Gas bill - WHOA

TrueToy wrote: ↑ im glad to find someone else who cares! my neighbors still look at me like im insane when i tell them i use resistive electricity as my primary source of heat (offpeak power in ontario 7.4c/kWh) and have to explain to them how much cheaper it is than propane.

I run into the same thing telling people baseboard and even space heaters are cheaper than oil.

In NS you can get Time of day rates, in a similar structure to Ontario only if you have an Electric Thermal Storage heating system. There's a couple of other time of day pilot programs they have that I don't see saving money.

TrueToy wrote: ↑ does your fuel oil calculation include your carbon taxes?
also, combution air intake doesn't actually have to come from outside. my laundry room isn't in my basement, so my furnace just draws air in from where its located.

NS won't pay a carbon tax until this July.

If the furnace doesn't have a separately ducted burner intake (most don't) it will draw it out of the room, but air will have to make its way in from outside into the furnace room to make up the air that went up the chimney.

cheapskatescooner wrote: ↑ I run into the same thing telling people baseboard and even space heaters are cheaper than oil.

In NS you can get Time of day rates, in a similar structure to Ontario only if you have an Electric Thermal Storage heating system. There's a couple of other time of day pilot programs they have that I don't see saving money.



NS won't pay a carbon tax until this July.

If the furnace doesn't have a separately ducted burner intake (most don't) it will draw it out of the room, but air will have to make its way in from outside into the furnace room to make up the air that went up the chimney.

I read about the East Coast carbon taxes. I thought that was inhumane, given how much support they gave the Federal government in 2015. Incomes definitely weren't high in NB, you could see the poverty (coming from Toronto). Saw high-hundred heating costs in Saint John, but Saint John has a natural heat pump in the winter because of the Bay of Fundy, doesn't even get that cold. Wish I could have made it to NS, seems very different than NB. But yeah, when I was there, I was thinking 'these baseboard heaters cost a f***-ton. In Toronto, I'd be paying a fraction of this in gas.' Good thing my landlord paid lol...he hated me.

its okay, we got our Climate Action Incentive payment the other day, that will make up for the excess carbon tax on our bills.

FarmerHarv wrote: ↑ Interesting! I've never thought about the BTU production, a million per day seems like a lot

this was last friday:

here's the thermostat data. at one point it was 27c in my house!


this is average for me on a weekday. my house is a 1600sqft bungalow, with a basement (unheated). my house is very old and drafty, and poorly insulated (r3 walls r19 attic). im in central ontario. the ecobee shows the setpoints for the propane furnace (which didn't run at all that day)

128kwh is almost 440k btu. comparatively speaking, i'm using much more heat energy since i'm only heating 1 building and live alone. thankfully nearly all the energy i use is off peak electric, which is relatively inexpensive, and generated by our nukes, therefore non-carbon producing and environmentally friendly.

burning more wood this year, that's for sure!

esoxhntr wrote: ↑ burning more wood this year, that's for sure!

i have an old suburban w6/78 woodstove in my basement that i never bothered getting certified, because my insurance company wants 400$ a year more to insure a woodstove. over christmas a storm knocked out my power, and a power surge blew the transformer on my furnace (which i can power with my MGE5800 generator). i unded up running a couple space heaters until the power came back on, but it got me thinking as to what it might take to get my wood burner WETT certified.

TrueToy wrote: ↑ this was last friday:

here's the thermostat data. at one point it was 27c in my house!

this is average for me on a weekday. my house is a 1600sqft bungalow, with a basement (unheated). my house is very old and drafty, and poorly insulated (r3 walls r19 attic). im in central ontario. the ecobee shows the setpoints for the propane furnace (which didn't run at all that day)

128kwh is almost 440k btu. comparatively speaking, i'm using much more heat energy since i'm only heating 1 building and live alone. thankfully nearly all the energy i use is off peak electric, which is relatively inexpensive, and generated by our nukes, therefore non-carbon producing and environmentally friendly.

Ok, that's just cool, I had no idea my Ecobee had that sort of info until I went looking after reading your post. Here's our Jan 13 graph (on an iPad), interesting to see how the furnace cycles.



