Heating Costs (Brunswick, Newport: new home, heat pump, buying)

[mikem101781]

My family and I are moving to the Brunswick area in February. I was wondering what the average heating cost is during the winter time up there. I live in military housing in Virginia right now so I don't pay for heat. Any info would be a great big help. Thanks

[Dragondog]

Yikes-
you will have to budget at least $200 a month for oil heat, and perhaps $175 for gas, depending on the age and size of the house. This winter thus far Brunswick is having a 'New Jersey' winter- meaning MILD- so the above costs will be less, unless the weather makes a drastic change.

[pinkpalace]

FWIW, our 1900's farm house, about 2100 sq. ft., cost us about $350-$400 per month for heating oil (every month, not just winter)

[lovemaine]

When we move to Maine we're planning on buying a smaller home. This way we'll keep heating costs down, and still be able to live in beautiful Maine. Like I wrote in a previous post, I'd rather live in a tiny house in Maine than a big house anywhere else.

[Acadianlion]

I find threads on heating in Maine to be very interesting. In the time that I have lived in Maine, I have used most types of heat, including electric, oil, gas, and wood. When I built a new home in Cumberland in the mid 1980's we used electric baseboard heat exclusively. In the winter months our electric bill was very high, but compared to the capitalized cost of installing a multi-zone force hot water system with fuel oil as the source, it was less espensive to pay the electricity bill than the fuel oil bill PLUS the additional principal and interest on the mortgage.

When I lived in my family's old summer home, I burned wood. It was plentiful, and I bought wood by the four foot length, splitting and storing it myself. That was the least expensive heating method that I have ever used, IF my time was worth nothing in the equation.

I retrofitted an antique house that I had restored, replacing the old oil fired furnace with a direct vent gas hot fired furnace. I also installed an additional heating loop in the second floor where there had been none originally. The house was warm, but what I had not planned on really well was the rapidly rising cost of propane and its relative lower efficiency than fuel oil. The building was used as office spaces, so it was a bit less important than had I been living there, but although the system worked well, I would not use propane for a main source of heat again.

Currently my home here on the coast was designed around being heated by three kerosene burning heaters. We use two 20,000 btu output direct vent computerized units in each end of the house, and one small unit in the study. This is the most efficient and least expensive heating system that I have ever had in a house, as we use approximately 600 gallons of kerosene annually to heat this 1600 square foot, three bedroom two bath home. The only time that the heating units work full time, is when it is extremely cold and the wind is blowing hard from the northwest off the water. The total replacement cost of this system, if I had to replace all three units at the same time, is less than $3,000.

We are planning on moving off the shore in the next year or so. Right now, I am planning on building a home that will include passive solar arrays as well as "on grid" connections. We will strive toward making the new home as Energy Star compliant as possible, and I want to use a ground source heat pump as the main heat source. My prime motivation right now is to have the best living environment possible without providing any single point pollution on my property. The ground source heat pump will provide heat and hot water, and the overall cost of the system will be about what a mutli-zone forced hot water by oil system would cost. The big question that is still not answered for me now, is at fourteen cents per kilowatt hour, what the cost of running the system will be, and whether we want it to provide hot water or to use an on demand water heater instead.

There are major new "inovations" in construction and heating systems available that are simply not being used. Building a new home using old fashiioned construction techniques is really counter productive if energy efficiency is a goal. The most energy efficient design will probably require the use of expanded polystyrene building forms filled with reinforced concrete. The base "R" factor in a wall like that is a true R-50, and cannot be equalled. Yet, 2X6 construction is still the norm here, more because it's "the way it's always been done" rather than because it is scientifically the best way to do it.

Thus the installers in the state are clinging to old technologies where better ones exist. If I were retiring and moving to Maine now, I would NOT buy a conventional house, but would spend a lot of time researching the more modern techniques in construction and in heating systems before committing money to the future.

Since oil for heating is well into the $2 per gallon range, all the options must be placed on the table.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by Acadianlion

I find threads on heating in Maine to be very interesting. In the time that I have lived in Maine, I have used most types of heat, including electric, oil, gas, and wood. When I built a new home in Cumberland in the mid 1980's we used electric baseboard heat exclusively. In the winter months our electric bill was very high, but compared to the capitalized cost of installing a multi-zone force hot water system with fuel oil as the source, it was less espensive to pay the electricity bill than the fuel oil bill PLUS the additional principal and interest on the mortgage.

When I lived in my family's old summer home, I burned wood. It was plentiful, and I bought wood by the four foot length, splitting and storing it myself. That was the least expensive heating method that I have ever used, IF my time was worth nothing in the equation.

