I want to flee PROPANE

[tinm]

I live in New Mexico.

My house has an underground outside tank with a 1000-gal capacity for propane.

The house uses it for
• two hot water heaters
• a boiler for the radiant floor heating throughout house during cold months
• kitchen for the stone
• dryer in the laundry room

In the warm months, we don't use radiant heat at all, so the costs are minimal.

But we just had to add 596 gallons of propane at like $1400 and we'll have to do another by December. Each year we spend about $2500-3000 on propane. Ouch!

We've cut down our propane use in winter by keeping parts of the house including the living rm / dining rm COLD, they stay around 55 degrees except when we have company then we turn it on for a few days. This saves a lot of money. Also, I keep my office cold, which saves a lot too.

Here's the thing -- I can't stand propane and I wanna get beyond it. I'd like to go completely electric.

Ideal setup:
• Full solar farm for collecting plenty of electricity to power the house and charge the Tesla.
• One or two PowerWalls for backup etc.
• Replace the propane-powered hot water heaters with some other electric solution.
• Replace the radiant heating boiler with an electric boiler maybe?
• Or use a geothermal heat pump solution to create heat for the radiant heat if possible.
• Add a few mini-splits in various key rooms so we have spot heat in winter, cooling in summer.
• Essentially, I want to be completely emissions-free.

Has anyone in TMC-land gone this route or one similar? I'm all ears.

 

[SageBrush]

Where do you live in NM ?
I'm in Albuquerque

You use about 1200 gallons of propane a year*; I presume the lion's share goes to home heating even though you brave low temperatures. Since propane is 27 kWh a gallon, that works out to 32,700 kwh -- or in my world of NG, about 1,100 Therms. We also keep our house cool in the winter at ~ 60F and end up using about 400 therms a year including hot water for two people. My #1 guess then (unless you are heating a LOT of water) is that you should first look at the efficiency of your furnace, the ducting, and your home envelope to figure out where the high losses are.

This exercise is necessary for your next steps. If the losses are furnace and/or ducting then switching to PV and mini-splits will do wonders. If the losses are due to a leaky house and/or terrible insulation, then your first priority is to improve the home envelope.

*this is your use in the context of a cool house in the winter, correct ?

 

[Cosmacelf]

Is natural gas an option in your area? It burns much cleaner, is cheaper, and converting your appliances would be easy.

 

[miimura]

Is natural gas an option in your area? It burns much cleaner, is cheaper, and converting your appliances would be easy.

If natural gas was available, he certainly wouldn't have an underground propane tank.

 

[tinm]

The county didn’t run natural gas to my area just outside Santa Fe. House came with propane.

 

[miimura]

A quick google search turned up solutions for heat pumps dedicated to hydronic heating as well as integrated heat exchangers that would transfer heat from a conventional hot water tank to a hydronic system. The pumps for the separate fluids and differential temperature control were integrated.

Radiant Systems X-Pump Block | Taco Comfort Solutions

With this system you would have to make sure that your heat pump water heater had enough output to support simultaneous domestic hot water and radiant heating load.

 

[SageBrush]

If natural gas was available, he certainly wouldn't have an underground propane tank.

He might, but he would not be using it

 

[SageBrush]

I was thinking about where the heating might be going and remembered the house I rented in Colorado up until recently. It had an efficient NG boiler that ran heated water through radiators scattered inside the house as well as through floor radiant heating. I spent years trying to figure out why the home used 2x the energy of what I expected until I happened one day to chat with a fellow who had been present when the house was being built. He told me that the installer of the radiant heating neglected to insulate the home slab. In a heating dominant climate a slab without insulation is going to be one giant heat sink every winter.

And that presumes no water leak, which of course would be heating the Earth every season. Which brings me to a warning for you (ask me how I know): you have to be careful about turning down hot water radiant heating too much in the winter, or you risk busted pipes. If you decide that the radiant floor heating is the bane on your house, get good advice how to shut it down safely.

Here is my 2019 NG data. You are paying about 9x our bill. 3x is the higher cost of propane and 3x is the additional energy despite low temperatures. For comparisons, use 27 kWh a gallon for propane and 29.3 kWh a therm for NG. We live at 6300 feet elevation in a 2800 square feet home, although two of the bedrooms have their vents to the central ducting closed.

