Insulating an OLD House-Oil Costs
 

We are looking at real estate up in Meredith and Gilford and found a beautiful house that was built in the 1900s. The owner said the insulation wasn't that great and oil costs about $400 a month. He said he keeps the thermostat at about 65 during the day. (That's too cold for me) There is one soapstone wood stove in the kitchen area and the basement has a crawl space. The windows were replaced within the last several years. Unfortunately the heating costs would not be a sustainable situation for us. We are hoping to retire in the house we buy.

What I am wondering is...are there any low cost solutions for making one of these charming, old houses much more energy efficient?

400 a month
 

for oil is pretty good. My son-in-law pays about that much for a 10 year old 2500 sq foot ranch. I have a 30 year old 1500 sq foot condo and last month natural gas bill was $145. The most I ever paid for gas. My girlfriend built a 2700 sq ft energy star rated home and her propane bill last month was $240. We keep our heat around 68 during the day and 60 at night. Both homes have gas fireplaces, hot water heaters, dryers and kitchen stoves. Our electric bill is around $25 a month. Electricity in NH is cheap.

I suggest you call PSNH for an energy audit. It is free and you get expert advise.

I agree....$400.00 a month is a deal in NH. I'd budget $600.00 a month for the colder months (Dec 15th through March 15th) in NH.

Most people don't like throwing money away, so my guess is that if there were a cheap/simple way to make the house more energy efficient it would have already been done.

You're probably looking at a moderate undertaking cost and effort wise to insulate the walls and other areas to make it more energy efficient. Usually those projects also balloon into replacing plumbing and electrical while you're at it.

What months are we talking about here? (6 months out of the year?)
$600 a month seems crazy to me. Who can afford that?

Well the good news is that the electric and plumbing has been brought up to code recently.

I'm wondering whether we need to look into installing another wood stove or blown insulation or even replacing the furnace. (15 years old). There must be other ways to heat an old house besides relying on expensive oil.

PSNH charges $100 for an energy audit. ( I just checked their web site) This is first time I have heard electricity in NH is cheap. ;)

A house that old likely leaks a lot of cold air in winter, and wind-driven rain often gets behind the siding and past whatever flashing may have been done around the windows. But, with a lot of air leakage, the house would be very tolerant of water leaks, as the air movement would dry out the walls quickly with no real harm done.

If you add insulation to the walls, such as by blowing cellulose in from the outside, and you do nothing to improve the exterior regarding water leaking in, then you can create a problem in the course of solving another. Insulation in the walls can retard drying, with the possibility of rot and mold development. This isn't a given, but a risk to consider. There are plenty of more recently built houses that have such problems for the same reason, often undetected until the wall is opened for some reason.

This region is not particularly rainy, as would be, say, the Pacific Northwest. Here we typically have plenty of time between rain events for things to dry out. Still, given that the house is that old, if I were thinking about adding insulation, then I'd be thinking about also removing the siding, adding a housewrap or asphalt felt, and putting on new siding, unless this already has been done. Besides adding protection for the new insulation, you would be tightening up the house dramatically, making it much more comfortable in the course of reducing the heating bill.

Edit: who says NH electric cost is low? I'm on NH Electric Coop, and I think at present it's around 18 cents/KWH. Not cheap.

That's the first time I have heard that too. I don't consider ours cheap. Our December electric bill was almost $300.

Any insulation at all?
 

A lot of these older places realy don't have any insulation. My late grandparents built their house when oil was something like 3 cents a gallon. After they passed the place was sold to a family friend. When he and his wife were planning the renovations they found the walls were completely hollow. My frugal grandfather probaly thought it wasn't worth the cost to get the savings! These days you can probably recover your investment in a couple years.


If this is the case for your candidate home you can get cellulose pumped in easy enough. You will quickly find if there are any gaps between the wall and floor, behind the edging. But after a while the material settles and the problem ceases, orat least eases up.

Good luck!

Three years ago
 

I had an energy audit done for free. My gf has her new construction done last spring for free. For what they do for $100 is a lot! It will be worth it.

