Propane Heating Tips

LESLIE: John in New Jersey, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?

JOHN: Yes, I was looking to purchase a new home and their heating was propane gas and I asked them if – I’d rather go with some heat pumps because I think that the propane gas would be very expensive in the long run. And I would like your opinions on – economically and the advantages of a heat pump.

TOM: The problem with the heat pump is that in this area it’s real expensive to run and very often it has to run on its electric backup zone. See, the way a traditional heat pump works is it maintains the temperature differentiation between what you set the thermostat at and about two degrees. So if you set it at 70 and it falls to 68 in the house, the heat pump runs but if it falls to 67 or below, then the electric resistance backup heat comes on and that’s real expensive to run.

So if I had a choice of an electric heat pump or propane, I probably would use a high-efficiency propane system. If a ground source heat pump was available, then I might go with a heat pump because that’s going to be more efficient in the long run.