Yup...freezing temps, the furnace runs more, more demand, price goes up and supply goes down. I think of all the people I know that have long since abandoned wood stoves for pellet stoves...I just can't feel comfortable relying on a heating unit that needs electricity to run, especially when our power grid is in rough shape and in my area we seem to have a lot of short outages. I know wood burning is more work and in some ways messy, but I love it!!! and a Fisher Stove will never let me down, it is real peace of mind for me and a real joy in my life. Plus, I can't imagine how high some of the propane/fuel oil bills will be since a lot of folks are dealing with this arctic blast
I'm really curious about what my next natural gas bill will be. I've been burning wood more or less nonstop, but the boiler has been running too. I didn't sign up for the guaranteed gas rate, and the article linked above said gas prices have been rising. I never got a monthly gas bill of more than $100 last winter.
Thankfully, I still have six months left on the contract for my propane at $1.65 a gallon. I've been running the boiler more than I thought I would have to since the flu for the stove downstairs was found to be a no go, I've been heating down there during the day if we are down. There, and at night I've had to kick it on to get the bedrooms out of the high 50s
Its a 500 gallon tank. They came and topped it off about a month ago, before that was the end of the summer. I'll have to take a look at the gauge and see what it's reading.
I would check it. Do you have to call them to come fill it, or do they come on a regular basis as part of a route? I have no idea how to read my gas meter, and now they just drive by and read it with WiFi or something.
They come on a regular basis. There's no way I could possibly be in danger of being even below 3/4. I was thinking that I should check out of curiosity.
You are pretty fortunate. My propane company will not do a regular delivery even though they are in the area weekly. They say I have to have 1/2 a tank or more top-off or they charge an extra fee. But when a person has a 500 gallon tank, that is a lot of money to cough up. I said, "well I'll go with a smaller tank", but then they say a 500 gallon tank is sized for my needs. Yesterday my father...a pellet boiler/oil heat guy, got a quote for a 500 gallon propane tank installation for his whole-house back up generator. That included filling it with propane...$3,000. YIKES.
Might be best to buy a couple 120 gallon tanks and shop for prices then? I considered tbat, but the rate i got.was.pretty good and it avoided the out of pocket expense of buying the tabk. Amerigas was just bought out by a new company. If they try to charge me a fee they can come pick their tank up. There's plenty of other companies around that I'm sure wouldn't mind taking on a new customer.
Here they ALL do that so finding a new propane dealer does not do anyone any good. It makes a guy mad for sure. The last few years the price of propane has not been too bad so a half tank fill up is not horrendous, but on the years it was really high in price: that was tough to do.
We bought are 1st home last may....previous joker who owned it left the oil tank all but empty. It took a week until they could come (it was a little chilly yet) so they had a lp gas fireplace insert so we tried that....guess what...tanks empty! When we did get fuel it was 1.73 a gallon...checked it last week...used less than a 1/4 of a tank (maybe 50 gallons). It was 2 days later I get a phone call from our oil supplier stating they would be in our area the following day...I asked what is the current price (2.39 a gal.) I told her I would wait till spring or summer. I knew we were replacing the gas insert with wood so I wasn't concerned about the l.p. Just to step back some...when had a contract on our home I was googling about central air install cost (we have force air for heat so I knew we didn't have to worry about duct work). I got on home advisor n they recommended a faily new mechanical services outfit. I typed in the info they required (it was a sunday evening to boot) n low n behold I get a phone call from the owner. He gave me a quote of 2300.00 for C/A....I said deal if everything goes ok and it did. When they were here I kinda of chuckled n ask if they had any good deals for heating and cooling our 30x45 ft garage (its totally insulated). He said yes I do....he had a 65,000 btu propane furnace/ ac unit w/ condensing unit 3 years old....he would run duct work along my 18"I beam. With everything he quoted me 1500.00....sold!!! We used the 2/ 100lb l.p. bottles from the insert for our supply. When we 1st filled them gas was 1.65 gal. now 1.79....not bad...however I'm suckin up the gas to keep the garage at 40* . ( I have a good many things I don't want to freeze). I beleive so far we used about 100 gallons of gas. I do spend a good bit of time out there so I generally turn therm. up to 55 or so n its nice. What's funny...I paid a little more for all that than what it cost to have our insert n liner installed but I'm tickled pink with the cost n having what we have! About burning wood...I really enjoy prospecting, sawing,splitting,stacking n last but not least..enjoying the fruit of our labor which is watching n feeling the stove perform. Sorry for writing a book but we so happy everything that has to do with controlling temps has gone good for us (knock on wood). STAY WARM!!
