Gas comparison, BTU per dollar?

[Larry Edgerton]

I am getting to the point on my new house that I need to make a choice between natural gas and propane. It should be a no brainer, but the natural gas company that I have to deal with is expensive.

Can someone that knows more than me tell me the proper way to compareBTUs per gallon of propane to BTUs per cubic feet of natural gas?

Thanks, Larry

[Phil Thien]

Sure, here you go:

http://www.propane101.com/propanevsnaturalgas.htm

Kinda surprised myself. Basically, in one hour, a 100k BTU/hr furnace needs 97 cubic feet of natural gas, or 40 cubic feet of propane. So you'd need to use 2.425 times more natural gas to keep up with the propane.

[Charlie Reals]

Sure, here you go:

http://www.propane101.com/propanevsnaturalgas.htm

Kinda surprised myself. Basically, in one hour, a 100k BTU/hr furnace needs 97 cubic feet of natural gas, or 40 cubic feet of propane. So you'd need to use 2.425 times more natural gas to keep up with the propane.
Ya beat me to it Phil. Reading the whole page will show that natural gas is generaly the most cost effective or at least that is what I read and that has rang true for years.

[Larry Edgerton]

Thanks guys.

There is something I still don't get though. In this site it compares 1 cubic foot of Propane vapor, to one cubic foot of natural gas.

Thats fine but Propane is sold by the gallon, but of liquid, not vapor. So how many cubic feet of propane vapor does a gallon of liquid propane make? Thats what I have not found yet, or I may just be thinking all wrong about everything?

Still confused.......

Larry

[Charlie Reals]

Thanks guys.

There is something I still don't get though. In this site it compares 1 cubic foot of Propane vapor, to one cubic foot of natural gas.

Thats fine but Propane is sold by the gallon, but of liquid, not vapor. So how many cubic feet of propane vapor does a gallon of liquid propane make? Thats what I have not found yet, or I may just be thinking all wrong about everything?

Still confused.......

Larry


Nah Larry, I think your ok. I have 40 years in the trade and I cannot tell you that. I dealt with the service end of Natural Gas. I do know for whatever reason it is more reasonable to use NG.
There is a lot of science involved in that and I didn't need it to work on your furnace:D

Where a lot of folks run into trouble is bringing a ng gas stove with them when moving to a propane area and thinking they can just hook it up and go to cooking.:eek::eek:

[Tim Livingston]

Propane is generally sold by the gallon and Gas by the therm, there are 91,500 btu's in a gallon of propane and 100,000 btu's in a therm of gas. Below is something I found that explains costs pretty well. In the power industry we base everything on cost per million btu's because of our volumes. I can tell you our turbines burn either gas or fuel oil and that the cost for fuel oil is currently almost four times as much as natural gas.


The cost comparison between propane and natural gas is much easier due to the fact that unlike electricity, natural gas and propane can be directly compared based on their individual BTU ratings. Seeing that natural gas contains approximately 1,030 BTU per cubic foot and propane contains 2,490 BTU per cubic foot, we can easily derive each fuel's cost per BTU and compare their differences in price for more realistic volumes.

Let's assume the cost for natural gas is $15.00 per 1,000 cubic feet. This means that $15.00 will purchase approximately 1.03 million BTU's of energy. This would be equivalent to 11.26 gallons of propane. At $2.50 per gallon of propane, natural gas would be a more cost effective energy solution. Breaking it down even further, natural gas needs to be more than $28.00 per 1,000 cubic feet for propane to be a more cost effective energy solution (provided the cost for propane is $2.50 per gallon.

[Mike Henderson]

I know people who live in the same geographical area (same temperate zone) and the people who use natural gas have the cheaper bills. The people who use propane are always complaining about how expensive it is. But that may not be true everywhere.

I would guess that the cost of delivering the propane makes it more expensive. NG is delivered by a pipe in the street and the cost of that has probably been paid for.

