HELP! My Heating Bill is $500 a Month!

[chickenjoe]

How old is the house. If it 60 years or older you probably have little to no insulation in the house. I would see if you can get someone that does energy audit. Have them use a thremal camera to see if it is insulated. Then you would have to do blown insulation. You might be able to get one for free rom the gas and electric co. What it cost you to get it done will save you in the long run.

If you live where there are natural gas hookup. It might be worth you wild to change to NG furnance. I wouldn'y switch to LP it would be about the same as oil.

I'm in Canada and I've got a house that holds heat - not built that long ago and has good insulation. There's no doubt it would be a good investment, for the long run - if the resident could afford the up-front investment.

But I've heard for a long time about adding blown-in insulation with older frame houses. It's always sounded like a pretty good option, from a technical standpoint. I wonder, though, how much it tends to cost? Like for, say, a 1500sq ft house. $500/month, as mentioned in the subject line of this thread, could easily add up to $1000-2000 spent on heating in a winter. The decision to blow-in insulation would have to take into account the investment versus the likely savings.

I guess it would depend on how long the person planed to live in the house. I would imagine it would be cheaper then tear the walls out and re-insulating with rolled or foam insulation and re-sheetrocking.

I just did a calculation from this website http://www.homewyse.com/services/cost_to_install_blown-in_wall_insulation.html

for 1500 sqft it came out to about $5,000, so if even cut your heating bill in half or 1/3 it would till be good investment. To recoop what you spent, would take around 5 years.

 

[SSDreamin]

Mrb,

Everybody here has offered great suggestions, but I would like to throw in my two cents.

Beekissed idea of an outdoor boiler system is spot on for your situation, with a caveat. If you live in the burbs, there is a good chance there are restrictions preventing those types of systems. My stepmother had an oil system, baseboard water heat- she installed an add on to the oil furnace, which burned wood. Much easier transition, and saved a fortune in heating bills, plus it didn't violate local restrictions. We had an outdoor boiler system in our old house - heated 2400 sf toasty warm, on 8-10 cord per year, plus unlimited hot water. It was expensive, but paid for itself in just two heating seasons.

If you decide to go with in floor (or under floor, in your case), and I assume (shame on me for doing that!) using a water system, you may run into the same issues that you have now. An in floor system does make things feel warmer while keeping the thermostat lower, but you will still be burning through the fuel oil. If I'm wrong, please, somebody correct me.

We have a fireplace in our present home. It was a first for us, and I was very excited about it - for about a month. It is a heat vacuum, sucking our overpriced, propane fueled, water-baseboard heat out and costing us far more than $500 a month in fuel costs! We did extensive research on inserts. It isn't surprising that, especially around here, you can get a used insert (that originally sold for over $1000) for a couple hundred dollars. They don't work that well. We have installed a woodstove, directly in front of our fireplace. I no longer have my 'beautiful' fireplace, but I also no longer have astronomical heating bills, either! We had thought of installing another outdoor boiler system here, but there is a huge drawback with the outdoor system - it requires electricity. Here, we have power outages frequently. A standard wood stove is more practical for us.

It has already been pointed out that, even if you get a super efficient heating system, a poorly insulated house will run your heating bills through the roof. Insulate. Seal it up. I agree.

As for the south facing windows, even if they are new, energy efficient windows, keep them open on sunny days and keep them closed on dreary days/at night. If they are older windows, it is even more important to do so! I put up insulated curtains. They are reasonably priced, and really work well.

Hope this helps!

 

[rhoda_bruce]

The absolute FIRST thing I'd do is buy insulation. You can do 4 or 5 big bags at a time, as your time and money allows. crawl under the floor and deal with it. Then go up in the attic. That can do you a world of good....after that, decide if you want to open your own walls and insulate, one room at a time or hire a contractor to blow in that trash I used to have......can't recommend it though. It disentegrated after a decade or so, but I don't think its supposed to. If you do under your floor with pink stuff, you might need to have it reinforced with chicken wire, so it doesn't fall later.
Just do it.....it don't cost, it pays. Do it, even if you only do a little at a time. You won't be sorry.

 

[FarmerChick]

Energy audit. great idea. start with knowing where you heat is going before spending money on trying to fix a guess.

best of luck
that is a nasty bill for sure!

 

[hwillm1977]

We have blown in insulation in our house... it was put in here in the mid-1990's, and has settled to the point where we are now pulling all the walls down and putting pink insulation in. The previous owners did the blown in, and I'm guessing went as cheaply as possible... there are spots on the walls that can be 25 degrees colder than the ambient room temp...

We heated strictly with electricity the first year we were here and it cost us about $850 for power in January.... now we have a woodstove and our power bill rarely goes above $300 no matter how cold it gets, plus we spend about $800 for 4 cord of wood each winter. I LOVE the wood heat, it's so much nicer than the electric and feels much cozier. The only downside is coming down in the morning to light the stove when the kitchen is 40 degrees

An energy audit is a great idea... they give you all kinds of tips to save energy all over the house, and you'll know exactly where you stand.

 

[Beekissed]

My old farm house had sawdust blown in all the empty spaces and I must say it was wonderfully effective...not common for an old farmhouse to stay so warm in the winter and cool in the summer~even in the upper stories. The place had old, loose windows but I only put plastic on the windows on the built-in back porch, the room farthest from the wood heat. I heated the whole place comfortably with a small boxwood type wood stove~didn't use much wood, put off good and even heat, banked up nicely at night. Most nights I slept with my bedroom window cracked open, even when it snowed, as the chimney ran right up through my room.

 

[mrbstephens]

ok. So, my power company will come to my house and tell me where the leaks are? Well, that's awesome! The house was built in 1987. Yes, I can feel cold air around the windows. The house was built as a vacation home for the summers so certain things weren't done as well as they could have. The windows themselves are Anderson and in good shape. My husband will probably wind up pulling the casing off and filling with insulation. Thanks everyone!

 

[hqueen13]

I can't echo enough about thermal drapes. They WORK.
http://www.annaslinens.com/product/...anel.html?utm_source=gcs&utm_term=10084-47326
This is what we bought, and for the price, you can't beat them. If you know how to sew a straight line, then for any large windows, sew panels together (some of my double windows I took 3 panels total, splitting one in half and then sewing it to the two other panels to make a panel and a half) to maintain even insulation and prevent gaps.

Best of luck to you!