On my condo, they suggest more insulation in attic crawlspace. Suggest I put E-film on my windows. Insulated paddings on all my outside electrical outlets and switches. Electrical outlet covers on electrical outlets. And 'Peal and Seal' caulking around the windows.

My gf house being new construction, was 1 inch of closed foam followed by unfaced fibreglas insulation, followed by plastic sheeting. She had to run a dehumidifier in the winter! Very little air passing through. She had to run the bathroom vent an hour a day to circulate the air.

10 years ago
 

I was living in Dracut Mass. My electric bill was $90 a month! When I moved to Laconia, it was $30, now around $25. Since I moved in I replace all my lights with the energy star lights. That's about it.

Come to think about it. I had an electric stove and dryer. I don't think that would make that much of a difference.

Isn't the meter charge alone about $20? Which electric company do you work with? What's your secret other than energy star light? Just a fridge and the water pump or fan on the heater would run over $25 with NH Coop (18-20 cents/KW).

Energy Cost per BTU...the only way to compare fuels
 

Here are some interesting heating things to ponder on a cold winter night....first of all, some assumptions:
1. Electric - 1 KWH = 3413 btu's and is 100% efficient. Cost per KWH= $.20
2. Propane - 1 gallon = 91600 btu's and most furnaces run at 90+% efficiency. Cost per gallon = $3.64
3. #1 Heating oil (Kerosene) - 1 gallon = 135,000 btu's and modern furnaces run at 85% efficiency Cost per gallon = $3.60
4. #2 Heating oil - 1 gallon = 138,000 btu's and modern furnaces run at 85% efficiency - Cost per gallon = $3.25
5. Wood Pellets - 1 ton = 16,500,000 btu's...I have no idea at what efficiency they run, but there is heat loss up the chimney. So I will assume 80% efficiency. Cost per ton = $300/ton
6. Cured wood - 1 cord = 20,000,000 btu's..efficiency varies by stove. But a modern catalytic stove could get 75% efficiency. Cost per cord = $300/cord

Now the math...I'll benchmark everything to #2 oil btu's = 138,000

Electric = 138,000/3413 = 40.43*$.20 =$8.086 to generate same number of btu's as #2 oil.
Propane = 138,000/91600 = 1.5066/.90efficiency = 1.674*$3.64=$6.09
Kerosene = 138,000/135,000=1.022/.85efficiency=1.202*$3.60=$4.33
#2 Oil = 138,000/138000=1/.85efficiency= 1.176*$3.25=$3.82
Wood Pellets = 138,000/16,500,000=.00836/.8=.0105*$300=$3.15 but excludes electricity costs to run appliance which would increase cost slightly
Cured Wood = 138,000/20,000,000=.0069/.75=.0092*$300=$2.76

Summary to generate 138,000 btu's of heat:
Electricity: - $8.09
Propane: - $6.09...excludes electricity to run furnace
Kerosene: - $4.33...excludes electricity to run furnace
#2 Oil: - $3.82...excludes electricity to run furnace
Wood Pellets: - $3.15...excludes electricity to run stove pellet feed
Cured Wood: - $2.76

Ok...am I crazy? I think these numbers are reasonably correct, but would like to see if others come up with similar results. There are lots of variables...relative efficiency of appliances and market prices of various commodities all factor into any calculation. And all calculations exclude annual maintenance costs of equipment. But it is an interesting analysis and you can adjust/tweak the numbers to any data you think is more representative.

One other point, a 15 year old furnace is not efficient. Modern oil furnaces are what the call a three pass design and are much more economical. What you have to deal with is the payback period for a new furnace.

Just as a point of comparison, I live in MA, 80 miles south of Meredith. My house is a 58 year old, 2300 sq ft cape with minimal insulation, mostly replaced windows and the original oil fired hot water boiler.

We use 1200 gallons of oil per year. With oil now at $3.30 per gallon, that's well over $300 per month. $400 per month for an older house further north sounds about right.

