Propane shortage?

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I expect that is a good idea. Long term Electric heat may be the best option based on availability and cost.

When we rebuilt our house I added 30 amp 220 volt outlets in four places. The 220 volt space heaters work very safely and are stored if not needed. It is not so cheap but it will heat the entire house. Actually one in the basement and one in the sunroom will make the entire house liveable temp wise.

If you will put the 220 outlets near an operating window you can put in a window unit in like 30 minutes should you loose central air system.

It was as cheap as strip heaters with the geothermal system. When on back up generator they make load management doable. On high they use 3800 watts each so we can run three set on low.
 
A ground water heat pump is the best way to use electricity for heating and cooling. You can usually get an energy credit on your taxes too. In my locale the electric coop will loan you the money at a low rate and bill you through you monthly bill.
 
We have a heat pump on the parents side with a furnace and just a furnace on the original side. One tank seems to last quite a while since the heat pump is on 50ish% of the time.

2 years ago dad bought a high efficiency electric water heater to replace the old failing propane one. That made a HUGE difference in propane consumption. Plus you can get tax incentives with those as well .
 
One thing I did to reduce my propane consumption was to place reflective bubble wrap insulation around it. it already had a 1" fiberglass insulation bat on it and I put the over the top of the bubble wrap. Made a dramatic difference in standby loss vs the fiberglass alone.
 
Originally Posted By: Blaze
It takes a huge amount of propane to dry corn for storage, especially this year...but are they using propane to dry the same corn they use for producing ethanol fuels?


Depends. A lot of those large scale operations use natural gas corn dryers and most farmers just take the wet grain to the ethanol plant/elevator if they can instead of drying it themselves. If a person drys the corn to store and then takes it to the plant it doesn't matter, the corn was dried and you have no control who he sells it too. So trying to blame ethanol for drying grain is not relevant. Granted it was a wet year, this year was not that bad for wet crops compared to some previous years.... I think that is a big crock of poo when people are blaming it solely on using it to dry crops. We've had years where the grain has had a lot more moisture and was cooler and never had this propane problem. Do I think it did not help cause the problem, yes it did contribute to this shortage but that's not the main reason. Not to mention this year was not a real late harvest. This is around here anyway. YMMV in other parts of the US.

The bitter cold, poor logistics and planning, drying are all to blame here.
 
I just dropped $850 on a tank of heating oil!
frown.gif
Blarg.
 
Around me in the Midwest heating oil is diesel fuel. It hasn't change much at all. Around $3.30 a gallon.

But for a 250 gallon fill that is around $825. Or about normal.
 
$5 per gallon.. Well $500 for 100 gallons. Wouldn't be surprised if they mark it up a bit to make it worth their while.
 
Locally the chicken farmers are getting whacked hard to heat the houses due to the lack of/price of propane. Looks like we have another winter storm moving in after seeing 70F today.
 
Don't know what is happening in Oz...maybe we are importing propane these days along with everything else...saw automotive for $1.05/litre yesterday.

glad I didn't jump on the propane car fuel this time around.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Don't know what is happening in Oz...maybe we are importing propane these days along with everything else...saw automotive for $1.05/litre yesterday.

glad I didn't jump on the propane car fuel this time around.


I always thought the propane car was quite interesting. I saw one on fire once in eastern europe. those things get hot! even in the dead of winter.
 
Originally Posted By: volk06
The problem is they can't ship it as fast as it's being consumed. Plenty of propane but the logistics are the issue.



Now now. We must keep those inconvenient pesky trucks off the road. Oh Lord the hazmats must never be on anything but a dry road in the day!!!! We can't drive.
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