Mike

[Charlie Reals]

Propane is generally sold by the gallon and Gas by the therm, there are 91,500 btu's in a gallon of propane and 100,000 btu's in a therm of gas. Below is something I found that explains costs pretty well. In the power industry we base everything on cost per million btu's because of our volumes. I can tell you our turbines burn either gas or fuel oil and that the cost for fuel oil is currently almost four times as much as natural gas.

I had to change flow charts and read meters on some big industries and these were 6" pipe flowing so much danged near had to wear ear protection.

[Charlie Reals]

I know people who live in the same geographical area (same temperate zone) and the people who use natural gas have the cheaper bills. The people who use propane are always complaining about how expensive it is. But that may not be true everywhere.

I would guess that the cost of delivering the propane makes it more expensive. NG is delivered by a pipe in the street and the cost of that has probably been paid for.

Mike
It's the same here, if I lived 20 miles from here I could be on natural gas. Also figured in is most propane companies are small operations serving rural areas. The biggies we both know of who sell NG are generally very large public utilities who control the price of a lot of the propane also. Not much different than a mom and pop gas station.
Charlie

[Matt Meiser]

What I can tell you is that at current natural gas prices and propane prices at the time we signed to switch last year, the payback for the construction costs (not including our conversion costs) was 3-4 years based on our actual usage.

[Larry Edgerton]

Ok, some of you may have missed it in the OP. The small NG company I have to deal with is very expensive. Its Aurora Gas, and much more expensive than the MichCon gas I am used to. So if you have a big gas company serving you, it does not apply to this situation.

I want to figure out how to make a direct dollars and cents comparison of these two "Local" possibilities. The site that Phil posted says it is comparing vapor to vapor, I need vapor in gallons to use their figures it would seem, or BTU's per gallon of liquid propane.

I want to have all my ducks in a row when I call the companies up. This NG company has done more for outside wood boiler sales than imaginable, their prices are quite high, but my house is small and extremely efficient, so I want to do cost estimates. If it is close I will go with NG, just so I don't have to have a pig in the yard. The plus side of propane is once you bought it it is yours, and if you own your own tank, you will get a better price and can switch companies at will. NG, you are at their mercy.

[Phil Thien]

Ok, some of you may have missed it in the OP. The small NG company I have to deal with is very expensive. Its Aurora Gas, and much more expensive than the MichCon gas I am used to. So if you have a big gas company serving you, it does not apply to this situation.

I want to figure out how to make a direct dollars and cents comparison of these two "Local" possibilities. The site that Phil posted says it is comparing vapor to vapor, I need vapor in gallons to use their figures it would seem, or BTU's per gallon of liquid propane.

I want to have all my ducks in a row when I call the companies up. This NG company has done more for outside wood boiler sales than imaginable, their prices are quite high, but my house is small and extremely efficient, so I want to do cost estimates. If it is close I will go with NG, just so I don't have to have a pig in the yard. The plus side of propane is once you bought it it is yours, and if you own your own tank, you will get a better price and can switch companies at will. NG, you are at their mercy.

How about asking the NG and propane outfits for a conversion factor? If they both give you the same value, then it is probably correct.

[Jason Roehl]

Ok, some of you may have missed it in the OP. The small NG company I have to deal with is very expensive. Its Aurora Gas, and much more expensive than the MichCon gas I am used to. So if you have a big gas company serving you, it does not apply to this situation.

I want to figure out how to make a direct dollars and cents comparison of these two "Local" possibilities. The site that Phil posted says it is comparing vapor to vapor, I need vapor in gallons to use their figures it would seem, or BTU's per gallon of liquid propane.

I want to have all my ducks in a row when I call the companies up. This NG company has done more for outside wood boiler sales than imaginable, their prices are quite high, but my house is small and extremely efficient, so I want to do cost estimates. If it is close I will go with NG, just so I don't have to have a pig in the yard. The plus side of propane is once you bought it it is yours, and if you own your own tank, you will get a better price and can switch companies at will. NG, you are at their mercy.