The thermostats are at 67 when we are in the house during the day and go down to 63 at night.

You'll need to change your expectations for utility costs, I'm afraid.

I pay $182 per month for a 2700 sq.ft. house that was built in 1920. I am on a 12 -month budget plan. Natural gas.

Cate - I understand a home is a HUGE purchase but your looking for EVERYTHING in one package and your simply not going to find it (of course in my opinion.) According to your posts you'd like location, reasonable costs of ownership, something old(er) with some style and I'm sure I'm missing out on many other requirements. :D You'll pay what you pay for heat no matter what type it is. I also heat by natural gas (Mass.) and pay a fixed budget of 200.00 a month. I don't really considor that cheap, you talk like you think your monthly gas bill is. What burns me is paying 200.00 a month April thru September whan my gas usage drops by almost less than half. As many other posters have stated 300.00 a month in a climate like NH is to be expected. Cheer up my neighbor in Mass (and relative) heats with electricity, not on a budget. Her electric bill for January was 772.00. :eek:

Thanks for the analysis tummyman.

An update on pellets and oil for our situation:
Our pellet stove model was tested at 83.5% efficiency by the EPA and pellet prices are down this year. We have purchased 3 ton at an average price of $202/ton this fall. Using this data I calculate:
$2.02 to generate 138,000 BTU for our pellet heat.

Our oil burner, coincidentally, was tested at 83.5% efficiency this fall. In December we had both tanks filled for the winter at $2.869/gal. This works out to:
$3.44 to generate 138,000 BTU for our oil heat.

Obviously we run the pellet stove all the time except for a brief daily cleaning.There is some electric cost, the unit draws about 120W in the run mode and there is a sizable initial investment.

As you have pointed out propane is not the way to go for heat in this area.

If the house you are looking at was built in the 1900’s then that means it could be 110 yrs old or 10 years old. Can you be more specific as to when it was built.

If you don’t have any carpentry, plumbing, or electrical skills, then IMO buying an older house could put you in the poor house or nut house….. by older house I mean the early 1900’s.

Hi DPG- We have a wish list, not hard and fast requirements. (Although some items have a higher priority than others). We ARE hoping to find a place with as many items on our wish list as possible, however we also aren't going to spend years looking for that perfect house that doesn't exist. I think talking to the good folks on this forum is helping us prioritize AND recognize what capital improvements we might need to budget for the future. Based on what I'm learning on this thread so far and some very helpful private messages, energy efficiency may trump "old house charm" in our new house.

BTW-This will be my second home purchase and I currently live in a victorian house that may be as old as 1879. (Dwelling appears on my land in old town map) Believe me, I have gone through a lot of hard lessons renovating my current home.

Our overall goal for our NH house is to downsize and spend less on house operations.

IF you find that you are really interested in the house I would suggest the following:

-- talk to the current owner and find out to what extent they use the woodstove

-- find out what type of wood stove they have...

-- find out the age and model of the oil furnace....

-- find out what type of heating system, forced hot air, forced hot water etc.

Once you have more of this information, it becomes a little easier to try and discuss this type of issue. If they use the woodstove 24/7 and have a 400$ a month heating oil bill I would be concerned.. However if they don't use the woodstove hardly at all, it is about what I would expect. Additionally, once you know what they have for a wood stove, you may find that upgrading it could be an option... this also applies for an older furnace...

I don't know all the details about the house we are interested in , but I do know the electric and plumbing were both brought up to code in the last 10 years. AND a new roof was put in by the owner within the last 6 years. All windows were replaced. Lots of renovation. Furnace is 15 years old. Insulation is not great.

As I mentioned in another post, we currently live in an old house and have certainly had our share of repair, even after gutting half of it and building from scratch. One thing I have learned is that when it comes to electric and plumbing, hire a professional. We're both pretty handy, but some things should be fixed by people who are trained and licensed.

It may be that we have to abandon our fantasy of living in a quaint old home with lots of nooks and charm and have it be completely updated HVAC wise. At least on our budget.

I think we will need to shift our thinking a bit, thanks to the responses on this thread.

