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Close but no cigar, I've seen this movie before. As of right now per million BTU:
Anthracite Coal - $9.38
NG - $12.12
The coal is about $180 per ton delivered. It's going to cost him more becsue of the shipping but there is lot of people there using it. He could get soft coal local for about $60 per ton but not advisable for home heating especially if you want to remain friends with your neighbors. This is really only an option for those in the northeast close to the source for anthracite.
Anything you could possibly imagine is available; boilers, furnaces, inserts, hand fired, automatic stokers.... $12K antique basburners. Need a custom 1 million BTU boiler? That can be arranged.
In this case you would need a boiler and they start at about $7K but these are one time purchases that are going to last your lifetime. With that kind of investment you'd want to heat the house with it and do domestic hot water, unless you were going to run anti freeze in the whole system you'd need a heat exchanger too. I know lot of people have used them for their pools and I've seen the driveways discussed but by the time you install the concrete and the pex... $$$$. For me I'm not even looking at what the cost of the fuel is, it's the cost of the installation that is the kick in the teeth and I already have the boiler.
I'm in PA, the highs are just below freezing in winter. Gets down to the single digits usually a week or two each year in total.
Keep in mind this is assuming this doesn't leave behind a mine that has continued burning for 30 plus years driving all residence away costing millions.
I have done a large section of heated concrete. It was for a front entrance to a regional HQ building of a company. It was important for both image, safety and liability to have the entrance clear and they had bad problems with spalling from use of chemicals before. Also, their parent company in Europe made the system, so I have no idea how much the actual hardware costs as it was just supplied to us.
I will say it worked wonderfully. They would turn it on ahead of time if bad weather was in the forecast (in our area it is truly only a few times per year, some years none yield any accumulation, but we have gotten a 20" snow about 12 years ago). And it would keep anything from accumulating at all. This was a large office and R&D center so the power bill was already high but I remember the size of the circuits going to it were pretty large and the maintenance people said it did use a fair amount of power, but if you think about it snow melt chemicals are not really cheap either and in their case labor was not free.
Keep in mind this is assuming this doesn't leave behind a mine that has continued burning for 30 plus years driving all residence away costing millions.
That fire was caused by the residents using an old stripping mine as a landfill and then burning the garbage.
as an old gasman,i have seen them..............lots of money$$$$$,to install and to run.first you need a 500,000btu boiler that's about5-8k,then the plastic piping 1-2k and labor.i would say around 15-18k parts/labor plus any ground work and when you turn it on150-300 hundred everytime. wayyyyyyyyyyyyy to much money.
as an old gasman,i have seen them..............lots of money$$$$$,to install and to run.first you need a 500,000btu boiler that's about5-8k,then the plastic piping 1-2k and labor.i would say around 15-18k parts/labor plus any ground work and when you turn it on150-300 hundred everytime. wayyyyyyyyyyyyy to much money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cometclear
Some people have way, way, way too much disposable income.
I mentioned electric, which is the only way i'd get this done. not gas, not coal, not any other means of heat....just electricity.
I dunno, doesn't seem that complicated a thought process. It's going to cost a few grand to add at least, unless it's a small driveway. And if it's a small driveway, the payoff will be even less because it's saving less work. It doesn't snow that much, so there's not that much payoff to begin with. And resale? Will you recoup the value of the heated driveway in resale? Highly unlikely, especially given that it doesn't snow much! You'd have to get a lot more snow. Or, maybe the driveway is HUGE, but if that's the case the cost is enormous and you still won't get it back. Not to mention the huge cost of running it. Which isn't to say a few buyers might not go "Cool!" at the idea of it. Some of them will. But that won't get you your investment back.
In short, just because you're tearing up the driveway doesn't mean it makes economic sense to spend extra to put in something that would widely be seen as unnecessary.
That said, the pro is obvious: no shoveling, no snow blower, etc. The biggest con is the cost. There could also be some variation in how well it works for different amounts of snow, etc. I mean, if you get the BIG snow that comes once in a great while, will it keep up? It might if you leave it on the whole time, and it'll cost ya plenty to do that. So I guess it all comes back to cost. Another reason it might not work is if you don't catch the snow early enough (don't turn it on early enough). You can rig it to some automatic sensor though, more cost and more complexity and might not always be accurate enough. That could result in having this expensive system that either didn't work right or was running up the electric bill when it wasn't necessary.
So, it's a frivolous item that saves a varying amount of manual labor (a lot vs shovel, a little vs snowblower) but costs you significantly more money over other options. If you want it, that's how to look at it. To me, I see it as an excuse to buy yourself a really nice snowblower, which will cost less to buy AND less to run. And/or to put a plow service on retainer for when you need it. And/or hire a kid to shovel. And/or stock some ice melting material for the few times you need it. You can do all those and it'll still cost a lot less.
Thanks for the link! looks like for my 20x12 driveway, i'm looking at about 2k for just cables....another 1k for the panel and the snow sensor......(i think).
Keep in mind this is assuming this doesn't leave behind a mine that has continued burning for 30 plus years driving all residence away costing millions.
Alex, for the win
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As of right now per million BTU:
And/or to put a plow service on retainer for when you need it. And/or hire a kid to shovel. And/or stock some ice melting material for the few times you need it. You can do all those and it'll still cost a lot less.
