RV LP Furnace Efficiency?

spoon059 wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:
I know from personal experience that electric resistive heating is much more expensive than propane or natural gas...

Years ago, my DWs uncle had a mobile home that was heated exclusively with an electric resistive furnace. His AVERAGE electric bill was over $500 per month and that was on a "payment plan" deal..

DWs parents had a mobile home 50ft away and used heating oil, their electric bill was $100 per month and the heating oil cost $125 per month on the yearly payment plan...

Have a Cousin with heat pump system for their home, they average 5-8 yrs on a heat pump then it fails...

A lot of "Absolutes" in your statement...
Heating costs depends upon efficiency and fuel costs. An ultra efficient electric heater can be a lot cheaper than an inefficient gas heater. Gas, depending upon availability, can be more expensive than electricity. Natural gas, piped to your house, is usually cheaper than propane, which is trucked to a dealer and then either delivered or picked up by the end user.

The uncle likely paid a little more per month for 3 months out of the year, whereas the parents paid $125/month for the entire year. Based upon the numbers you quoted, it is impossible to determine that the electric heat was more expensive because the electricity is used to power more than the heater. Even still, we don't know the efficiency of the heaters involved, nor the level of insulation of the mobile homes in the scenario.

For direct comparison, when we bought our house we had an oil boiler for heat. First winter we spent $3000 in oil to keep warm over the 4 months December through March. The following spring we had a heat pump installed in our house that replaced an old and inefficient air conditioner. Same house, same insulation, same everything. Electric bills raised by about $120 a month in those same 4 months the next year. Total heating cost was estimated to be $480. A little over 2 years worth of winters would have been our breakeven point... but since the AC was old and the heat pump was much more efficient at cooling, we figure we broke even long before the 2nd year.

Lastly, the "average" life expectancy of a heat pump is closer to 15 years, not 5-8 years.

Not my words, it is THE GOVERNMENTS WORDS below..

HERE

"Electric resistance heating is 100% energy efficient in the sense that all the incoming electric energy is converted to heat. However, most electricity is produced from coal, gas, or oil generators that convert only about 30% of the fuel's energy into electricity. Because of electricity generation and transmission losses, electric heat is often more expensive than heat produced in homes or businesses that use combustion appliances, such as natural gas, propane, and oil furnaces.

If electricity is the only choice, heat pumps are preferable in most climates, as they easily cut electricity use by 50% when compared with electric resistance heating. The exception is in dry climates with either hot or mixed (hot and cold) temperatures (these climates are found in the non-coastal, non-mountainous part of California; the southern tip of Nevada; the southwest corner of Utah; southern and western Arizona; southern and eastern New Mexico; the southeast corner of Colorado; and western Texas). For these dry climates, there are so few heating days that the high cost of heating is not economically significant."

My Cousins live in a climate that deals with LONG PERIODS of high temps (100F-110F) and high humidity for WEEKS to even a month or two during summer and winter down to the upper 30F..

That really means their heatpump must work 24/7/365 unlike milder more temperate areas.

They are now on their 4th Heatpump since they built their house back in the 1970s..

Contrast that to my parents home where they are only on their second gas furnace since they built theirs in the 1950s..

I will take NG any day..