After going through a month like this January (very cold) I wonder how much propane I would of used vs my kwh usage on my geo, i know it would of been significant but am not sure how I could calculate it, any ideas ?

I kept track of my propane use in past 14 years. For a month like this in Michigan I would have used an estimated 175 gallons of propane vs 950 kwh of electricity for heat and hot water. Each electric btu used in geo replaced 4.9 propane btu's in the old furnace.

Regards, Masoud

Try talking with your neighbors. Make sure you find out what temperature they set at. A propane user I talked to last night Keeps the house at 60* by day and dials down at night.
J

basically I got about the same kind of numbers as Masoud with 4.4 propane btu's.. Unfortunately we don't have neighbors that are close enough to
get a conversation going but I am thinking now that my higher than expected utility bill of $312 is probably due to the colder weather and perhaps
my geothermal system uses more electricity than what my house needs although it kept us warm at -8.5 so that does matter. I don't think we used electric strip heat as it was turning off and on pretty regular with about 6 min off and 12 mins on.

$300 is certainly on a par with a few local examples.
J

My November and December electric bills were both estimates, perhaps because of bad weather, based on 2007 consumption. Therefore, the billls did not include any of the added kwh used by geo, as I did not have geo in 2007. So, the difference showed up as a jump on my January bill when the meter was read. The Jan bill included geo's electric use during November and December also. It seems Consumers Energy had a 10% rate increase in January. Innocently, this would increase my geo electric charge retroactive to November 2008.

Wirechief, check your electric bills for previous months' readings to verify if the $312 is based on actual consumption or it is adjusted for lower than actual previous estimates.

Regards, Masoud

Looks like my electric is trying to play catchup with my telephone bill with all the extra charges... for energy use $294.00 they even have availability
charge of $12 and of course Mi tax of $12 then a voluntary roundup charge of .76 cents.. however this is incourageing Kwh used last year was 30
and avg Kwh used per day this year 80kwh's, hmm. if i took last years perday usage from this years that would give 50Kwh. my actual reading was
5044 on 12/08/08 and 7767 on 01/11/09 2723 kw used. seems like a lot of kw, i think i had figured that for about $100 it was 833kw of usage so that
if that was taken away then maybe my usage is not that bad ?

wirechief ~

if you have previous years usage you can divide that by heating degree days (HDDs) for that time period and you could get a rate of amount of propane per HDD. Then you could take the HDD's for this season and multiply by that rate to get an estimate of how much propane you would have used.

As an example, fo my home, I used 4 years worth of my fuel oil use and found the actual HDD's for those years. I came up with rates between 0.148 and 0.162 with an average of 0.153 gallons of fuel oil per HDD.

Ex: for the 2006-2007 heating season I actually used 947 gallons of fuel oil. For that same season there were 6493 heating degree days.

947 gal/6493 HDD = 0.146 gal/HDD

Now I calculate how much fuel oil I would have used had I kept my old system to continuously show myself how my geo is paying off.

In Albany, NY (where I live) since I started calculating in October, there have been 3579 HDD's, so the way I estimate how much oil I would hav used:

3578 HDD * 0.153 gal/HDD = 547 gallons of fuel oil

Ona cool, that is basically what is needed, now Im gonna have to do some research and collect some data. The whole point of what I was trying to figure was if my new geosystem was performing as it should and of course if it was beating use of propane (as it should) without supporting data all I have is a guess. I sure wish I had of heard of the welserver before I started this project I would of had that installed, instead I had a box the electric company sold me and had it installed only to find out it was not wired to their specifications and additionally to take advantage of the lower cost for geothermal usage i would have to of agreed to them disconecting my power during peak usage which could occur at any time and up to 8 hrs. so that
killed any savings with the special electrical box that I had installed and I am sure I got soaked by the electrician who installed it but I think his charges were typical for electrical work just not completed as the Electric company wanted. I wonder if this welserver can be installed by the user ? the data
being retrieved in the working systems looks pretty cool but one would have to know where to connect things.

I've heard that the WELserver can be installed by the user. I personally am intimidated but hope to have this installed at my home some point (when I get up the courage). If you are mechanically (or circuitly) inclined I've been told you can do it, also the guy who sells the welserver is very helpful if you call him. He was very kind when I called and asked a few questions (even though I was not purchasing anything from him).

I too wish I had a better grasp of what the welserver did BEFORE I had geothermal installed last summer. Instead, I paid an electrician $1200 to install submeters (which I love), but they do not export data (i.e. dataloggers), so I take the readings twice a day manually. This is not the best setup. And I now realize that for a little bit more money I could have had a lot more. Oh well, live and learn.

The closest weather reporting station gives 986 HHD for 11/01/08, 1448 HHD for 12/01/08, and 1632 for 01/01/09, I used the HHD from 03/01/08 of
151.8 (actual usage) in a proportion to figure my calculated usage of 171.8 for Nov 08, 252.3 for 12/01/08 and 284.4 for 01/01/09's month, 284.4 gallons of propane doesnt sound unrealistic for what i have seen on old bills, if this is close then my geo has saved me between 55 and 61% of my heating bill which also includes all my other utilities, I didnt break it down further than that. but overall a interesting method of figureing fuel usage.