Cutting heating/hot water costs UPDATE- FOUND GAS LEAK!

[RSWA2]

I turn down the hot water heater during the day when I leave for work and turn it back on when I come home. I figured that if it cools enough that it needs to turn on during the day, no one is home to take advantage of that hot water.

I'm not sure if that saves much, but I can't imagine the need to keep water warm when no one is using it.

 

[shortbun]

I'd be checking my electrical outlets, light switches, windows for drafts. You can put felt in the outlet/switch plates. You can dress the windows for loss of heat. Spaceheaters are a major cause of house fires so please check and double check their safety, making sure they are off when no one is home and making sure the placement is clear. I doubt your hot water demand is your main problem-it's your drafty old house and that will take insulation, new windows, sealing drafts and lots of blankets, socks and sweaters. I lived in one for 25 years-loved it, we did things toward sealing things every winter.

 

[Brer Shay]

We also have hot water baseboard heat with a boiler. When we moved in, it was the original 1950's cast iron boiler. After the first year's heating cost was $4000 we knew that something had to give for the next winter. We replaced the boiler with a high efficiency one and installed three programmable thermostats for three heating zones in the house. Heating costs changed to roughly $1700 for the year. Yes, the new one was expensive, $8K, but it literally paid for itself in under four years of lower costs. PA state offered a low interest loan to help with the purchase (2.9% for 10 years) and there were tax incentives. Two years later, we replaced all the windows in the house, and the heating bill went down to $1000 for the year.

 

[ilovemk76]

Looking for some thoughts on cutting heating bills. Each winter our heating bill becomes one of our most expensive bills. We pay about 600 every month during the cold weather. We have a large house, and use propane gas and baseboard heaters. (i know) the propane also does our hot water heater. We puchased small space heaters for the master bath and my husband's basement office in order to keep the thermastat down a little. We also replaced our front and back doors this winter, and we try to minimize using our garage door in the winter as our bedroom is above it. I wash our clothes in cold water.
I'm wondering where other's have found the most savings vs. cost outlay . Should we be thinking about biting the bullet and replacing our system? Has anyone done an on demand hot water system and do you really have enough hot water? I don't think adding ductwork is an option for us for heating. Has anyone switched off propane and what were your savings?

We have a large home and use propane for heat, via baseboards, and hot water. We pay less than two of your payments for the entire year.

What size is your tank? (ours 1000 gallons)
How often do you fill it? (us just once a hear in July, when propane is at its cheapest)
Who owns your tank? (we own ours) Cost of propane is based on who owns the tank. Only the company that owns the tank can fill it. If you own it, then you can pick who fills it.
How old is your system? What is the efficiency?


Your problem could be poor insulation in the attic and walls. Poor sealing windows or inefficient windows. Is there insulation above the garage?

 

[tvguy]

We replaced our furnace and hot water heater with energy efficient ones and our gas bill went down by 1/3. Once we replaced all of our windows it went down again and now we're paying about half of what we were before we replaced everything.

Prior to doing the work we put more insulation in the attic and put plastic over the windows in the winter. While it did help, it didn't cut the costs as much as replacing the furnace, hot water heater and windows did. When we had the window replaced the contractor found that there was no insulation at all around the windows.

My mom signed up for an energy audit with her natural gas company. They sent out three approved contractors, who all recommended she replace her 53 year old furnace and 30+ year old water heater with high efficency units, put in dual pane windows, all said the additional insulation she had blown in 40 years ago was fine.
Gas company program coordinator came out to go over the recommendations and "show her how much she would save" by doing part or all of the recommended upgrades. He pulled up her gas bills for 5 years back, shock his head and asked if she even ran the heat in the winter. The biggest energy waster in her house was the furnace, but her energy use was so low, it would take 143 years to recoup the cost of a new furnace. Mom keeps the house at 58 in the winter, heats the family room with a space heater (her highest winter electric bill fro $24) and wears sweaters. Guy said people under estimate how much energy you can save by keeping it cooler and wearing a sweater.

 

[mrsklamc]

You can get a blanket for the outside of your water heater, too, like this:

http://www.lowes.com/Search=water+h...0&newSearch=true&Ntt=water+heater+insulation#!

