Thus, competition.

I’ve always used natural gas, the only time I haven’t is when I lived in the Middle East and didn’t need heating of any sort.

Fortunately, our house (the building inspector approved in August ‘08 see http://homeproject.framnett.net) we just moved into was built with a gas line at the road, so we heat with a combination of NG & wood. In fact, at http://frugal.framnett.net/ I am writing a series of articles on heating with wood. Compared to natural gas I am getting therms for about ½ the price I can from the gas company. However, some of that is eaten up by the cutting, hauling, splitting of wood one has to do, plus ashes and kindling — still a deal. Our new house is about 2x the square footage (plus one room is a very open concept room with a high ceiling) of our old place and we cook with gas (both in our current house & in our old house we heated with gas and our clothes dryer is gas). Our heating bill, despite colder weather this year, was very comparable to our old house. However, we have to work on the electricity!

Since I just started this wood heating stuff I have burned for about one month on “free wood” (about 1-½ face-cord of good oak from tree tops that were on the ground for two years & then cut up & split this last fall) and then I bought a cord of oak that is not ready for burning, and just recently I bought another cord of mixed wood supposedly beech & maple; at least that wood seems like it is seasoned.

Years ago we bought a gas detector for propane, natural gas, and CO. Right away it gave a false-positive, we called in the fire department and they spent a fair amount of time but couldn’t explain the detector’s alarm. I pulled the thing from the wall and it is somewhere in our piles of stuff.

The difference between any 2 fuels has a lot to do with where you live. Where I am, electricity is around $0.20 per kilowatt-hour, which is very expensive when it comes to heating. Propane is no bargain, but it’s still a lot better than electric.

@ Glbl: The tip about keeping the window open needs to be qualified:

You’re clearly losing some efficiency by keeping it open, and it’s affects as they relate to make-up air and CO mitigation are marginal at best. I hope that whomever installed your fireplace did a proper make-up air calculation before the installation. If you’re only using this appliance as a extra heater, and you only have 100 gallons of propane on hand at a time, I’ll guess that it has a pretty low firing rate and therefore needs little in the way of make-up air. But keeping the window “cracked” isn’t going to provide much make-up air, nor is it going to provide enough dilution in the event of a CO problem. So my advice would be to keep the window shut instead of giving your heat a path to the outdoors.

Also, your CO detector should usually be outside your bedroom (as it is with the kids) because you want to know when the concentration out there is too high, not the concentration in your bedroom. Kudos, though, for having CO detectors at all. It’s now a state law where I live, but it’s the only time it comes up is when heating appliances are installed (and permits are pulled…) or when homes change hands.

My house is all electric except for the gas fireplace which is nice and toasty warm so I’m ok with paying the extra there. Certainly wouldn’t want my whole house on propane though!

The company that I went with comes out and tops the tank off each month and also inspects the lines, regulator and tank at the same time.

We used to use it to run the refrigerator and the stove on the ranch. That was a long time ago, & the partnership dealt with the bills, so I don’t know what it cost. The fridge worked wonderfully, and the stove ran just like any gas stove. I imagine you could hook up propane to run a gas stove in a house in an urban area not served by natural gas, barring any HOA or city regulations to the contrary.

Be sure to check your connections regularly with a little detergent water, and have the service guy check the system on a regular basis, too. Propane is fine when safety precautions are followed, but just like natural gas, it’s nothing for amateurs to dork around with.