Thank you for the excellent response! :)

Reading some of your posts I don't think that any challange is too big for you or your partner.
Good luck with your purchase.

IF you find that you are really interested in the house I would suggest the following:

-- talk to the current owner and find out to what extent they use the woodstove

I DID talk to the owner yesterday and we had a great conversation. Lucky to get that kind of access. My impression was that they used their wood stove fairly frequently.

-- find out what type of wood stove they have...
It's a very nice soapstone woodstove. Not sure what model, but soapstone stoves have that extra radiant quality. It's located by the kitchen. House is NOT open concept.

-- find out the age and model of the oil furnace....
15 year old furnace. Not sure of model, but we could budget to replace if needed.

-- find out what type of heating system, forced hot air, forced hot water etc.
It's forced hot air.

Once you have more of this information, it becomes a little easier to try and discuss this type of issue. If they use the woodstove 24/7 and have a 400$ a month heating oil bill I would be concerned.. However if they don't use the woodstove hardly at all, it is about what I would expect. Additionally, once you know what they have for a wood stove, you may find that upgrading it could be an option... this also applies for an older furnace...

I think finding out how much they use the soapstone woodstove would be a very good thing to know. I DO know the owner loves chopping and stacking wood and had a huge supply so he probably is using it...although maybe he just enjoys chopping and stacking wood...;)

Interested in old house
 

In all these posts I don't remember seeing anything about a home inspection. The home inspector works for you, and you pay for, and own, the completed report. Hopefully, a qualified home inspector would/should list the name and details of certain items, usually including the electrical system, plumbing pipe types, furnace, woodstore, appliances, and insulation in the walls and ceiling. This document can double up as a "work order" for you for future home improvements, assuming everything is currently working and satisfactory now. Satisfactory in that it works, not necessarily satisfactory in 2011 level of standards.

As I read through these posts I get the feeling that everyone is saying about the same thing when it comes to buying an old(er) home: it is an investment which turns into a work in progress with no definite time table or budget. Bluntly, if this isn't something you are comfortable with, I suggest, gently, you rethink your living arrangements.

I wish you the very best, and I urge caution in whatever you do.

What's interesting to me is that 25-30 years from now, when we are happily living in the lakes region, that "newer" home we bought back in 2011 will probably have had it's fair share of repairs and maintenance. Possibly some major ones. (Roof, HVAC)

So in an older house (that has stood the test of time), if previous owners have updated the major systems (electric, plumbing ) and replaced windows and the roof, what really is the big difference?

Aren't most houses a work in progress and in need of ongoing maintenance?

Your point about the home inspection is excellent and one not to be forgotten, Camp Guy.

Many houses built in the 80's or earlier used 2x4 wood framing, so only 3" of insulation can be in the walls. From mid-80's on, most houses used 2x6 framing, and have five inches of insulation. All other things equal, that makes a big difference in how much heat escapes. Of course, today, foam insulation may be used instead of fiberglass, and provide even a tighter cage for the heat.

Maybe I'm wrong but I do not considor a 15 year old furnace to be very old. As stated earlier I'd tackle other tasks like insulation and buttoning up the outside if it warrants. Sure there's newer and more efficient furnaces out there however a furnace isn't a throw out every couple year commodity. Mine in Mass is 31 years old (fingers crossed as I say it.)

Now see? This is very interesting. I didn't know about the different framing sizes. I am learning so much on this forum. Thanks everybody.

Blower door for leak testing
 

If you tentatively decide on a house, but wonder just how leaky (ie. drafty and uncomfortable) it may be, one of the things you could pay to have done as part of inspection is a blower door test. A fabric-covered adjustable frame is fit tightly into an open door, and a fan is mounted in that frame. The fan is turned on to depressurize the house slightly and an instrument shows the amount of air (cubic feet/minute) needed to maintain a standard pressure difference (50 Pascals - quite small, so as not to cause any harm). That flow, times 60, is divided by the gross house volume to give standard air changes per hour (ACH), and that divided by a factor around 18 gives an approximation of "natural" ACH in cold, windy weather. The tester will be able to relate that in relative terms to "tight," average, or "leaks like a barn with the door open."

