OIL ?              LP GAS ?               NATURAL GAS ?              PELLETS ?              WOOD ?

LOWER HEATING BILLS 101    

As a hearth shop owner for more than twenty years, the hardest thing for me to get people to understand is that the TYPE OF FUEL you use to heat your home is by no means as important a cost factor as is HOW YOU ARE USING THE FUEL. Everyone is so upset about rising oil prices, but if you compare the cost of fuels, there isn’t really that big a difference. Think about it. If one fuel was so much cheaper than the others, everyone would be using it. The fact is, switching fuels is probably not going to save you much money.

The problem is your furnace. We put these fuel guzzling monsters in our homes (usually in the basement where you don’t need the heat!), and then use pipes or ducts to try to get the heat throughout the home. It’s a very easy way to heat your home. Unfortunately, it’s also very inefficient and expensive. Of course, before fuel prices skyrocketed, nobody cared. Now, with people looking at $5,000.00 annual heating bills, things have changed. Fortunately, your life doesn’t have to.

The secret to lower heating bills is to use a high-efficiency heat source in your primary living area. What does that mean?  It means that by using a 30,000 BTU, high-efficiency unit to heat your living room, dining room and kitchen (up to 1500 square feet), to a comfortable 70 degrees, and turning down your 120,000 BTU furnace down to 55 degrees for the other areas of your home, your bill will go down …way down. It’s not magic. You’re using less fuel. Why do you think in Europe, where oil costs way more than it does here, they sell a lot of oil stoves? It’s because they are small, high-efficiency units heating the area they want warm, and oil is readily available. Again. It’s not the fuel, folks. (Of course, if I started selling oil stoves, people would think I was nuts, but the fact is, they work, too.)

The bottom line is wood, pellets, LP or Natural Gas – whatever … and either high-efficiency fireplace, stove or insert – it doesn’t matter, because 30,000 BTU is less expensive than 120,000. It’s easy to save money when you can turn down the monster in the basement!