at least not practically. New construction would be feasible perhaps.George / NJ
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LP is way more than double, actually approaching triple what it was before Jan 2020. I don’t know how people can get by sometimes, especially the elderly or those on fixed incomes.
Filled up 3 20# grill cylinders at the local Hicksgas yesterday. I almost needed an wambalance for my heart attack. $75.00 !!! It's usually less than $35.00 -
mrbigbluelight wrote: »One thing folks used to complain a bit about heat pumps was that the supply air coming out of the vents was like 90 degrees.
If it was super cold outside, that 90 degree air circulating about the house felt kind of "drafty' for folks used to vent air from a gas fired furnace (up to 130 degrees).
I imagine things might be different now, anybody notice any difference from days of yore ?
The air coming out is warm (not hot) -- but I/we haven't noticed a "drafty" character to it.
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Got a propane delivery on Monday. Believe it or not, I was pleasantly surprised when I called for the price. We've been loyal customers for a small fuel company (that always has the best rates) for many years now and actually bought our new underground tank from them a couple years ago. I was expecting the price to be in the $3/gallon range, but it was $1.799/gallon. Plus, we only needed around 250-275 gallons to top it off so it didn't sting as much as I thought it would. Hoping that price holds for the winter as we usually go through about 800-1000 gallons each winter.
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mrbigbluelight wrote: »One thing folks used to complain a bit about heat pumps was that the supply air coming out of the vents was like 90 degrees.
If it was super cold outside, that 90 degree air circulating about the house felt kind of "drafty' for folks used to vent air from a gas fired furnace (up to 130 degrees).
I imagine things might be different now, anybody notice any difference from days of yore ?
I had a new high efficiency heat pump installed around 10 years ago at my former house where natural gas lines were not available. It still sucked in the winter but was a fantastic air conditioner in the summer. My main problems in the winter were it ran all the time blowing cool over dried air around the house. I know some use humidifiers in line with them which would make the air more comfortable and able to hold heat better. Never liked the idea of having water dripping into the system and creating mold and other nasty stuff.
