We are installing two high efficiency heat pumps with propane furnaces. We are building about an hour east of you. Check with your propane companies because the company we are going with gives you an above ground tank for free. We also looked into burying the tank, it was about $1300.00 for the tank plus excavation costs. But we have about 4 acres so there is no need to bury the tank. Ours will be set up to work as follows: When the outside temps. are above 32 degrees the units will work as a heat pump, when it is below 32 the propane furnaces will kick in. My DH is also wiring in electric duct heaters so if we run out of propane or have a problem we can have it run on the heat pump with electric heat.

Propane for me: I wanted a couple gas fireplaces, so I was having the propane tank installed anyway. Allegedly cheaper for the heater boiler, faster recovery for the water heater.

We are in Texas so I am not sure if my input would even help but we were going with propane on everything in the very beginning, then I started calling around and getting quotes. Propane is way to high to even think of using it to heat. We only have a small propane tank and that is for my gas stove. I also talked with a owner of propane company here and his bragging about how great his company is doing the last year and it keeps getting better turned my stomach. So, needless to say we went with all electric except for the dual oven. I couldn't imagine the heating costs for y'all up there in the north. Seems like my sisters heater runs all the time in cold weather. She seems to always be running out of propane! LOL!

Good luck either way you decide. Sounds like Jessica has a great plan with their set up!

I guess it really does make a difference on where you live. We will be building in a rural area of the eastern part of WA state and the electricity is still a decent price. There is no natural gas available but there is propane, however, our builder told us their pricing is so up and down he advised us to go with electric; probably a heat pump also.
Good luck to you!

In most areas of the country, except those with extremely low hydroelectric available, propane will still be cheaper than electricity per BTU produced and remain so. Yes, it's expensive. So is electricity. And both are headed higher.

Well When you compare propane and electric you need to look at the operating costs of the two as well.

The other thing is are you using forced air? The difference between a heatpump and propane heat is the air will feel cooler coming out of the vents. In addition the heat pump doesn't work as good when exterior temps are really low (may not apply in your area) and you need to have a back-up heat and if all electric that is costly to use for heat as it uses a lot of electricity.

Do you have to bury the tank?

BTW I'm in TX too and comparing the electric rate (was low as it was a coop) where I used to be to heat the house approx same size with a heat pump to our current propane the cost is less.

We went with all propane: cooktop, 2 water heaters, 2 furnaces, dryer and fireplace starter. We have a 500 gallon above ground tank that we are leasing from the propane company. The cost for installation was $1300 and the first fill was $800. The monthly leasing fee is $6.50.

We received a rebate check from the state of TX for $800 due to the amount of appliances running on propane so that helped to pay for the propane itself. We've been in the house for 4 months now and have not topped off the tank yet.

Holy crap!

Our price for a new 330 gallon propane tank was $990 installed, taxes, the whole deal! When we didn't own our tank, the propane provider supplied us with their tank with the agreement that we'd use more than 700 gallons per year. If we don't commit to usage, then there's a lease fee of just a few dollars per month.

We're in Michigan.

I think we live in a similar climate as you liptonjl. We too have no natural gas available. I didn't even consider propane. I have no idea what it costs but having heated with home heating oil for 14 years I am pretty "over" calling for refills. I hate that as much as anything. We actually went with geothermal and so far so good. We have a pretty expensive system- it's where we "went for broke" so to speak. Our total electric bill for our new home should be about double what we currently pay for electic only. I am spending about 500/month right now for heating oil alone. We are going to average about half of that for everything in our new home. My vote would be electric.

I would also say just having come through a few nights of subzero weather the new system did really well.

PD

I suggest some energy efficient steps for the house when you are making your decision on the HVAC system. If you are worried about rising energy costs - you should consider:

2x6 framing with either spray foam or blown cellulose

Energy efficient windows and doors

Caulk every nook and cranny before the drywall does in.

House placement (e.g. southern exposure) for passive solar heating.

One consideration for propane is that you can use a very small backup generator (to power the contols) and have backup heating if you have a power failure. You need a much larger capacity power gen for an electric heat pump. If you live in a cold climate - then you know backup heat is a must.

If you do go with an electric system, make sure you get decent fireplaces - ones that can operate as a heater and that have recycling fans - for your backup heat. That is the route we took.

The way to keep the monthly bills down, no matter what the HVAC power plant, is in the thermal design of the house. If you do that right - then it may not matter what the fuel source is - based on today's energy prices.

The main reason I chose a GT heat pump system is that I am worried about the future costs of fossil fuels and that I wanted to build as green as I could. I won't know if this was the right choice (from a dollars and cents perspective) for many years.

