Didn't Save As Much Oil As I Thought I Might (Year 1)

[davidmsem]

I started burning December 10th of last year, a Regency 3100 in a 9 nine room 3000 sq ft colonial. I love the added warmth of the insert, but now that I have a year of data regarding my oil use that I can compare to past year, I'm not saving as much as I thought. Last year I burned 24/7 most of the time with GREAT 4 year old seasoned wood. It was a pleasant experience.

I was pleasantly surprised how much heat left the back of the house where the insert was and kept distant rooms in the low sixties to high fifties most nights........

I've been averaging about 800 gallons of oil per year for heat (baseboard hot water) and hot water (boilermate).

Looking at oil fill dates in the summer months, I'm averaging about 1.1 gallons per day just to heat hot water. That means I'm using 400 gallons to heat my hot water for showers and the like, and 400 to heat the house.

During the past year, with burning from December 10th, I reducing consumption by 145 gallons. Not bad, a 36% decrease in oil consumption for heating, plus I got to walk around in underwear instead of covered in blankets with the thermostat in the 60s.

The efforts that I put into the house when I built it in 1994 have given me some payback...more than I thought. 5 zones of heat, 2X6 walls instead of 2x4, extra insulation in the attic, insulated basement etc.

What was most surprising was discovering how much oil I'm using for hot water!

Expenses so far are about $4500 for the insert, $500 for a log splitter, and $600 for a chain saw, and $1300 for logs that will yield approximately 10-12 cords of wood.

I'll keep burning, because I love it, but with payback of 200 gallons or so in oil a year, it will take a long time to get the approximately $7,000 outlay back in my wallet.

Still love the comfort and walking around in underwear, but I'm disappointed that my savings are not greater.

David

 

[Wisneaky]

I think you have your figures wrong. Are you saving 400 gallons a year heating your house or 200 gallons a year heating your house? My house is much smaller than your house and previously I was using over 1000 gallons of LP to heat my house and LP has less btu than oil heat. I'm thinking you use much more than 200 or 400 gallons of oil heating 3,000 sq ft.

 

[davidmsem]

I think you have your figures wrong. Are you saving 400 gallons a year heating your house or 200 gallons a year heating your house? My house is much smaller than your house and previously I was using over 1000 gallons of LP to heat my house and LP has less btu than oil heat. I'm thinking you use much more than 200 or 400 gallons of oil heating 3,000 sq ft.

I have 20 years of data.....I average 800 gallons per year for heat and hot water. Last year, starting to burn in December, I saved approximately 140 gallons over the winter, so with a full winter of burning I can probably save 200 gallons.

I'm averaging, in the non heating months, 1.1 gallons of oil per day for hot water.

Went through the numbers multiple times.....

I keep empty sections of the house at 55 degrees.

Honest....I'm an engineer.....numbers are my thing

 

[Grisu]

Your house is really well insulated compared with most other homes people have here. Approx. 50 mBTU per winter for 3000 sqft; I wish I could get that. No wonder that you don't save that much as your oil consumption was pretty low to begin with. However, one point not to overlook: Last winter was really cold in most places. Not sure about New Haven but it is likely you would have used more than 800 gl last winter.

So how many cords did you burn? With about 4 cords you should be warm and pretty much eliminate the need for the oil heat.

 

[davidmsem]

Your house is really well insulated compared with most other homes people have here. Approx. 50 mBTU per winter for 3000 sqft; I wish I could get that. No wonder that you don't save that much as your oil consumption was pretty low to begin with. However, one point not to overlook: Last winter was really cold in most places. Not sure about New Haven but it is likely you would have used more than 800 gl last winter.

So how many cords did you burn? With about 4 cords you should be warm and pretty much eliminate the need for the oil heat.

Thank you....I'm proud of the house my dad and I built. Excellent point about last winter....we had the coldest February on record and I was toasty warm! We used to keep the house cool, very cool.

I estimate that I burned 2.5 to 3 cords last year as I started in December.

My shed holds 4 cords approximately.

 

[brenndatomu]

The people that I know of that have ditched their oil burner water heater for electric quickly found out how inefficient oil DHW is compared to electric. Might recover quicker though...how big is your fam?

 

[davidmsem]

The people that I know of that have ditched their oil burner water heater for electric quickly found out how inefficient oil DHW is compared to electric. Might recover quicker though...how big is your fam?

Family is just my wife and I. Both of us work full time. Thermostats kick back automatically.

I have an in ground 500 gallon propane tank that I could use for hot water as well.....if the furnace goes I may switch to propane.....have not researched that yet.