You can also turn the lights on in the house at night and go around looking for light to come through around doors, windows, etc, and put caulk wherever you see it.

 

[manning]

When you can afford it (assuming you are not using natural gas) and you have natural gas available to you consider converting to gas. Due to fracking the price has gone from about $14.00 per unit around 2008 to about $4.00 per unit today.

 

[bearzabout]

We reinsulated our attic ourselves. We first installed a radient barrier (foil with bubble wrap - see Ecofoil website for an example) to reflect the sun's rays so our attic does not heat up in summer. We stapled it to our rafters angled towards the ridge vent. There must be an airspace on both sides of the foil for it to perform properly. Our attic temperature dropped 20 degrees immediately (it was summer) and for the first time, our second story does not get cold in winter and hot in summer. A layer stapled to the inside of our west facing garage door and garage attic rafters keeps our garage from freezing in winter (without a heat source) and about 20 degrees cooler in the summer. I think they sell one brand and Lowes and Home Depot.

We bought 9' thick unfaced Johns Mansville R-30 batt insullaton from Lowes and ran them in the other direction over the rafters in our home's attic. We already had R30 in between the rafters, but too much heat was escaping into the attic with just the one layer. We added this insulation in the winter and our attic temperature dropped to outside temperature immediately. No more heat rising into the attic. Our furnace runs half as often. The entire job was easy for us to do ourselves, cheap (around $300), and the John Mansville product in particular was great to work with. We had no itchy skin from it.

You may be able to deduct the cost of some energy saving products from your taxes next year.

Do you have an insulation blanket on your water heater?

Most houses are terribly underinsulated. Make sure you have at least R-60 in the attic.

 

[pocomom]

Well, I'm glad I posted! All the comments made me really start really thinking about our energy costs, honestly I had never had this size of house in this climate before we moved here, so I was thinking it was high, but normal. Decided to start at the tanks and work my way around to find problems. Turns out the previous owners installed some sort of compression fitting on the gas line that they weren't supposed to and it was leaking out like crazy. Gas man is fixing now. Maybe won't account for all of our high bill but I'm sure glad I don't have my kids running around a house that has propane leaking around it!

 

[nhmommy]

You can get a blanket for the outside of your water heater, too, like this:

http://www.lowes.com/Search=water+h...0&newSearch=true&Ntt=water+heater+insulation#!

Yout.

My husband is a heating tech and he is always telling people not to use these, they can make the tank sweat and cause it to corrode and need replacing and they don't actually save you that much money unless your hot water heater is very old.

 

[mrsklamc]

My husband is a heating tech and he is always telling people not to use these, they can make the tank sweat and cause it to corrode and need replacing and they don't actually save you that much money unless your hot water heater is very old.

'Sweat' happens on the outside of containers of cold water, not hot water.

 

[nhmommy]

'Sweat' happens on the outside of containers of cold water, not hot water.

Yes, but a hot water heater has cold water in it whenever a large amount of water is used such as showers or baths. He said that you only need to worry about corrosion on the steal hot water heaters,but it is pointless for newer hot water tanks because they are spray foam insulated and a small blanket isn't going to help any.

But I did misspeak it doesn't cause it to sweat, it causes the moisture from the tank sweating, the cold water pipe entering the tank sweating and from humidity to not be able to evaporate away.

 

[clh2]

Well, I'm glad I posted! All the comments made me really start really thinking about our energy costs, honestly I had never had this size of house in this climate before we moved here, so I was thinking it was high, but normal. Decided to start at the tanks and work my way around to find problems. Turns out the previous owners installed some sort of compression fitting on the gas line that they weren't supposed to and it was leaking out like crazy. Gas man is fixing now. Maybe won't account for all of our high bill but I'm sure glad I don't have my kids running around a house that has propane leaking around it!

YIKES!
Glad to hear that it was found and is getting fixed before anything bad happened.

One month - we had an unusually high electric bill - about double compared to most months without air conditioning. DH went on a mission to figure out what was wrong. DH figured out that our well pump was running 100% of the time. We had the "well pump" guys out the next day - and while it cost us ~$2000 - it was a timely repair. And - while it would have soon been an emergency due to no water, it wasn't, because we got to it before it failed.