Good luck with your selection.

Thanks everyone! It is such a hard decision and neither option is cheap! We had gas before and loved it. But unfortunately we cannot have that now.

jessica07 - it is so ironic, but DH called the builder today for some advice and the HVAC guy called back and basically recommended the EXACT thing you are talking about. We could have elec. heat pump but propane would kick in below 32.. Plus we could have propane for the fireplace and stove.

Can you tell me more about your system? HVAC guy told us the brand is HOneywell 8000 series dual fuel thermostat?

I second geothermal. I put it in when I built 3.5 years ago and loved it. Didn't get my money back when i sold but it had only been two years so that figures (I had planned on staying 10). My highest total bill - the whole utility shebang was 135.00.
How much different heating fuel types will cost is a gamble. Much of electricity is run off of coal. If the cost of that goes up, so will electric.
Whatever - talk with your ducting guy and get a plan that is flexible for various heating types - especially if you end up wanting to but in a high efficiency wood or pellet burner, you'll want to duct that heat into the rest of the house.

We have an in ground 500 gallon propane tank. We did not have to purchase it. We do have to purchase propane from the company who placed the tank. Is it common elsewhere to purchase your own tanks? I have not heard of that in my area.
Propane is expensive although I do not know if it is more than heating with electric. Our last fill was just under $1000.00. Hoping for warmer temps. so it will last longer. The wood stove is now cranked up to supplement.

WE also prefer gas - but our new house has no access to natural. It was initially our intent to use propane until we checked prices. We found it is cheaper to use electric (high efficiency, of course).

Except we were not about to cook with anything but gas so we put in propane for the cooktop and a gas fireplace. The propane is also available for a future backyard grill setup.

In a cold climate, I suspect it would make sense to use electric heat down to the temperature at which heat pumps cease to be efficient, then use propane.

In my area, you have the option of either having the tank above or below ground. If you chose to have it burried, you have to pay for the excavtion costs whhich ran about 500 dollars in my case. The tank is "leased" but there is no charge as long as I use a certain minimum amount yearly which really isn't that much. I have the option to purchase the tank if I want to use another propane company.

The propane company sized the tank based on our house design and gas needs - and that turned out to be a 500 gallon tank. If I wanted the 1000 gallon tank (to supply a backup power generator) - then I would have to purchase the larger tank. I found that to generally be the case with all propane companies I talked to.

In the rental we were at before our house was done, the owner decided to purchase the tank from the propane company because he felt that the per gallon rates were too high. It was a 500 gallon tank and I think it cost him 1500 dollars to buy it. The per gallon rates from the original company were 20 to 30 cents per gallon more than the best rate we could get from other companies in the area.

The one thing I forgot to mention is that in the rental, when the propane level got below 10% or so there would be a foul smell in the basement. Apparently this is the additive that they put into the propane so that you can smell a leak. When the tank pressure dropped below a certain level, that smell would come out. I did not like that feature - I am not sure if this is common with propane or not.

Wow I am learning a lot here, actually. Things that I didn't know and things that make more sense. I'd love to go with geothermal, but it is NOT even close to being in the budget. I hear people love it though.

Now we are going to go with high efficiency heat pump and propane for low temps, stove, and fireplace. I am just still astonished at the prices of propane. Like someone said, no matter what, it's a gamble as far as what the prices will do.

How do I ensure things can be changed? (Ex I get elec heat pump now but in 5 years want to do propane?)

First, have the plumber use a large enough supply line to handle the larger equipment you may use in the future. This is usually a calculation based on BTU, so a pretty accurate guess can be made in advance.

Second, if your mechanical room is below finished living space, consider having inlet air and exhaust pipes placed now. For high efficeincy propane appliances, these are often pvc. They need not penetrate the roof at this point, can be capped for the time being.

Hi,

Heat pumps are good, however they do not work well when the temperature drops way down. Hence most set ups have also supplementry heat. Propane or Electric.

The reason for this is that the thermodynamics of the pump are designed to only maintain X amount of temperature difference. The advantage of Geothermal is that your heat source, the ground below you, although not at room temperature, is nearly always above freezing. Hence the temperature gradient is not that great. Obviously if you live in iceland or somewhere like that with lots of geothermal heat sources, then the temperature gradient can even be "downhill" so to speak.

Best, Mike.

You don't need a geothermal system to have reasonable heating & cooling bills. There were 2 options that i looked at and both were about the same cost and would have provided about the same efficiency. For both options, I selected high efficiency windows with e glass and argon gas as well as doors that have 3 point locks and tight seals all the way around.

