Electric bill ?

[mr47930]

I have read a lot of folks who are saving big $$ by heating their homes with pellets instead of using oil or propane, but does anyone have experience with electric forced air furnace? We currently have electric everything and last winter our electric bills were unreasonably high due to the furnace constantly running to keep the house at 64 while it was single digits outside overnight. We bought the pellet stove this summer to hopefully keep the house a lot warmer while also saving $$ on the electric bill. I understand that the pellet stove itself will consume energy but theres no way it can be as much as the electric HVAC system right? I expect that this winter the furnace will run a lot less with the stove cranking so I would therefore expect our electric bill to be lower. Anyone else have electric forced air furnace and get a stove? Were any savings noticed in the winter months?

 

[reallyte]

The electricity used by a pellet stove (when not using ignitor continuously) is very minimal. In most cases, people may see maybe 10$ a month of electricity usage for the pellet stove.

 

[TimfromMA]

Our stove uses about $20 worth of electricity at the most per month. The savings come from pellets being alot cheaper than oil, propane or electric heat. NG is cheaper than pellets currently.

 

[Bioburner]

We purchased a Kill a watt and are able to check and see what is increasing or changing the power for us. Winter time requires the use of a lot more lights and more watching of the idiot boxes. Plugging in the block heaters and battery chargers are real power hungry. Whats one to do if its -28 on Christmas Eve?

 

[dlehneman]

It will save you a lot versus electric heat. To give you an idea on power usage, my stove uses an average of 115w on heat/blower range 5 out of 9. That keeps us plenty warm most of the time, even on the highest settings (where it would cook us, unless it's below zero) it only averages 180w.
You didn't say what size electric furnace, but most are 8kw+ for a small/medium size unit. That's over 44x the power usage of my pellet stove on high!

 

[mr47930]

Not sure what size unit we have but we have 2 of them..one larger for the basement and first floor and a smaller unit in the attic that heats the 2nd floor. Sounds like if I keep the pellet stove running 24/7 and can keep the electric furnace off or at least at a minimum I could save some cash this winter.

 

[Tonyray]

With a Harman P61A,
Our Electric increased 15-20.00 month with the stove and that is with the Ignitor, and blowers always being used....

 

[mr47930]

But you should have saved in other areas right? You're oil consumption had to be lower if you were heating with pellets.

 

[dlehneman]

Pellets cost me about 1/3 of what oil did in a year, so you'll definitely save money. An electric furnace like I mentioned earlier is like running your oven and all the burners constantly...and you have 2! I think an easy way to get a rough idea on your cost savings would be to ask a neighbor (with similar size house) who doesn't have electric heat what their average bill is in the winter. The difference would be your approximate savings (just a rough idea since you may have very different habits with lighting or electronics usage that influence the bill). I heat my workshop and my garage with electric heat in the winter (workshop to about 60-62, garage to about 55-60, both insulated) and my bill goes up about $125-150 a month.
Being in MD, I don't think you'll need to run your electric heat at all with your pellet stove installed. If you do, I'm guessing it will be minimal.

 

[bwise.157]

I had Propane only in the winter of '12-'13. I installed a small Quadrafire insert March '13. During the winter of '13-'14, my electric bill dropped $40 to $50 in the dead of winter when compared to the previous year. As we all know, this past winter was much colder, and I used 700 less gallons of Propane for the year (another $1500 to $2000 savings). Propane furnace still runs when insert burns down when we aren't home, but it doesn't run much. Other than my time, the wood was free. Insert doesn't draw much electric.

 

[Bioburner]

If the pellet stove used say a average of 400 watts with electric starts etc(pretty high average)for 30 days, 24 hours would be about 288 kilowatts+- at a national average kilowatt of 15 cents would cost 43.00 a month. I thought my stove was around 200 watts but that was with it running a circulator. Picture of UPS electric load panel with the stove running at full bore in test mode as no way I am going to fire today and mess up a clean stove and probably have someone get me in and have my head examined.

 

[TimfromMA]

If the pellet stove used say a average of 400 watts with electric starts etc(pretty high average)for 30 days, 24 hours would be about 288 kilowatts+- at a national average kilowatt of 15 cents would cost 43.00 a month. I thought my stove was around 200 watts but that was with it running a circulator. Picture of UPS electric load panel with the stove running at full bore in test mode as no way I am going to fire today and mess up a clean stove and probably have someone get me in and have my head examined.View attachment 137030

Looks like the same APC I use in conjunction with 2 90AH marine batteries for my stove's back up power supply.

 

[Bioburner]

Looks like the same APC I use in conjunction with 2 90AH marine batteries for my stove's back up power supply.

Wish I could find another for $100. Had another stove's UPS go south this summer Guess ten years might be their limit. Cheap insurance and nice to know events with the panel.

 

[railfanron]

I can predict next spring you will have a big fat pellet pig grin on your face and a big cash savings in your wallet. The side benefit to this is a warm and happy wife all winter long.
Ron

 

[Former Farmer]

What are your costs? A kwh of electric is equal to 3412 btu. Depending upon your cost per kwh and cost for wood pellets, the amount that you save will vary greatly. Different brands of wood pellets have different btu ratings. I am assuming your Harman would be around 80% efficient. If pellet costs are $275 per ton for 8,000 btu and your electric costs are $0.15 per kwh, I would estimate that you would save $16.75 per mbtu. Also consider, that because your cost of heating is lower, you will probably keep your house at a higher temperature.

 

[Brew]

Bioburner and TimfromMA, what UPS is that you two use? How happy are you with it? I'm in the market.

 

[Bioburner]

By APC, has several screens to show most everything, Volt,Watts, time remaining,events etc. I got it at Sams club. Will probably be looking at another next week. Keeps things running for over 20 minutes, stove and circulator. Very rare to have power out in winter of over 15 minutes but wind makes for surges and some dirty power as we are at end of a leg in the country.

 

[BrotherBart]

I can't understand why everybody says don't run a pellet stove with a modified sine wave generator and yet so many of you use modified sine wave UPS units like that NS 1250?

 

[Bioburner]

Because the stove doesn't moan and scream like accused witch stuck in a dungeon during a Spanish inquisition?

 

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

I have the XS 1300 by APC. I bought in Office Depot. We have a lot of power outages here out in the country. This is more then enough of a supply until I get the generator started. My main concern is keeping the memory in the stove from going back to the default setting. My house gen does everything but the Electric heat, Dryer, and stove. Ceiling fans are in every room.

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

 

[wyolars]

We have an electric furnace. Before we switch to the pellet stove our bill was 375. After we put in the pellet stove it dropped to 125.

One month savings buys me two months of pellets.