Periodically I run the local numbers on EIA.gov’s Heating Fuel Comparison Calculator to make my self feel both good or bad. The comparative cost per BTU of wood heat still makes me feel good since I have an efficient Jotul F100 wood stove in my pretty-well insulated and very airtight house. The price of propane BTU’s makes me feel less good although I run a very efficient hydronic system using a Triangle Tube boiler (Elite).

Open up this excel program and put in your local numbers. After you put the local price in the column for each fuel type, click on .

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/heatcalc.xls

When I look at the local prices for electricity I am giddy with delight that I do not depend on it so much. In western NY, National Grid charges a whopping $ 0.30 per kwh (delivery and supply total) …. that’s almost $90 per million BTU’s. While #2 furnace oil is much better than electricity, it is still a more expensive than propane per million BTU’s: $4.02/gal vs $2.47/gal; $37 vs $35 per million BTU’s in western NY.

But the sweet side of things remains the $13.00 per million BTU’s for fire wood; at $180/cord. Yet my friends keep asking me: “why do you want to bother with splitting firewood?”

At these legalized profiteering electrical prices I am not seeing any ROI potential for heating with electricity other other than a GSHP or air to air HP. But its too late now, for me.

You guys convinced me about PV’s and forgetting about independence, so I have put a call into SolarLiberty about leasing panels and selling the watts to the grid.

http://www.solarliberty.com/residential.html

If you can’t beat ’em, get on the band wagon