House is 7 years old now, 5000sqft finished (2500 basement), good insulation (I assume) and according to Ecobee we're in the top 32% for Energy Efficiency. If they weren't so expensive I'd get an Ecobee for the garage and shop also just to see how horrible they are at holding heat. Hmmm, maybe better not knowing.

@FarmerHarv you can purchase external sensors for the ecobee, but i dont have experience with them yet. they also frequently go on sale around 120$ now (for the 3 lite, you may have a more full featured one)

i actually use a 3rd party app to view my ecobee data. its called https://beestat.io/

you can try it in "demo mode" before pairing it with your ecobee. it is free.

one thing i have had success with doing is using a kitchen thermometer to measure the air temperature coming out of my vents after a heating call, and setting the heat dissipation time (the amount of time the blower motor keeps circulating air after the heating call is over) for the perfect amount of time to blow every last BTU out of the heat exchanger, without unnecessarily causing drafts by running the blower longer than necessary.

if anyone reading this is after more HVAC hacks, use IFTTT to control external appliances on smart plugs(run blower for 1 hour when family forgets to turn bathroom fan on, run dehumidifier if gets too humid in summer, turn off humidifier if gets too humid in the winter, etc)

TrueToy wrote: ↑ i have an old suburban w6/78 woodstove in my basement that i never bothered getting certified, because my insurance company wants 400$ a year more to insure a woodstove. over christmas a storm knocked out my power, and a power surge blew the transformer on my furnace (which i can power with my MGE5800 generator). i unded up running a couple space heaters until the power came back on, but it got me thinking as to what it might take to get my wood burner WETT certified.

I love MisterBitchy products. Had one in a light tower/generator on the farm for years, replaced it with a Honda EU7000 inverter because apparently everything electronic in the house will expire immediately (if not sooner) unless powered by an inverter. That, and it was the only thing in stock at the time.

TrueToy wrote: ↑ i have an old suburban w6/78 woodstove in my basement that i never bothered getting certified, because my insurance company wants 400$ a year more to insure a woodstove. over christmas a storm knocked out my power, and a power surge blew the transformer on my furnace (which i can power with my MGE5800 generator). i unded up running a couple space heaters until the power came back on, but it got me thinking as to what it might take to get my wood burner WETT certified.

definately a nice-to-have - especially if you live in an area prone to outtages as we do.

if you decide to get it up and running, shop around for insurance. we had to.. some companies are friendlier to wood heat than others. we're insured under 'farm' insurance even though we're definately not farm. it was MUCH less than a $400 premium compared to 'regular' insurance (pretty close to on par if I remember correctly)

i heated with a few pieces of wood last night, got the fire going around 1900 and did not bother re-filling the stove when i went to bed around 2300

FarmerHarv wrote: ↑ I love MisterBitchy products. Had one in a light tower/generator on the farm for years, replaced it with a Honda EU7000 inverter because apparently everything electronic in the house will expire immediately (if not sooner) unless powered by an inverter. That, and it was the only thing in stock at the time.

i got this one with my house, which is pre-wired with a 60A generator sub panel. although it says full SW i haven't taken a scope to it. i think its from the mid 90's.

what did you have fail? i imagine a compressor motor in an appliance wouldn't be too happy on modified sine, but even that should take a while to fail, no? most other things in my house seem to have transformers so they wouldn't know the difference

esoxhntr wrote: ↑
if you decide to get it up and running, shop around for insurance. we had to.. some companies are friendlier to wood heat than others. we're insured under 'farm' insurance even though we're definately not farm. it was MUCH less than a $400 premium compared to 'regular' insurance (pretty close to on par if I remember correctly)

this is exactly my problem. although there are other insurance companies that have much more reasonable woodstove premiums, their base rates are so much higher, my cheapest option is still to stick with my group insurance and pay their unreasonable rate for a woodburner.

