Coal vs Propane cost

Hey Gardener, all prices I listed are delivered to my house. I own my tank. Tank rental charges are a rip off and a good way to allow a propane company to hold you hostage.

McGeiver. If you re read my post, I make my living doing HVAC Refrigeration and Chiller/ boiler work. A single stage high efficiency condensing gas furnace is about the most reliable fuel burning appliance on the market today given you dont buy a piece of trash. My old furnace was 21 years old. I removed it from a guys house who wanted a new one when I put new air conditioning in 10 years ago. It cost me a 20 dollar pressure switch in those 10 years. Whether or not you like it, that furnace is hitting 90+ efficiency. The exhaust temp is 78-80 degress and Ive verified it with my combustion analyzer. Its not a bragging right for me. The residential market is about as boring as it gets. If I wanted to brag id talk about the 28 million dollar cogen plant we run gas compression on to feed a 4000 hp turbine engine and a 25,000 pound per hour boiler that feeds a hospital and power a 1000 ton centrifugal chiller with the left over steam lol.

Heres a few pics of the cogen. The V16 Cats are strictly back up but pretty cool so I figured Id post. Each is 2 megawatt at 12,470 volt

BlackBetty06 wrote: ↑

Fri. Dec. 14, 2018 11:26 am

Hey Gardener, all prices I listed are delivered to my house. I own my tank. Tank rental charges are a rip off and a good way to allow a propane company to hold you hostage.

I own our 1000 gal tank and being able to shop for price paid for the tank when it was filled the second time. As you all probably know, the price/gallon a company will charge someone that leases a tank from them is higher than the price/gallon they will charge a tank owner. I expect the propane companies at some point will refuse to fill a tank unless it is inspected by their service department and I expect that fee to eat into the per gallon savings I see by owning my tank. They'll probably even get that inspection to be gov't mandated.

I just love the thought of a 1000 gall JDAM next to my house. I guess I am just an insecure person. I get nervous enough using a 100 gall propane tank to do the cooking and water heating. It's a shame I can't use a 208. Heat pumps are getting close in cost but the radiant heat of a coal fire can't be beat for cosyness and the Orrington playboy agrees. Rice at $170 delivered can't be beat on cost anyway. Thx but no thanks.

BlackBetty06 wrote: ↑

Fri. Dec. 14, 2018 11:26 am

McGeiver. If you re read my post, I make my living doing HVAC Refrigeration and Chiller/ boiler work. A single stage high efficiency condensing gas furnace is about the most reliable fuel burning appliance on the market today given you dont buy a piece of trash. My old furnace was 21 years old. I removed it from a guys house who wanted a new one when I put new air conditioning in 10 years ago. It cost me a 20 dollar pressure switch in those 10 years. Whether or not you like it, that furnace is hitting 90+ efficiency. The exhaust temp is 78-80 degress and Ive verified it with my combustion analyzer. Its not a bragging right for me. The residential market is about as boring as it gets. If I wanted to brag id talk about the 28 million dollar cogen plant we run gas compression on to feed a 4000 hp turbine engine and a 25,000 pound per hour boiler that feeds a hospital and power a 1000 ton centrifugal chiller with the left over steam lol.

Nothing I said was in reference to you personally, sorry if that was not clear.

Too many consumers or installers will chose the piece of trash you referred to above...hence my comments.

Fyi...there's gonna be a propane shortage around February/March similar to February of 2014 when it went to $5.50 a gallon !!

McGiever wrote: ↑

Fri. Dec. 14, 2018 10:58 pm

Nothing I said was in reference to you personally, sorry if that was not clear.

Too many consumers or installers will chose the piece of trash you referred to above...hence my comments.

Sorry My mistake. I misinterpreted. Your definitely right about a lot of installers choosing the piece of trash, max profit for minimal outlay. Definitely a way that a fella can get snagged is in the multi speed multi stage furnaces. If you don’t have an issue you will save a lot of energy but the first time one of those ECM motors (draft inducer, blower) crap out or the main control board dies a lot of if not all of your savings goes out the window!!

Minnesnowtan wrote: ↑

Fri. Dec. 14, 2018 11:22 pm

Fyi...there's gonna be a propane shortage around February/March similar to February of 2014 when it went to $5.50 a gallon !!

I remember that year. I was very glad to be burning coal at that time. What info do you have that leads you to believe it’s about to happen again??

I have a hi efficiency cold start boiler and a 1874 house. The boiler will heat the house just fine if you run enough oil through it. It is warm for 90% of the population. With coal the plaster walls get warm after a day or too as well as everything else in the house. All I can say is 72 on oil and 72 on coal are two very different comfort levels.

ddahlgren wrote: ↑

Sun. Dec. 16, 2018 11:26 am

I have a hi efficiency cold start boiler and a 1874 house. The boiler will heat the house just fine if you run enough oil through it. It is warm for 90% of the population. With coal the plaster walls get warm after a day or too as well as everything else in the house. All I can say is 72 on oil and 72 on coal are two very different comfort levels.

That is because your coal stove produces radiant heat. If it is located in the basement, you are heating the floors and enjoying that feeling through the entire home. If you had a radiant floor hooked to that oil boiler, it would feel the same way. I only mention this to point out that the difference is due to heating system itself, not the fuel choice.

It might could be the fuel difference for some...
I lived here the first 18 years after building this place with a dual fuel FA furnace...wood and oil.
Ductwork size was built somewhat oversized to handle wood furnace's large potential output as designed which had a good magin of safety. There was ONE burn chamber for the wood and oil gun both.

With larger duct trunk lines and open stairs there was very comfortable gravity or call it convection heat constantly present...awww!
Then, with the wood fire out, and switching to all oil with it's blast on...blast off of scorched air was a terrible shock before and after every heating cycle, especially after having lost all that gentle gravity convection heat along with the occasional blower cycle. Plaster house here too.

I suppose anything is better than a hot air furnace with an on/off blower.

Needless to say, but I did burn damn little oil...and this was also in the 1970's and 80's and oil was very high priced then as well. I did follow the cult of "free wood" up close to hitting 40yo.

Im paying $3.39 per gal for Propane so burning coal is a no brainer for me. Its allways here in North east Ohio.

all I can add is in the event of natural disaster , total supply chain collapse , skyrocketing prices whatever , you’ll have a hard time stuffing some gathered firewood or coal in the propain tank .