I retrofitted an antique house that I had restored, replacing the old oil fired furnace with a direct vent gas hot fired furnace. I also installed an additional heating loop in the second floor where there had been none originally. The house was warm, but what I had not planned on really well was the rapidly rising cost of propane and its relative lower efficiency than fuel oil. The building was used as office spaces, so it was a bit less important than had I been living there, but although the system worked well, I would not use propane for a main source of heat again.

Currently my home here on the coast was designed around being heated by three kerosene burning heaters. We use two 20,000 btu output direct vent computerized units in each end of the house, and one small unit in the study. This is the most efficient and least expensive heating system that I have ever had in a house, as we use approximately 600 gallons of kerosene annually to heat this 1600 square foot, three bedroom two bath home. The only time that the heating units work full time, is when it is extremely cold and the wind is blowing hard from the northwest off the water. The total replacement cost of this system, if I had to replace all three units at the same time, is less than $3,000.

We are planning on moving off the shore in the next year or so. Right now, I am planning on building a home that will include passive solar arrays as well as "on grid" connections. We will strive toward making the new home as Energy Star compliant as possible, and I want to use a ground source heat pump as the main heat source. My prime motivation right now is to have the best living environment possible without providing any single point pollution on my property. The ground source heat pump will provide heat and hot water, and the overall cost of the system will be about what a mutli-zone forced hot water by oil system would cost. The big question that is still not answered for me now, is at fourteen cents per kilowatt hour, what the cost of running the system will be, and whether we want it to provide hot water or to use an on demand water heater instead.

There are major new "inovations" in construction and heating systems available that are simply not being used. Building a new home using old fashiioned construction techniques is really counter productive if energy efficiency is a goal. The most energy efficient design will probably require the use of expanded polystyrene building forms filled with reinforced concrete. The base "R" factor in a wall like that is a true R-50, and cannot be equalled. Yet, 2X6 construction is still the norm here, more because it's "the way it's always been done" rather than because it is scientifically the best way to do it.

Thus the installers in the state are clinging to old technologies where better ones exist. If I were retiring and moving to Maine now, I would NOT buy a conventional house, but would spend a lot of time researching the more modern techniques in construction and in heating systems before committing money to the future.

Since oil for heating is well into the $2 per gallon range, all the options must be placed on the table.

Interesting. Have you looked at monolithic domes? www.monolithic.com http://www.monolithic.com/
Very efficient. Many people do not want to live in something that looks like a space ship.

[Nekuda]

Heating costs vary from house to house and size of the house but they are high! Find a specific property of interest and then request documented heating costs for the year prior...

[pinkpalace]

Originally Posted by Nekuda

Heating costs vary from house to house and size of the house but they are high! Find a specific property of interest and then request documented heating costs for the year prior...

And remember -- if something looks too good to be true ...

The house I bought in Newport had only used 1200 gallons of heating oil, where other similar houses had used 1800 gallons. I was naive and thought the Newport house must be "really energy efficient!"

Turns out that the nice old couple that had been living there had completely turned off the heat for the upper level of the house. After I turned on the heat upstairs, I started burning a lot more than 1200 gallons per year...

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by Dwatted Wabbit

Interesting. Have you looked at monolithic domes? www.monolithic.com http://www.monolithic.com/
Very efficient. Many people do not want to live in something that looks like a space ship.

Not really looking at domes. But we are looking at round houses and one manufacturer of round house framing kits is able to achieve Energy Star compliance with their design. That company is in North Carolina and is called Deltec Homes in case anyone is interested.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mikem101781

My family and I are moving to the Brunswick area in February. I was wondering what the average heating cost is during the winter time up there. I live in military housing in Virginia right now so I don't pay for heat. Any info would be a great big help. Thanks

This is a question that's almost impossible to answer without knowing more details. Generally speaking, you'll pay a lot more than you would in Virginia But then your cooling costs will be a lot lower in the summer, too. Other than that, a LOT depends on what kind of house, when built, how well insulated, even the location in relation to prevailing winds and solar gain.

I live in a 1912 saltbox, 3br, 2 ba, with no insulation in the walls and 6 inches in the attic. With our old furnace (circa 1965, I think), we used about 1,000-1,200 gallons of heating oil in a normal winter. We put in a new super-efficient unit last year, and our oil consumption has dropped by at least a third on a heating-degree-day basis. Back when we burned wood more or less exclusively, we went through about four cords a winter. A friend who owns a super-insulated, solar-maximized home built in 1995 heats the whole place with one fire a day in her masonry heater.