 

[Cosmacelf]

If natural gas was available, he certainly wouldn't have an underground propane tank.

um, wrong. And not very helpful. There are areas that have gas mains near houses, even if the house itself hasn’t been connected, like my house used to be. Suburban neighborhoods that were built by a single developer aren’t like this, but they are some rural or semi rural homes that are.

 

[iPlug]

Has anyone in TMC-land gone this route or one similar? I'm all ears.

Started with an easier route from NG->all electric/heat pumps where able.

Please keep us updated on your journey. Will be a good story to follow.

 

[tinm]

It also seems my interests here dovetail with Elon’s occasional comments about Tesla getting into hot water heaters and HVAC. I’m all ears, Elon!

 

[doghousePVD]

I have transitioned from highly propane dependent to essentially propane free, albeit off-grid, living in Maine

Previously I was non-electric, with gas lights, gas fridge, gas stove, which also heated hot water. Heat was firewood in poorly insulated house. Over the last decade, I foam insulated the old house and put in some new windows. I built a Passivhaus (super insulated) addition for a first-floor downstairs bedroom, inside shower and laundry, and office for the two of us.

I installed 12 kw of solar (and increasing to 16 kw tomorrow). Electric lights and fridge. All cooking done on electric: induction burners (one is 3.5 kw), electric oven, microwave, pressure cooker, etc. Hot water is from heat pump tank, and auxiliary tank heated by the wood stoves. The addition only needs a fire every other day to stay 70˚+ even on the coldest, windiest days. Closed off 2nd and 3rd floors of old house, but the old house still needs wood continuously in very cold weather. We don't use it much then.

The induction cookers are really great, and put out instant heat, and more power than my commercial gas range. Forget about the old resistance stoves.

The propane is shut off at the tanks about 360 days a year. The exception is a large annual summer party that requires the big gas stove and backup gas fridge. With Covid, party cancelled so no gas use.

If I lived in a more moderate climate (Maine vs. New Mexico) i would not need nearly so much solar. Sun barely shines here in December, and I refuse to use a generator. My PV system is not Tesla; I have 84 kwh of gel batteries, and 16 kwh of Li.

 

[DirtyT3sla]

I haven't done a convert, but we did recently build our house with geothermal to avoid propane. I'll tell you it's awesome. We live in Michigan, and even during the polar vortex a couple years ago, the system held up with no problems at all. You'll want to make sure your house has good insulation (like for any heating/cooling solution), but beyond that it works great. Our electric company gives a separate meter with a special rate for geo. Due to this, our electric for the geo averages about $100/month for the entire year. It's incredibly cheap. Install cost is high, but I estimate after 6-7 years, it's cheaper than propane.

Another benefit is the geo uses the well water to cool itself, and that warmed water goes into a storage water tank, which then moves to the electric heating tank. So the water that needs to be heated is already warmed, saving more energy. This electric hot water heater is also on the geo meter, for additional savings.

You can hook it to radiant floor heating too, but we did not do that.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Happy to answer.

 

[SageBrush]

I was curious about slab heat loss without insulation. Google found a hydronic heating engineer of repute who calculated a heat loss of 14E6 btu per heating season assuming a 1500 square foot slab kept 10 degrees F above ground temp. That is about 4100 kWh. If the boiler AFUE is 80% then 4100/0.8 = 5,125 kWh = ~ 190 gallons of propane.

OP will have to figure out where his heat is going but his slab is a prime suspect.