The first option was the geothermal system with blown cellulose insultation in the walls & attic. For the attic, I specified R38 insultation (about 11 inches of cellulose) - the minumum code in our area is R30.

The second option was a spray foam insulation package and high efficiency heat pumps. In this option, the foam in the attic would have been sprayed onto the inner side of the roof so that all space inside the house would be insulated space, and the foam does the best job at blocking air from entering or leaving the home. With this option, an air exchanger system would be needed on the HVAC to bring in a fresh supply of conditioned air inside the house periodically.

The spray foam cost is a lot more than the cellulose, but the heat pump HVAC system is a lot less than a geothermal heat pump system (mainly due to the extra cost of digging the pit or wells for the geothermal pipes).

In the end, both of these approaches would have cost about the same. I chose GT because that is what I always wanted for my dream home, it was as simple as that.

I know a heat pump system can work in a temperature zone like the Blue Ridge Mountains in the mid-atlantic region where I live, provided that the house is insulated AND air infiltration is minimized - well beyond minimum code requirements. You might look at buying a heat pump that has propane as the auxilairy heat (I believe they make these now). As mentioned above, if you live in a really harsh climate zone like Wisconsin - then a heat pump might not be the best choice.

Spend extra money on the insulation package, put in the very best windows & doors, caulk the interior of the house - every nook and cranny, insulate under the foundation slab - do all the things you can to insulate and minimize air infiltration and then you can keep your heating and cooling bills down. I suggest looking at how new homes in Canada are built (check out Holmes on Homes) and build to their standards - the Canadians seem far ahead of the U.S. in building codes for energy efficient homes.

Have you selected a builder yet? If not - make sure that you pick one who really knows how to build energy efficient homes. Don't ask them open ended questions - let them tell you all the steps they take and extra things they do to make the house as energy efficient as it can be.

If you only insulate to minimum code and don't take the extra steps to minimize air infiltration - your monthly bills will be high no matter what HVAC power plant you use.
These extra steps I mention cost money. But it is a pay me now or pay me later proposition. If you plan on living in the house for a long time, then it would be wise to make the investment now, when it is most cost effective to do so.

Just copying from the other thread....

I'm going to let my DH answer those questions, since he's the HVAC professional. Here's what he had to say:

We originally were going with oil until we started figuring out the cost. Oil is roughly $3.50gal or more and propane is right around $2.00. We will be using a system that is basically a 3 fuel system. With that being said, it will work like you were told by your HVAC guy. Heatpumps aren't as efficient at lower temperatures because they use an electric heating element to help boost the air temperature when it gets really cold. That being said a "heatpump only" system does not produce a feeling of warm air at your vents unless the heating element is on. The propane furnace will give you warm air. Your installer can set the temperature at which your furnace kicks in and the heatpump stops. This is all done in the wiring you do not physically have to change a setting. 32 degrees might not be the point at which you want it to change over, you might prefer 35. We are also installing the electrical element that was mentioned earlier. The reason for this is incase we run out of propane or propane skyrockets in price. We are also installing a system in the basement that will heat/cool the basement and first floor and a second system in the attic to heat/cool the second floor. That will be the most efficient way of heating/cooling a home. You can install programmable thermostats so that you are not running systems in the areas you don't need to. The Honeywell 8000 is the model of the thermostat not the equipment thats being installed. I also saw on another post that you are planning on using propane for cooking and fireplace. Check with your plumber on installing a propane hotwater heater. An electric hot water heater is the most inefficient way of warming your water. I also saw you were quoted a 300 gal. tank. Check with your propane company if that is going to be large enough. We were quoted a 500 gal. tank and our home is 2200sq ft. The tank will only be filled about 80% so in your case roughly 240 gals. versus 400 gallons.

For reference...

We're heating a 2300 sq ft home with another 1300 finished basement. Our worst weather last year in Michigan required fills 4 weeks apart.

Look for charts that show price per btu for various forms of heat. Electric elements are near the bottom for value, with natural gas at the top. The 330 vs 500 vs 1000 issue is just a matter of how often you want fill-ups.

I honestly don't know the appeal of putting in an electric heat pump. Why wouldn't a multi-stage furnace simply do the trick?

Keep calling around to get prices for the propane tank yourself. I find it hard to believe there are no propane suppliers in your area that wouldn't leave a tank on site with you for free, leaving you to buy propane from them only. Check prices occasionally to see how economical your provider is. If you find they're 20 or more cents per gallon higher, ditch them after 1 year and get someone else. Or, keep shopping until you find someone that will sell and install a 500 gallon for less than 2k or a 330 gallon for less than 1600. Or, if you're going to install above ground, knock 500 off of those prices.