 

[brenndatomu]

Seems to run me about $10 per month per person to run the electric tank and we've never run out.
So $240 per year for two people vs your 400 gallons x $2 per = $800

 

[billb3]

I've been averaging about 800 gallons of oil per year for heat (baseboard hot water) and hot water (boilermate).

Looking at oil fill dates in the summer months, I'm averaging about 1.1 gallons per day just to heat hot water. That means I'm using 400 gallons to heat my hot water for showers and the like, and 400 to heat the house.


What was most surprising was discovering how much oil I'm using for hot water!


David

THat seems real high.
How many people/how many gallons of water ?

My mom has a high efficiency Buderus oil fired boiler with an outdoor reset control and a Boilermate and uses 1/4 that.
The wood stove is right next to the Boilermate so that might help a little in the Winter.


400 to heat the house is pretty good ( assuming 70º F )

 

[richmhv]

I have oil hot water heat with hot water from the boiler. I find I need to fill the oil (standard 275 gal) about every eight months for hot water. I use wood for just about all of my heat. I am home all the time with a work at home job. Back when I worked outside the house I got approx 3 fillups a year. Your outer zones are probably calling for some heat on real cold days even turned down. But you are much warmer. Imagine how much oil you would use if you set the central area heated by the insert to 72 when you were home. Hot water is supposedly the second biggest energy consumer after heating.

 

[revdocjim]

I'm not sure I can give any comparable data for my house since we live in Japan but we used a lot of oil (kerosene) last winter in spite of the fact that we ran our Napoleon 1400 24/7. Houses in Japan tend to have very poor insulation and ours is no exception. It's about 2,000 square feet (2 story) and there is no central heating. We installed two vented kerosene stoves (one downstairs and one upstairs) to supplement the wood stove. During the cold months (mid-Dec. thru early April) we have daytime highs of about 0 Celsius (32 F) and night time lows of -10 to -20 C. (14 to -4 F.) During that time we went thru about 500 liters of kerosene a month and it cost me about $300 each month. But I'm not complaining because without the wood burner we would never be able to stay warm regardless of how much kerosene we used unless we installed a bunch more stoves and they cost about $1,000 a piece including installation.

 

[Wisneaky]

Seems to run me about $10 per month per person to run the electric tank and we've never run out.
So $240 per year for two people vs your 400 gallons x $2 per = $800

Do you know how they come up with the cost figures on water heaters? My electric water heater which is maybe two years old says it will use 4635 kWh a year so at my .13 right now per kWh that around $50 a month. My LP water heater which is 10 or so years old says uses 293 gallons a year so at .89 a gallon for LP I'm paying around $20 a month. I wonder how many person household they base those figured on.

 

[DTrain]

The people that I know of that have ditched their oil burner water heater for electric quickly found out how inefficient oil DHW is compared to electric. Might recover quicker though...how big is your fam?

Like I did! I put in a blow molded 85 gallon tank. About $600 to run for the year. And we heat with only wood. Haven't bought oil since early 2012.

 

[Brian26]

Go buy a GE Geospring heat pump hot water heater from Lowes. They are practically giving them away after the rebates in CT. I got mine on sale from Lowes for $100 after the rebates. $900 cost -$400 Energize CT rebate - $400 federal rebate.

The savings have been massive. Even with CT's crazy electric rates using my effergy whole house energy monitor it uses very little power. I posted awhile back in the green room my results from running it Jan-Apr. It cost $17 a month to run. Electric rates went down huge this summer so I am guessing its costing me around $10-$12 now to run it. That was also the results in the winter. In summer with warmer basement temps it runs way less. Could be less than $10 a month.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...pump-water-heaters.143337/page-2#post-1937098

 

[claydogg84]

I'm curious if you ran the oil consumption numbers prior to the stove purchase? If I knew my home was that well insulated and only took 400 gallons a year to heat, I certainly would not have spent $7,000 on a wood stove and accessories.

 

[brenndatomu]

Do you know how they come up with the cost figures on water heaters? I wonder how many person household they base those figured on.

I don't know, that's a good question though. Maybe one of the gurus over in the green room would know...

 

[ToltingColtAcres]

Looking at oil fill dates in the summer months, I'm averaging about 1.1 gallons per day just to heat hot water. That means I'm using 400 gallons to heat my hot water for showers and the like, and 400 to heat the house. [...]What was most surprising was discovering how much oil I'm using for hot water!

I realized the first year in my current home I was using a great deal of oil for hot water. I had a separate hot water tank which was fed off a loop from my boiler. I bought my house in May, it had almost a full tank at the time (the folks had just gotten a fill a week or so before closing) and by my first fill in October, the oil company had to put in almost 230 gallons. Thus, like you, I found I was using roughly 1.2g of oil per day just to maintain hot water in a house.

