Speaking of water heaters

[supton]

Are they worth having?

No, seriously, my hot water is off my oil burner. My burner kicks on about once an hour in the summer, and will kick on during a shower. The guy who cleans the furnace said I should think about turning the burner off during the day, to save some oil during the non heating months. But he also pointed out that having the hot water off the furnace was a good thing, it keeps the furnace going year round.

Would I save money on a tradition heater? I have a propane tank, for stove and drier.

 

[Blaze]

You could go on demand propane??...knocked $20.00 per month off my power bill going the on demand route. That was 5 yrs ago so its fully paid for itself plus more.

 

[Wolf359]

I don't think the cost of propane vs oil is that much cheaper. Plus you have the added cost of paying for a propane hot water heater. Would you save enough to make up the difference? Maybe not. The other option to look into is a hybrid water heater/pump. They're about $1000 but with rebates from the electric company, they can be free, just the cost of installation and the cost of electricity. As it's a hybrid, it's supposed to use less electricity than a regular water heater.

 

[AandPDan]

When you save you have your hot water off of the boiler I assume you mean there is a "tankless" coil in the boiler.

In that case you're wasting a lot of energy to keep the boiler hot all the time, warm start.

A better option would be an "indirect" water heater. Basically it is set up as another zone off of the boiler. The boiler will fire to heat the tank then shut off. When the water cools off it will fire up again. Doing this you can set your boiler up for "cold" start. It won't have to maintain a temperature.

Recovery rates are usually VERY high for an indirect, much faster than an electric water heater and usually more than a gas fired water heater.

 

[supton]

Yeah, tankless. I like the idea of zones. Once I make space in the basement I will have to think about a tank then, off the oil. Would be nice to save on oil, I burn about 450 gallons a year.

 

[JHZR2]

At the mountain house, we heat with coal or oil (selectable), and so most of the time the house is run off oil, and the water heated by the same

It's easy for us because when leaving, just set the aquastat so the burner will never come on.

I've often thought of the same scenario as you, and if we had. NG or lpg here we probably would. I've even thought that since electric is nearly 100% efficient, to just have a boost heater in series to minimize the heating work on the furnace during small uses like washing dishes and hands.

In your case, if you can get cheap lpg and have the infrastructure, I'd consider on demand. While indirect like you have can be quite low cost, I'm not keen on thermal cycling the furnace so much on what might be short cycles. I might plumb it to VE selectable so you can use one in summer and the other in winter, or as economics/hot water demand dictates.

 

[callbay]

Here is a calculator to figure the cost comparison for home heating. Just put you costs in for your area.

http://www.warmair.com/html/fuel_cost_comparisons.htm

I have not been able to find one for hot water heating but it should be similar to home heating.

The surprising thing to me was that in my area that has no natural gas, LP gas was way more expensive then heating with a heat pump. LP gas is even more expensive than heating with old fashion electric heat (no heat pump)!