While there is not an explicit conversion in the link several posts back, you can infer the conversion--1000 cubic feet of NG contain 1.03 million BTUs, which compares to 11.26 GALLONS of propane. So NG contains 1030 BTUs per cubic foot, and propane contains 91,500 BTUs per gallon. You will have to fill in your local prices--the link above states that if propane is $2.50/gallon, then NG needs to cost more than about $28/1000 c.f. for propane to be the cost effective choice.

[Andrew Gibson]

I'm sorry, but I know what Hank Hill would recommend.

[Lee Schierer]

I found these factors for determining the relative cost.

Multiply the oil heat price per gallon by 0.72 to give the equivalent price per therm of natural gas
Multiply the propane price per gallon by 1.087 to give the equivalent price per therm of natural gas
Multiply the electricity price per kWh by 29.3 to give the equivalent price per therm of natural gas

However, the price for electric seems to be resistance electric heat, not a modern heat pump or geothermal heat pump. I also don't know if these figures are up to date with current prices.

[Jim Sears]

I don't know all the science between the two. But I can tell you that propane costs will eat you alive.

[Charlie Reals]

I don't know all the science between the two. But I can tell you that propane costs will eat you alive.

That is the bottom line Jim. I spent many years trying to deal with folks every day who would not take the bottom line for an answer. I would bet Even hank Hill might stumble a wee bit as this type of info is not commonly used by people in the field. There might be one person in a whole small company that might know the answer. Bottom agreed to line is propane is more expensive in the long run . If this small NG company is as bad as stated then I would suggest looking into the possibility of price gouging. Sounds like a small time robber Barron to me lol.

[Matt Meiser]

You might try contacting the MPSC for more information, but my understanding is that a large part of your gas bill is regulated by the state. The gas itself I was under the impression they are required to sell at cost (yes, that was suprising to me too) and they make their money on distribution costs, but those are controlled too. I also thought the entire state was eligible for gas choice meaning you can buy the gas itself from another company. Construction costs are non-regulated though from my understanding. Still, if you think they are gouging you on those threaten, or actually file a complaint with the MPSC. They are fined for every complaint and have to deal with a bunch of paperwork hassle--at least that's what the Verizon regional manager told me when I filed a complaint against them.

We don't have Michcon, but rather Michigan Gas Utilities who serves an area in the SE part of the state. I think our portion of the gas main extension project was about $2K and the hookup fee including running the line up to 300' from the road was something like $400. The accounting on the main extension is kind of funky. If you hook up within 10 years you pay a pro-rated portion of the construction cost $0-2000. After that you don't pay. Opposite the way water main extensions are handled around here where you pay accumulated interest over the years you didn't hook up.

Even at equal costs, I'd never go back to propane just because of the convenience factor. I had an issue at least once a year with my gas co failing to refill my shop's tank because a different driver wouldn't know we had two. When our high-efficiency propane water tank went out on a Sunday morning it was hard to find a replacement that I didn't need to order, but everyone had NG ones on the shelf. When we bought our dryer, we were kind of stuck with who we bought from because they were the only ones who had in-house service people who could do the conversion. And it would have been impractical to get a standby generator which we now plan to do.

[Mike Cutler]

Larry

As you have seen, determining which source is the most cost effective can be a pain. Lee's post is a good one.

I have an Excel spread sheet program that you plug the numbers, in cost per unit, and it gives you the total cost per Million BTU's. It uses One million BTU's as a standard for heating/cooling a 2500 sq/ft. house with a family of 4.
I'll email it to you if you would like it. I don't think I can post it here on the board.
Generally though, Natural gas has more consumer price protection built into it, and is cheaper than Propane. Here in Ct. I can call and get the unit price for natural gas. Not so with propane. With propane I don't even know how much it is the day they fill my tank. I only know when I get the bill.
Believe it, or not, it's cheaper for me to buy my own 100# tank and fill it at NAPA, than to have propane delivered.

[Charlie Reals]

Propane here today is $2.59pg delivered.