What you're really paying for is the "standby loss" of maintaining the water jacket of the boiler at 160-180 degrees 24/7, even if there is no demand for the boiler feed heated water through the lines.

I opted to rip out the tank water heater, and I installed a Bosch PowerStar AE tankless electric hot water heater in each of my bathrooms and in my kitchen, sized according to use. Fortunately I was in the middle of renovations so they were easy enough to plumb in myself to each location. The power requirements are pretty hefty depending on which one you buy (e.g. the one in my main bathroom uses 3 50amp circuits) so you definitely need breaker space in your box, but again I was fortunate enough I had upgraded my service and had a new panel installed so I had plenty of room for additional breakers.

These worked great for me, because it was basically only myself and my girlfriend living in the house, so other than showers and doing dishes, we did not use a lot of hot water (we have always used cold water exclusively in the washer, for instance, and no kids taking hour-long showers). Since I did all the work myself, the initial cost was about the same as a fill-up on the oil tank, and I saw a modest increase in my electric bill, about $20/mo.

 

[AmbDrvr253]

I'm curious if you ran the oil consumption numbers prior to the stove purchase? If I knew my home was that well insulated and only took 400 gallons a year to heat, I certainly would not have spent $7,000 on a wood stove and accessories.

X@. Probably would have bought cheaper stove for mostly recreational burning.

 

[Mainely Saws]

I'm thinking that you aren't really comparing apples to apples when considering savings . You mentioned that with wood heat you are walking around in underwear instead of having to be covered up with blankets & the thermostat set at 60 degree's with oil heat . To be accurate, figure the savings between wood & oil by comparing the cost with the house at the same temp for both . What would it cost you in oil to keep it as warm as you do with wood heat ? Also , you mentioned the $7000 start up costs for equipment , stove & 3 to 4 years worth of heat ( 12 cords of wood ) . What would be the start up cost of your central heating system & 3 to 4 years of oil ?? I agree there is just something about the warmth of a wood stove & the independence that it brings ..............

Bob

 

[btuser]

I'd be shocked if you're truly heating with only wood. Are the thermostats completely off and are you truly burning 24/7? My guess is at least 100 gallons of that oil is being put into the house for heat when the stove isn't running. Hot water for oil is dismally inefficient but I doubt it's quite that bad. Also, even the standby losses for HW will add to your heat load, heating the structure indirectly Every btu adds up.

Start by trying to stretch what you have. The boilermate is an indirect unit, usually pared with cold start boiler. I set my tank for 140-150 with a large differential and use a mixing valve set to 120. The boiler control has a post purge function and the boiler is a pretty efficient setup (Viessmann with Riello) The higher temp increases standby losses somewhat but that's more than made up for by the increase in available hot water and a reduced number of boiler firings during the shoulder/Summer seasons. You may also find now that you're burning wood your boiler is woefully oversized and not running efficiently. If your plan is to stay with it odds are the burner/nozzle can be downsized. When I replaced my boiler I went from 162k unit to 92k, and it still only runs 50% during -10 degree weather when I'm not burning.


Do you have any fancy controls (tekmar, outdoor reset etc) that may have been thrown out of whack by adding an additional 40k btu heat source? In 1994 oil was super cheap so not a lot of emphasis on efficiency went into residential boiler design. My house was built same year and is quite similar (Colonial, 3000sqft, 2x6 R50 in the attic). I'd have to say you with only 2 people you'd be best off with a on-demand propane hot water heater.

 

[davidmsem]

I'm curious if you ran the oil consumption numbers prior to the stove purchase? If I knew my home was that well insulated and only took 400 gallons a year to heat, I certainly would not have spent $7,000 on a wood stove and accessories.

No, I did not run those numbers in advance. We are much warmer, but not sure if it is really worth so much work.

 

[davidmsem]

I'd be shocked if you're truly heating with only wood. Are the thermostats completely off and are you truly burning 24/7? My guess is at least 100 gallons of that oil is being put into the house for heat when the stove isn't running. Hot water for oil is dismally inefficient but I doubt it's quite that bad. Also, even the standby losses for HW will add to your heat load, heating the structure indirectly Every btu adds up.

Start by trying to stretch what you have. The boilermate is an indirect unit, usually pared with cold start boiler. I set my tank for 140-150 with a large differential and use a mixing valve set to 120. The boiler control has a post purge function and the boiler is a pretty efficient setup (Viessmann with Riello) The higher temp increases standby losses somewhat but that's more than made up for by the increase in available hot water and a reduced number of boiler firings during the shoulder/Summer seasons. You may also find now that you're burning wood your boiler is woefully oversized and not running efficiently. If your plan is to stay with it odds are the burner/nozzle can be downsized. When I replaced my boiler I went from 162k unit to 92k, and it still only runs 50% during -10 degree weather when I'm not burning.


