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drivel | December 18, 2008 03:45 PM | in Physics

What is the relative cost of heating a house with natural gas versus electricity?

Assuming: $1.07 for each Therm of natural gas and $0.13 for each Kwh of electricity.

It is cheaper to heat by natural gas. I would like to know the relative cost is it two times cheaper, four times cheaper or what?

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BEST ANSWER chosen by asker | etphonehome | December 18, 2008 04:25 PM

The first source linked below cites a DOE estimate that 1 KWh of electricity can heat your home about as effectively as 3.3 cubic feet of natural gas. According to Wikipedia (second source linked below), a cubic foot of natural gas produces about 1,028 BTUs, and a therm is 100,000 BTUs, so that means one therm of natural gas is roughly 100 cubic feet.

So 1 therm of natural gas will heat as effectively as roughly 30 KWh of electricity would. Given the prices you cite, electric heat would be over 3.5 times as expensive as gas.

source(s):
http://www.allthingsfrugal.com/f.h_options.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas#United_States

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williamwaco | December 18, 2008 04:34 PM

I don't know the physics of home heating but I do know that the most important consideration is your insulation. My ceiling is insulated to R-30 and my heating bills are modest. ( duh, you say. he lives in Dallas. It doesn't get cold there anyway. ) Given similar houses, my friends with gas heat routinely one half to one third of what friends with electric heat pay.

I don't measure in cubic feet or BTUs or KWHs. I measure in US Dollars.

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mamarie | December 18, 2008 07:31 PM

I agree with you, that heating the house with gas is cheaper than electricity, but I ran in this other situation. I have a large house and I don't really need all the rooms to be warm. The gas furnace heats all the rooms and the ventilation mechanism of the furnace eats a lot of electricity too. Unfortunately the heating system in the house I live is based on hot air driven by a ventilation system. Individual water based radiators are more efficient and I recommend those.
Given the problem, I use small electric heaters to heat the small parts of the house currently in use and end up paying less than what I would have payed for gas.

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drivel | December 18, 2008 08:20 PM

Thanks. 3.5 is the number I was after and it seems to be reasonably accurate.

What this number means is if I am using only one room in my five room house (bathrooms not included) I should turn down the gas and heat the room with an electric heater. If I will be using two of the five rooms it would be cheaper to heat the entire house with natural gas.

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ifrederic | December 18, 2008 04:03 PM

I don't have an answer to your question, but you might want to consider that it depends heavily on what type of electric heating you use and the efficiency of the natural gas furnace.

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drivel | December 18, 2008 04:13 PM

All electric heaters are consider 100% efficient: http://www.toad.net/~jsmeenen/electric.html

Yes, a part of the problem is determining what how efficient a typical gas furnace is in converting natural gas into heat.

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