Experiences with propane he, a well, or septic?

[WinterWine]

H and I found a house this weekend that is our retirement dream home. It's "off the grid" and we're trying to determine what the potential costs would be.

Does anyone have experience with using propane as the primary/only heat source for a home? How often do you need to refill your tanks, how expensive is it to fill or general cost for a year?

Along similar lines, I'd love to hear what it's like to have a septic system and well. The house we're looking at has a well of 18 gal/minute- Is that good?

[caramia]

We have a 1000 gallon propane tank, but we use a wood stove as our main heat source. When we first moved in, we used about 250 gallons in March & April (so milder weather). Since then we just have the propane furnace as backup heat & a propane water heater.
Call around for propane prices. We top off the tank (about 350 gallons) once a year, in August when prices are lowest. That's usually around $500 I think? As a main heat source, you'd probably go through 2-3k gallons. You can probably get on a monthly plan, so they'll fill the tank a little each month- spreads the cost out & makes sure you don't run out in winter.

[linus]

The last house we rented had propane heat. We had two smaller tanks for the house - I think they were 200 gallon tanks each, but I'm not sure on that. Tanks were empty when we moved in, cost about $500 for the initial fill and then I set up auto fill with the propane company. They came about once/month and we paid roughly $250 each fill. The house had all electric appliances - stove/dryer/hot water heater, so we didn't use any propane all summer. The first time they came back to refill the next winter, the price of propane had gone up by more than $1/gallon. We ended up moving for other reasons, but our new house has natural gas and I am so pleased with how much less expensive our utilities have been this winter, even though this winter was much harsher than last.

[Pom]

We've had houses with varies combinations of wells, septics and propane heat. Propane can be VERY expensive. As PP's have said it depends on a ton of factors. It depends on the efficiency of the house, if you have or can uses an additional source (like wood) most people do that too.

I don't find wells or septic systems that big of a deal unless (like here) water is scarce so we bought a house on city water/within a water district. Our vacation house in northern Michigan is on a well and it's been fine other than it froze one winter. That was a problem because it was old/wasn't deep enough and we didn't have enough snow prior to bitter cold temps. That has only happened once in 20 years of owning the house.

I can tell you, last fall I was filling FIL's propane (he wasn't able to use his wood heat due to his health) and I spent $1300 from August to mid-November. His home is also in northern Michigan. That was eye-opening ;( since I hadn't paid bills on propane only for about 10 years. Our other Up North house is natural gas...much less expensive.

[countthestars]

We have all three.

Propane: We pre-paid for our propane this year at $2.49/gal. I think we use about 1500 gallons per year. We have a brand new home so it's very heat efficient, but we also keep the heat around 67-70 full time when the heat is on because I WFH and we have a young child in the house.  Our house is ~2500 sq ft and we live in New England (so we are still using our heat...)

The cost of propane varies all the time but it's much, much cheaper to heat with propane than oil around here, which are the two main options since we don't live on a gas line.

18/gal per minute would be unheard of around here - that should be more than fine assuming the pump is in working condition. We are at 5 gal/minute and are still able to shower/run the dishwasher/do laundry all at the same time. We also have a sprinkler system for our lawn, but that runs before we wake up in the morning.

A good septic system will last you 20-40 years depending on usage. We haven't pumped ours yet because we've only been in for two years but we did have it inspected for $75 last year (I think that's every year). It's optional but recommended (my uncle put ours in so I just follow his lead on what needs to be done). Replacing a septic can cost anywhere from $5k to $30k, so I would definitely talk to whoever is doing the Title 5 inspection on the septic system to see how much time is left and what the cost to replace would be.

[WinterWine]

Thanks a lot for the help ladies! Yes, when I say off the grid, I mean truly off of all city/county systems. It has a well and septic, but there is also a propane generator for power. It's on a roaring river so H thinks that a hydroelectric generator would be better. The house is 2k sf and does have a wood burning stove, but in not sure that would heat the whole house.

It's probably much too far of a stretch for us to actually buy, but I can't help thinking that it's s piece of property that is never going to come available again. It's 6 miles from an awesome town, downs road with all the hiking/kayaking/climbing we love, and surrounded by protected forest service land.

[Deleted]

Like the others have said, propane varies. The costs can be cheap, or they can be sky high. Usage totally varies. If I was going to do it again, propane would be my back up.

I don't remember enough up the well to be of much help, but keep in mind that if you lose power, you also lose water, so have a back up plan for power and/or water.

Septic is generally problem free, but when it needs repairs, it needs them now and it's costly. Mine decided to have issues Christmas Eve and my drive way ended up torn up for most of the winter one year.

[msmerymac]

My dad uses propane for cooking and maybe hot water (though that could be electric) and has electric baseboard heat. Does the house have solar? If so, it seems like electric heat would be a LOT cheaper in the long run.