You'd want to be around for the test if possible, to take copious notes. Part of the testing may well include flagging the major sources of air leakage. Such places often are so easy to seal with canned foam or non-hardening sealant. Air leakage plays a HUGE role in the cost of heating a house in a cold climate, far more than many realize. A leaky house in otherwise good condition could well be turned into a very comfortable place with acceptable heating cost with relatively little effort, much of which you can do yourself if you are willing to crawl around in old clothes and a dust mask.

Psnh
 

PSNH is my supplier. The total meter charge is $35.75 a month. My energy charge is only around $25 a month. I don't include my meter charge when I calculate my electrical consumption. Sorry I didn't make that clear. My total bill is actually around $60 a month.

Leak testing
 

is quite the experience. For instance at my house, there was a huge leak around the fireplace under the mantle piece. I had to remove the mantle piece and use fireblock foam between the masonry and the wood frame. Only other big leak was the dryer vent. There is no way of stopping that.

My gf new construction, the leak test discovered a leak in a corner between two gables where the roof meets. The insulation contractor had to be called in to fix it. As it is in the contract that the house has to pass the leak test.

Energy Star homes have 1 inch of foam insulation followed by fiberglass or cellulose batten covered with a thick plastic sheet. Sheetrock must be added without strappings. There will be a moisture problem between the plastic sheeting and sheetrock. A number of sheetrock contractors turn down the job because they insist on strappings. Saying sheetrock goes on better.

There is one dryer vent I know of that works well against drafting back into the house, the Heartland Dryer Vent. It's available by Internet for around $20 shipped. Easily found via Google.

The described combination of foam followed by a porous insulation isn't specific to the Energy Star program. That "flash and batt" approach is but one way of providing air leakage protection and insulation level that meets code. Energy Star does say that porous insulation such as a fiberglass batt must be up against the confining surfaces on all six sides, with no void spaces that would permit convective flow of air currents.

Having a sheet of poly between the insulation and the sheetrock as a vapor retarder also is not a requirement of any US building code or Energy Star. It can cause problems in hot humid weather if the A/C inside is turned down too low, as condensation can form inside the wall in such conditions. All that is required here is a 1 perm vapor retarder, which can be a vapor retarder primer paint. The permeability of a sheet of polyethylene is so low as to be called a vapor barrier, something not needed except way up in Canada or Alaska.

Installing sheetrock over strapping or directly onto framing members is a purely regional thing. Builders in the NE tend to do it with strapping on ceilings, while elsewhere no strapping is used.

Tummyman
 

I'm trying to compare natural gas to oil. They way I calculate it, my gas bill should be a bargain!

Gas is $.79120 per therm. Therm = 100,000 BTU

NG 138,000/100,000 = 1.38/.90 = 1.5333 * $.79120 = $1.213

Bad math?

It's a Gas
 

Speaking of natural gas, I notice National Grid (formerly KeySpan) has natural gas service in selected areas in the lakes region. (Gilford, Laconia, Northfield, Belmont). Does anyone know if they are expanding in the area and laying more gas lines?

They are actually trying to sell this territory right now. I would not expect them to expand service until that is resolved.

Not sure what you are trying to show there BH, but this link is a relatively up to date comparison of the cost of various heating methods.

http://www.lge-ku.com/rsc/lge/res_heating_costs.asp

I just got an oil delivery from Fuller's at $3.19 per gallon, so the info on the page is a little dated, but you get the idea. Natural gas seems to be the cheapest way to heat now, due mainly to the massive relatively new reserves. Oil unfortunately is getting more expensive due to global issues and the domestic supply being squeezed off by politics. Not a good situation considering the impact on the economy and people's pocket book, you would think our politicians would be much smarter, but they are not.

FWIW I thought tummyman's numbers were pretty good. I talked to my oil man and he told me they are not shipping b2 yet.