What Is The Cheapest Method Of Heating A Home?
When the cold winter season comes back around, many of us are bracing for the heating bills that come along with it. For many years, it can feel like your budget is simply at the whim of the weather. Fortunately, you can help to better keep your heating bills in check by simply choosing the most cost-effective heating strategy for your home.
Types of Heating Systems
There is a variety of different types of home heating systems on the market today, including furnaces, boilers, radiant heating, and heat pumps. While heat pumps rely solely on electricity to function, most other heating systems can use one of four different fuels. These include electricity, natural gas, heating oil, and propane.
A Look at Operating Efficiency
Determining the most cost-effective method for heating your home all starts with looking at system efficiency. Systems with a high operating efficiency are going to use much less input energy, which translates to lower heating bills for you. With furnaces and boilers being the most popular heating systems on the market, we're going to start by assessing their efficiency levels.
Furnaces and boilers that burn natural gas, heating oil, or propane have two general categories when it comes to operating efficiency. There are standard units that have an efficiency ranging from 80 to 85%. There are also high-efficiency models that can reach efficiency levels of around 90 to 95% or more. The high-efficiency models will be more expensive to purchase.
Furnaces and boilers that run on electricity will have an operating efficiency of 100%. On the other hand, heat pumps have one of the industry's best efficiency ratings. They can operate at efficiency levels of 300% and sometimes even 400%. No other heating system even comes close to the heating efficiency of a heat pump.
A Look at Fuel Costs
While comparing the differences in operating efficiency is important, so is the cost of fuel. Just because an electric furnace operates at 100% efficiency, that doesn't mean that it's going to be cheaper to run than a high-efficiency natural gas furnace that operates at 95% efficiency.
When it comes to fuel prices, they're going to vary greatly depending on where you live. It's vital to take a few moments and look up what types of fuel are available in your area and what their current cost per unit is. In many areas, natural gas is cheaper per unit than electricity, but it's always important to check and make sure.
The Cheapest System to Run
When you closely examine the efficiency levels and input costs for all the available heating systems on the market today, one clear winner is easy to spot. While the heat pump does rely solely on electricity to function, it has a tremendously high operating efficiency that drastically reduces the necessary input to power it. Over a general season, you'll find that a heat pump is going to be cheaper to run than even the most efficient natural gas furnace out there.
A Note on Dual-Fuel Heating Systems
One of the biggest problems that you may experience with a heat pump is that it loses its operating efficiency when outdoor temperatures dip below freezing. Some newer heat pumps can mitigate this problem, but not all do. When a heat pump becomes less efficient, it may no longer be the most cost-effective system to use to heat your home.
This is where a dual-fuel heating system may come into play. This system pairs up a heat pump with another type of household heating system, like a natural gas furnace. This way, you can optimize the great efficiency of a heat pump when temperatures are above freezing. Then, you can continue to maximize your energy savings by switching over to using your gas furnace when temperatures outside get too cold for your heat pump to function effectively.
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