ETA: I see the generator response. In that case, it might be better to just go with straight propane instead of converting propane to electricity to heat, unless you get a hydroelectric generator going.

[Deleted]

We had all three at our previous home. Propane can get pretty expensive. We had a 1300 sq ft home that didn't have the greatest insulation and a pretty inefficient heating system. The last winter we lived there we averaged about $600/month for propane in the winter, and that was only for heat, we still had an electric bill that was a few hundred per month due to locally high rates. I can't stress how inefficient our house was though, so I'm not sure that's an average experience for a house that size.

Well and septic systems aren't a big deal IF they were installed correctly. I wouldn't buy a house with either unless I had a well inspection and a septic inspection. They can be very expensive to fix if they aren't done correctly. Our septic wasn't installed deep enough and our inspection failed, so we had the homeowners fix it before we purchased. We didn't have our well tested and it was a disaster.

Our house was obviously one big mistake. Don't do what we did. But don't let that scare you off either. I grew up in homes with propane, septics, and wells, and my parents have never had any major issues.

[sjh722]

In addition to what PP said about propane, it's worth a call to the utility co to see what the cost would be to run natural gas. Ours has changed their pricing structure recently so it's way less expensive to run a gas line to your house. (Also depends on how close you live to the gas line - we had it run 1/4 mile down the road and to our property for $500 or $600. Before they changed pricing it was more like $3000 and that was with the closest neighbor tying in too.)

And yes, definitely have a septic inspected by a septic contractor who goes out and digs around, checks the baffles, sees if it needs to be pumped, etc.

[Velvetshady]

For a well horror story see: pandce.proboards.com/thread/356113/when-give-walk-away

We did get water on the second attempt. And just spent another $3500 to have the yard repaired where they had to dig for piping to the house and to have the enter yard smoothed out/seeded.

We also have septic (no issues in 10 years here) and propane for heat on the main floor and basement. Propane can be expensive, but we only use it in winter so it's okay as long as we plan for the expense.

Inspections, inspections, inspections.

[WinterWine]

Apr 27, 2015 9:41:55 GMT -5 Velvetshady said:

For a well horror story see: pandce.proboards.com/thread/356113/when-give-walk-away

We did get water on the second attempt. And just spent another $3500 to have the yard repaired where they had to dig for piping to the house and to have the enter yard smoothed out/seeded.

We also have septic (no issues in 10 years here) and propane for heat on the main floor and basement. Propane can be expensive, but we only use it in winter so it's okay as long as we plan for the expense.

Inspections, inspections, inspections.

Your story is what keeps coming back to my mind!! I don't know that my cash hoarding self could stomach this house. It's truly amazing, but I think it would be a stretch for us financially. It would be pretty simple if we could rent it out in the dinner as a vacation rental (which would be the plan), but if it didn't rent well then the math doesn't really work.

I'm so conflicted. I keep thinking well, you get ahead by taking risks, but I think this one has too many moving variables for me to be comfortable with. It's too bad we aren't 10 yrs out :-)

And to answer pp, it has solar panels( though they are old and new ones would probably be more efficient), it also has a brand new generator as well as a backup generator. Heat is through the propane wall units.

[mich1]

Apr 27, 2015 8:36:33 GMT -5 WinterWine said:

Thanks a lot for the help ladies! Yes, when I say off the grid, I mean truly off of all city/county systems. It has a well and septic, but there is also a propane generator for power. It's on a roaring river so H thinks that a hydroelectric generator would be better. The house is 2k sf and does have a wood burning stove, but in not sure that would heat the whole house.

It's probably much too far of a stretch for us to actually buy, but I can't help thinking that it's s piece of property that is never going to come available again. It's 6 miles from an awesome town, downs road with all the hiking/kayaking/climbing we love, and surrounded by protected forest service land.

You might want to consider whether or not you'll have decent Internet access.  I have a classmate who lives way off the beaten track and her Internet access is sketchy, at best.  If this s going to be necessary for a job or entertainment, it can be a problem.

[aurora]

Apr 27, 2015 8:36:33 GMT -5 WinterWine said:

Thanks a lot for the help ladies! Yes, when I say off the grid, I mean truly off of all city/county systems. It has a well and septic, but there is also a propane generator for power. It's on a roaring river so H thinks that a hydroelectric generator would be better. The house is 2k sf and does have a wood burning stove, but in not sure that would heat the whole house.

It's probably much too far of a stretch for us to actually buy, but I can't help thinking that it's s piece of property that is never going to come available again. It's 6 miles from an awesome town, downs road with all the hiking/kayaking/climbing we love, and surrounded by protected forest service land.

If it's a good wood stove, it will probably do OK heating the whole house, assuming of course you have enough wood on hand.

You might want to be careful about hydroelectric - there are a lot of rules about what you can and can't do to impact streams.

Also, like mich1 pointed out, getting reliable internet can be an issue.