Local cost per million btu's

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Well, if you're just going to keep editing your post and tossing up more links to definitions and things, I'm done here...I'll take my three degrees in Mechanical Engineering and crawl back to my hovel. Rick
Sorry, I'm not the most organized. And like I said not my profession. I believe it but, am not the best person to defend it.
 
COP is COP. A COP of 2 means it delivers two units of (heat) energy for every unit of (electrical) energy you put in. The way they are built, the electrical energy input also ends up as heat (what else?), so if COP = 2, it pumps one unit of heat from some source, and the other unit comes from the grid. At COP = 3, 2 units get pumped from the outside, and 1 comes from the grid etc.

In a BTU cost calculator, put in eff%=COP*100 to the electrical box to get the BTU cost.

Tech has improved a lot. Cheap air-source HPs nowadays have a COP = 2.3 or so at 32°F, falling to 2.0 by 20°F or so. Good enough in my climate and milder. Minisplits and high-end HPs ('greenspeed') get about COP ~3 at 32°F, and geos get nominally ~3.5 at all temps.

Many folks give these units a bad rep, mostly due to experience with older units, bad installs or both. The whole 'don't work below 32°F' line is outdated. For a bad install, take a full point off the COP numbers above (geos included).
 
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Yeah, NG or a HP could be tempting. I am all about wood heat, that's why most of us are here.
A friend of mine owns a lake house that sits vacant most of the winter. He switch from resistance heat to a HP and his bill went down from $100 to $60 per month. Allowing the service fees, taxes, etc., that's quiet a reduction. For the record, he does have a wood stove that he uses when he's there.
 
Natural gas here works out to being half as much as wood if I had to buy it. It's not even close!

That's if I took the cheap way out and bought it already processed. Not for me, though, I like chainsaws and trucks and splitters and sharpeners and PPE and buying an ipad just to use Hearth.com, and the gas to power everything, and ruining half my yard to store the wood, and restacking, and moisture meters, Laser thermometers, and a new stove every few years.

I refuse to figure out what wood burning REALLY costs me, because I'm not in it to save a buck (although I know it can be cost effective for the right people). I do this because I love it.
Danno, you can't count the saws, truck, splitters,etc. Those are your toys/hobbies/pacifiers. I'm sure your wife would understand if you just explained it all to her()::P
 
Yah, the last energy calculator is typical of several of that I have seen. Wood heat here is cheaper than any other option, and I get my wood mostly for free. I had a heat pump priced here and the payback return vs. plain electric furnace was 10 years. Compared to wood it would be 30 years, even if I paid $175 a cord for firewood. So I bought a new 30-NC wood stove, for far less $$$ than a HP.
 
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