 

[David_Cary]

$1200 a year for HVAC on a special rate plan isn't particularly anything to be excited about.
But obviously house size and insulation/wall construction matter - just wanted to point out that it isn't amazing by any stretch.
I remember someone in a colder climate than most of MI who had a $30 a month heating bill - just for winter since it was a no a/c kind of area. Resistance electric heat strips. His house has 12 inch think walls. Often times for the cost of GEO, you can superinsulate the house for less. And have lower heating bills.
We had a cold snap here 2 winters ago (NC). Down to single digits and our bedroom stayed above 60 with body heat alone. We are not very cold generally around here so the house wasn't built for it. We use about $200 of electricity per year to heat with conventional ASHP.
But a house in Michigan should be built with enough insulation to have similar heat bills. Certainly not 5 times higher using both geo and a special rate structure. (Guessing you spend $200 on a/c)
I find that Geo only makes sense in a new house with big incentives. Those will be gone soon enough and then the installers will be out of business. I don't like those odds. Now in truly extreme climates, it makes more sense. And certainly some of MI is pretty extreme. But new ASHPs are so darn close most of the time. And with adequate construction techniques and insulation, geo has little role.

 

[nwdiver]

It's just amazingly idiotic that we're STILL... in 2020... piping an explosive gas into our homes... WHY????

RISK vs benefit

 

[Big Earl]

Have a look at the Daikin Altherma air-source hydronic heat pump. We are using a 4.5 ton system (biggest at the time but still a little undersized for the house) for radiant floor heat in a 3,500 square foot Pacific Northwest home. It can also be configured to provide floor cooling in the summer months.

Due to being slightly undersized for the home, it has trouble keeping up when it’s below freezing outside, which only happens for a few weeks per year. We supplement with a high efficiency Pacific Energy Neo 1.6 wood stove on the lower level and a small Daikin mini split in the home office. The wood stove is able to heat the entire home in the event of an extended power failure.

I’m in the process of exploring having the Daikin also provide domestic hot water in the summer months when space heating isn’t required. DHW is currently conventional electric resistance.

(picture with cover removed from the indoor unit)

Best of luck in your quest to separate yourself from propane. I’m happy to answer any specific questions about our setup if you’d like more info.

 

[Cropmaster]

I live in New Mexico.

My house has an underground outside tank with a 1000-gal capacity for propane.

The house uses it for
• two hot water heaters
• a boiler for the radiant floor heating throughout house during cold months
• kitchen for the stone
• dryer in the laundry room

In the warm months, we don't use radiant heat at all, so the costs are minimal.

But we just had to add 596 gallons of propane at like $1400 and we'll have to do another by December. Each year we spend about $2500-3000 on propane. Ouch!

We've cut down our propane use in winter by keeping parts of the house including the living rm / dining rm COLD, they stay around 55 degrees except when we have company then we turn it on for a few days. This saves a lot of money. Also, I keep my office cold, which saves a lot too.

Here's the thing -- I can't stand propane and I wanna get beyond it. I'd like to go completely electric.

Ideal setup:
• Full solar farm for collecting plenty of electricity to power the house and charge the Tesla.
• One or two PowerWalls for backup etc.
• Replace the propane-powered hot water heaters with some other electric solution.
• Replace the radiant heating boiler with an electric boiler maybe?
• Or use a geothermal heat pump solution to create heat for the radiant heat if possible.
• Add a few mini-splits in various key rooms so we have spot heat in winter, cooling in summer.
• Essentially, I want to be completely emissions-free.

Has anyone in TMC-land gone this route or one similar? I'm all ears.

Skip Powerwalls. Batteries are the most expensive. Get Tesla modules
About 22v need adjustable chargers and inverters. Get 8 for 40kw cost about same. Batteries $1,500 ea so $12k 20 used commercial pullout panels. You can get 340 - 360 w for $100 ea. So another $2k. Stick with 5kw inverters @$150 ea. Another $1,000 misc. Parts and theres enough to run just about anything. Under $20k It'll run multiple electric on demand Wh. If you got land bury 3-400 ft agricultural nonperforated in trenches 4' down. Minimal fans to move air theres cooling. Theres dc bilge air fans 12 and 24v. Hear use a 500 gal. tote. Connect to solar water. Surround with 1' foam on all sides. With inline wh after tote for cloudy days. Run pex tubing in floor (could use cob floor w/ linseed oil Over foam. That'll do everything you want and you can run a machine shop and a house for $35k. For backup 2 - 3kw VERTICAL wind turbines. Another $1k ea. So another $2k entire setup fits on and in 20×24 pole barn.. only problem is snow.