TrueToy wrote: ↑ i got this one with my house, which is pre-wired with a 60A generator sub panel. although it says full SW i haven't taken a scope to it. i think its from the mid 90's.

what did you have fail? i imagine a compressor motor in an appliance wouldn't be too happy on modified sine, but even that should take a while to fail, no? most other things in my house seem to have transformers so they wouldn't know the difference

We haven't had anything die yet, though our electrician has seen everything from furnaces to fridges get their circuit boards smoked* from the older gensets. Hot tub circuit boards seem very susceptible, maybe because of the huge draw when their heaters kick in?

*Apparently everything electronic runs on some sort of Magic Smoke, and if the smoke ever escapes then that item will never run again. It must be true, because I've seen the Magic Smoke a few times and sure enough whatever it was in never worked from then on.

FarmerHarv wrote: ↑ We haven't had anything die yet, though our electrician has seen everything from furnaces to fridges get their circuit boards smoked* from the older gensets. Hot tub circuit boards seem very susceptible, maybe because of the huge draw when their heaters kick in?

*Apparently everything electronic runs on some sort of Magic Smoke, and if the smoke ever escapes then that item will never run again. It must be true, because I've seen the Magic Smoke a few times and sure enough whatever it was in never worked from then on.

im lucky that nothing has really gone yet. i had to learn how to change a circuit breaker in my smaller panel that failed, but once i found the right curse words and scotch i figured it out.

unfortunately where i live its hard and expensive to get tradespeople in, so i've been learning a lot. i even did some plumbing that doesn't leak, which is a f*&king miracle.

TrueToy wrote: ↑ im lucky that nothing has really gone yet. i had to learn how to change a circuit breaker in my smaller panel that failed, but once i found the right curse words and scotch i figured it out.

unfortunately where i live its hard and expensive to get tradespeople in, so i've been learning a lot. i even did some plumbing that doesn't leak, which is a f*&king miracle.

I use Glenmorangie for the easy jobs, Macallan for the harder ones.

FarmerHarv wrote: ↑ I use Glenmorangie for the easy jobs, Macallan for the harder ones.

saving all the lagavulin for me, what a gentleman

Natural gas spot price plummeted on the market. It has lost to 65 percent of its value since November. While we pay twice as much to Enbridge.

kthxbye wrote: ↑ Natural gas spot price plummeted on the market. It has lost to 65 percent of its value since November. While we pay twice as much to Enbridge.

Compared my current Jan 2022 bill to Jan 2023, whoa is right.

Consumption: 2022 was 264 cu m, 2023 was 276 cu m. A ~4.6% increase.
Cost: 2022 $130.70, 2023 $198.41. A 51.8% increase

Moving into our first/new home in March. Heat is from gas, and have gas lines being installed for bbq (not that we'll use it we have a Traeger, this is for resale value), stove, laundry, heater in garage. I'm guessing i am in for an eye popping bill? Only saving grace I can see occuring is we both don't mind rooms to be a bit cooler on average, I hate being too warm especially when I sleep.

Edit: This is in small town southern Ontario.

JamesW84831 wrote: ↑ Moving into our first/new home in March. Heat is from gas, and have gas lines being installed for bbq ... this is for resale value
Edit: This is in small town southern Ontario.

I suggest that if they are installing the lines, you consider also adding a line for a back up generator.
You might want to consider prepping the electrical side as well.

JamesW84831 wrote: ↑ Moving into our first/new home in March. Heat is from gas, and have gas lines being installed for bbq (not that we'll use it we have a Traeger, this is for resale value), stove, laundry, heater in garage. I'm guessing i am in for an eye popping bill? Only saving grace I can see occuring is we both don't mind rooms to be a bit cooler on average, I hate being too warm especially when I sleep.

Edit: This is in small town southern Ontario.

natural gas is the cheapest possible source of heat in ontario outside of burning wood. if you used electric for any of your appliances instead of natural gas, even when rates are offpeak, you'd pay way more. people in toronto think 200$ energy bills are a lot. they're not.

the advice roy had about a generator is sound. i live in a small town in central ontario, i averaged a power outage longer than 30 mins every 1.6 months, with the power being down for a total of 4 days over the 2022 calendar year.