Lets try this again, calculating heating costs.

[Hammerjoe]

Hi,

I made a thread a few weeks ago asking people how they calculate their heating savings and explained how I do mine using Excel.
The topic veered off from the subject and instead of bringing it back I thought I should just start a new one, because I just have one question.

I used to heat with baseboard heating.
My last year was in 2005 and I have the price and kilowattage used in that year which tells me how much electricity I paid.
I had my pellet stove installed at the end of February in 2006 and I also keep track of all the bags purchased.

My question is simple, I hope I can explain it right:
For 2006 and 2007 how should I calculate my electricity costs against 2005?

Imo there's three ways to calculate the cost and I am not sure which one is correct:
First - Use 2006 kilowatts usage and apply 2005 rates.
Second - Use 2005 kilowatts usage and apply 2006 rates.
Third - Calculate the annual cost for 2005 and 2006 and get the difference.

So which one is the correct one to use?
I am divided on this.

 

[mkmh]

Hi,

I made a thread a few weeks ago asking people how they calculate their heating savings and explained how I do mine using Excel.
The topic veered off from the subject and instead of bringing it back I thought I should just start a new one, because I just have one question.

I used to heat with baseboard heating.
My last year was in 2005 and I have the price and kilowattage used in that year which tells me how much electricity I paid.
I had my pellet stove installed at the end of February in 2006 and I also keep track of all the bags purchased.

My question is simple, I hope I can explain it right:
For 2006 and 2007 how should I calculate my electricity costs against 2005?

Imo there's three ways to calculate the cost and I am not sure which one is correct:
First - Use 2006 kilowatts usage and apply 2005 rates.
Second - Use 2005 kilowatts usage and apply 2006 rates.
Third - Calculate the annual cost for 2005 and 2006 and get the difference.

So which one is the correct one to use?
I am divided on this.

Hi Hammer,

I would say that 2005 killowatts usage is your base for all future calculations. To calc savings in 2006 if would take the diff in killowatts between 2005 and 2006 and multiply that diff by the average KW price paid in 2006 .
Savings for 2007 would be the diff in KW between 2007 and 2005...then multiply by average price price per KW in 2007.

Then of course you should subtract the price paid for pellets during the calc year.
As discussed in the last thread, this is still a fairly flawed method, since we don't exactly know how typical your baseline 2005 year was. However, you might consider looking at the degree days for the last several years to get an idea of that.