Propane vs Natural Gas to heat a home (condo, townhouses)

[JohnyDrew]

I live in a town with natural gas and thinking of moving to town with very little natural gas access. I’d like to understand what the cost to heat a house are, comparing NG to LP. It’s hard to find a simple comparison online, because the units are different. I found one place that states that LP is roughly 3x more expensive than NG. Does that sound right?

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by JohnyDrew

I live in a town with natural gas and thinking of moving to town with very little natural gas access. I’d like to understand what the cost to heat a house are, comparing NG to LP. It’s hard to find a simple comparison online, because the units are different. I found one place that states that LP is roughly 3x more expensive than NG. Does that sound right?

Here is a very nice residential heating operating cost comparator from Efficiency Maine - they've done all the hard work for you. They are accounting for the system efficiency and the fuel costs with representative unit fuel costs plugged in, but you can fill in your own values. The absolute cost of course is a function of the home size and construction, home location/climate too - but they have chosen that system and held it constant across heating systems so you're comparing apples to apples, and consider this to present accurate relative costs.

Note that with the supplied values for the unit cost of natural gas and propane, it's costing you a little more than 2x to heat the same house with propane versus natural gas. Certainly better than 3x, but still pretty pricey.

https://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-h...st-comparison/

[JohnyDrew]

@OutdoorLover, thank you. That really helped!!!

[GeoffD]

It depends on how and when you buy it. I know people who own a couple of 1,000 gallon propane tanks and fill them in the summer. The price now at AmeriGas is $2.29/gallon. I got an online quote for my house. I just checked my gas bill. I’m paying $1.73 per therm though I assume that’s going up for next year. A gallon of propane is 0.916 therms so today’s propane price in therms is $2.50. Propane shot up to almost $4.00/gallon last winter.


So if you have a huge propane tank and buy bulk in the summer, propane is around 1.5x more expensive than natural gas. If you had the misfortune of having to fill a propane tank last March paying retail price, it could have been 3x more than natural gas.

Plus there’s the mess where you buy a house and the propane tank is owned by the propane company so you’re held hostage to their pricing. When you buy a house heated with propane, you need to know who owns the tank.

[JohnyDrew]

I will put that on the list of questions to ask - who owns the tank. Thank you so much!

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by JohnyDrew

...thinking of moving to town with very little natural gas access.

Me? I'd reconsider the move.

...comparing NG to LP.

It's the wrong comparison to be considering.
1) If NG is available -- it gets used. For every appliance that can be fed with it. No discussion.

2) If NG is NOT available -- the Q is whether to use fuel oil or something else.
Fuel oil (which I personally detest) will almost always win out.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by MrRational

Me? I'd reconsider the move.

Picking where to live based on the availability of natural gas is definitely a tail wagging the dog situation. Fuel costs can be high, but will generally be in the noise of other considerations.

For a 3000 sq. ft house, the estimated costs are:

Natural Gas 1,838 Therms $4,055
Heating Oil 1,325 Gal $7,708
Propane 2,008 Gal $8,851
Electric (Baseboard) ¹ 42,835 kWh $12,135
Electric (Heat Pump) ² 15,228 kWh $4,314

That's not nothing, and NG is still the superior choice, but $4000 is easily offset by tons of other things, like housing cost, property taxes, and school quality.

I think natural gas availability is definitely a factor, but it's a small factor.

[porterhouse]

We recently converted a home from LP to NG. It was quite a process as we had to convert a furnace, hot water heater, dryer, fireplace and grill. The gas company brought the gas to the house for free, but I had to pay to have to last mile piping redone throughout the house. Savings has not been as significant as promised or hoped. Costs are maybe 30% less with NG (we did own our LP tanks). 3x savings sounds like a pipe dream.

All things being equal, NG is a better option. However, not sure I’d do a conversion again. Being reliant on another connected utility isn’t a plus for us either.

[GeoffD]

My only experience with propane was at the condo I owned in Vermont. Townhouses with each building having one tank. We were metered off the shared tank. The propane company owned the tank. The condo association always had a contract with the propane company and our rate was a lot lower than single family homes that used propane. The association changed propane companies in the 26 years I owned there and the new propane company bought the tanks from the previous propane company.


We had problems occasionally with the shared tank going empty. I was wintering there a lot of that time so I’d often have to make the phone call. They’d have to enter all the units to start the pilots on the boiler and water heater. If I was there, I’d light my own while they were doing the other units in the building.

The other annoying thing in Vermont is they have a state law that all boilers and furnaces in multi dwelling units have to be inspected every two years. The law was obviously written for oil burners. A gas boiler or furnace will run for years without needing to be cleaned. It was so expensive to get a licensed plumber in for the inspection that most people bought the propane company service contract where they would “inspect and clean” the gas boiler and check the antifreeze level with a hygrometer. Antifreeze seems to cost the same as a rare single malt. LOL

[matrix5k]

NG was one thing we wanted when we looked for a house. Didn't want to deal with a propane or oil tank. I hear people complain about issues with their suppliers, having to look for a new company, having their tank refilled when not asked, dealing with a leaking tank etc. It's just another headache I don't need.