Do you have any fancy controls (tekmar, outdoor reset etc) that may have been thrown out of whack by adding an additional 40k btu heat source? In 1994 oil was super cheap so not a lot of emphasis on efficiency went into residential boiler design. My house was built same year and is quite similar (Colonial, 3000sqft, 2x6 R50 in the attic). I'd have to say you with only 2 people you'd be best off with a on-demand propane hot water heater.

Trust me, like another person cited, about 1.1 gallons a day. No fancy controls or anything on the system, and yes I'm not heating totally with wood.

I like the idea of downsizing the nozzle.....in the longer run, your suggestion about going to propane for hot water seems smart.

 

[TheRambler]

I agree, if you compare apples to apples and run the figures on what it would cost to keep the house at the same temp with both fuel sources you would have a more realistic number. Sure the straight math is as you already stated, but if your only keeping the house around 60 with oil, and around 70 with wood, well that 10 degrees would equate to a lot more oil if you were to heat your house to 70 with oil.

Are you burning 24/7? Seems like your oil consumption is quite high if you are. I am assuming that you are not burning 24/7, but could be wrong. Is your oil hot water heater a tankless system, or an actual oil hot water heater? If its a tankless system you may want to do some adjustments to your boiler, because as already mentioned by others its keeping the boiler at a higher temp needlelssly if its only job is hot water.

If I were in your shoes and was really using 400ish gallons a year on hot water, I would replace that system in a heart beat. that is EXPENSIVE for hot water. I would either go with a propane hot water heater, nat gas if its available, or one of the new high efficiency heat pump hot water heaters. Best choice would be nat gas if its available in your area. A new hot water heater, even if you get no rebates would typically be 1k or less. You'd recoop that cost in probably 2-3 years or less.

Last year was my first year burning 24/7, and I started the season with a smaller wood stove, and ended up installing a larger one in late Jan. We moved into the house in June 2014, 2200sqft with very high ceilings so really 3,000+. With the small stove the propane furnance would kick on every morning. Once we switched to a larger stove it never ran once. We also use propane for hot water. We had the thermostats set at 60F. We filled the propane tank in August 2014, and again in August 2015. We used 175 gallons of propane in a year for hot water, and for heat from late Nov- late Jan. We paid $2.46/gal at the time.

 

[davidmsem]

I agree, if you compare apples to apples and run the figures on what it would cost to keep the house at the same temp with both fuel sources you would have a more realistic number. Sure the straight math is as you already stated, but if your only keeping the house around 60 with oil, and around 70 with wood, well that 10 degrees would equate to a lot more oil if you were to heat your house to 70 with oil.

Are you burning 24/7? Seems like your oil consumption is quite high if you are. I am assuming that you are not burning 24/7, but could be wrong. Is your oil hot water heater a tankless system, or an actual oil hot water heater? If its a tankless system you may want to do some adjustments to your boiler, because as already mentioned by others its keeping the boiler at a higher temp needlelssly if its only job is hot water.

If I were in your shoes and was really using 400ish gallons a year on hot water, I would replace that system in a heart beat. that is EXPENSIVE for hot water. I would either go with a propane hot water heater, nat gas if its available, or one of the new high efficiency heat pump hot water heaters. Best choice would be nat gas if its available in your area. A new hot water heater, even if you get no rebates would typically be 1k or less. You'd recoop that cost in probably 2-3 years or less.

Last year was my first year burning 24/7, and I started the season with a smaller wood stove, and ended up installing a larger one in late Jan. We moved into the house in June 2014, 2200sqft with very high ceilings so really 3,000+. With the small stove the propane furnance would kick on every morning. Once we switched to a larger stove it never ran once. We also use propane for hot water. We had the thermostats set at 60F. We filled the propane tank in August 2014, and again in August 2015. We used 175 gallons of propane in a year for hot water, and for heat from late Nov- late Jan. We paid $2.46/gal at the time.

Yes, was burning 24/7, a fire each morning, evening, and stuffed her full each night. The floor plan is not open but I'm surprised how much heat does get around the house. In the eighties often in the room the insert is in. I'm looking for a way to pull more heat out of that room.

The hot water tank is fed from furnace.....like another heating zone....it is a 40 gallon boilermate.

Gathering thoughts here, it seems like propane is the way to go when replacing the system now that the insert is a major source of heat.

 

[Grisu]

I'm looking for a way to pull more heat out of that room.

It is easier to push it out. Place a box or desktop fan on the floor opposite the stove room and blow cold air into it. Warm air will flow along the ceiling to the fan's location to make up for the displaced cold air. Works like a charm.