What's the best; Electricity Gas Oil Heat a House 

Thanks for the comment. I don't follow the industry that close so don't know the current state of the art. My heat pump is dated so I'm pretty sure I'd never see that performance. Still, where I live, electricity is so expensive I'd want to see the curves, assumptions and methodology of the measurements. Thanks again for the information.

Thanks for the thoughts. It sounds like you enjoy ridiculously low electric rates (good for you). Installation costs and servicing is another issue all on its own. The motor in the condenser failed on my heat pump and instead of being about $100 for a common motor, it's a fancy ECM (or something like that) motor that cost $1000 to replace. Thanks again.

@@jazbuilding Yes, exactly. Everyone's costs are different and install is part of that. As mentioned, I love the way you set up the spreadsheet. Was that motor in the air handler (inside the house)? When my compressor locked up that would require a new outside unit, for an additional $5K. Considering HPs are nothing more than AC with a resersing setup, I wonder why they cost twice as much. Basically you can install a furnace and AC for the cost of a HP. I had zero warranty because the company who installed my HP decided to only do commercial units. So, there's 5 other companies that service Trane, but zero warranty. Nothing stops a Trane from avoiding warranties, to paraphrase their ad. Other heat sources were impractical, but it was nice to check pricing. i.e. My neighbor has gas, about 15' from where my service would be installed. The gas company wanted $5K (in 1997) to run a line to my house, plus I'd have to modifying the house for gas units. Oil is smelly, messy, and not common locally. (I had it in 2 homes I owned and also in Army housing.)

The motor was in the unit outside the house. My warranty was 7 years and it failed about 3 months beyond that. I also have a super fancy-shmancy motor in my air handler and am not looking forward to having to replace that some day. I'm not sure on the costs of these systems, as I'm not an installer. I've lived in houses heated by gas and it's probably the best overall. It's a relatively cheap and flexible fuel (dryer, oven/range, fireplace) with virtually no maintenance, but there is a risk of a catastrophic accident (very low, but not zero). Most of my houses have been oil heat and I've only experienced a smell if something goes wrong like an oil leak or a poorly tuned burner. It does require periodic maintenance (like a tune up to the old cars).

@@jazbuilding My uncle installed a multi-fuel furnace. When he retired he sold most of the equipment and land. He kept enough land to grow enough corn that, when chipped and dried, provided heat for the year; an "almost" green solution; a nice hot fire.

@@mikep490Wow, that's a great story. You say multi-fuel; does that mean it could burn pellets or more? My dad had a wood boiler which fed hot water to the oil boiler and heated the house and domestic hot water. It was a lot of work but performed great. Corn and wood (and the like) are the only renewable resources. In your case, the energy of the sun is captured and stored as carbohydrate and fat in the corn kernels to be used later (at your convenience) to provide heat. In your case, you're storing the energy in nearly real time (the same year) where wood takes decades, etc. Those other technologies are only "renewable" if you adulterate the meaning of the word.

Thanks for the comment. You make Missouri sound like an affordable place to live. It's nice to see others out there taking the time to do a calculation or two. Go Chiefs and cheers.

Thanks for the kind words and that's a great bunch of questions. Perhaps I should have spent some time on that but the answers, however would take a number of videos all on their own. To answer your question; my understanding is that it is absolutely the heat that drives the car. It's the heat from the combustion that forces the gasses to expand and do the work. The btu content in the fuel is definitely a way to measure forces of the combustion. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it's the right way to think of it. Heat is sort of the universal unit of energy and is perhaps it's simplest form. When I had physics way back in college and we described internal combustion engines as heat engines. Understanding the heat profile helped you understand the way the engine produced power and work. Calories in food are a way to quantify heat. One calorie is defined as the heat required to raise a liter of water 1 degree celsius. When you stop your car, the kinetic energy (the motion or rolling down the road) is turned into heat in your brakes. Think about that all the energy to stop a 2 ton car from 60 miles/hour is accomplished by heating your brake rotors. To your other question; we can (and to a point do) use heating oil to fuel cars (sort of). When I was a boy, home heating oil was the same as diesel fuel and today there's only subtle differences. Jet fuel is essentially kerosene, etc. Gasoline could certainly be used to heat a house if you had the right furnace/boiler, etc. Propane can heat a house, and power a generator, fork lift, automobile, etc. I know it's kind of a weird way to think of it since we tend to put one fuel in our machines but the heat content is something you care about if you have choices. If you go to the EPA website and look at the fuel economy estimates, the E85 (85% ethanol) numbers are pathetic compared to gasoline. One F150 went from 18 combined (gasoline) to 14 with E85 (that's about 25%). E90 (10% ethanol which is everywhere I live) only has about 95% of the heat content as pure gasoline, so one can expect 5% reduction in fuel economy as a result. I don't mean to go on too long and certainly don't want to seem rude, but this is a topic that volumes have been written on. I hope this help and thanks again for reaching out. Maybe I'll put together a video on this topic.

Thanks for the comment and questions. Yes, I could be the victim of 3rd party gouging or predatory rate. I don't know for sure. We certainly never knowingly signed up for any such plans. I receive my bill from the utility and it's got lots of charges and fees on it so part of the answer is in your question. You're only talking about supply and delivery. We pay a generation service charge, revenue decoupling charge, renewable charge, along with generation and distribution, transition and transmission, distributed solar, customer charge and an energy efficiency charge. All of these but one are tied to KwHr consumed. I'd be willing to bet they're not on the "official" electricity rate as reported to whoever or whatever it's reported to. My guess would be that they only report the generation and distribution as the "official" rate. As I said in the video, I simply take the dollars and divide it by the KwHr. Thanks again.

Thanks for asking. I haven't worked with joules in some 20 years, and most heating systems around me (fuel based anyway) deal with btu. (Welcome to America) I do what's comfortable for me, but the same calculations with joules and Deutschmarks should give the same ratios. Take care and thanks again.

Thanks. although, Deutschmarks are no more, make that Euro, and i don't live there. close though, NL.