Help me calculate real world cost of system

I need some help from the experts on here.

I ran a heat load calculation on our new building and it came out to right about 50000 BTUH .

How can I convert this to a measure per hour or per day of actual cost if using electric resistance heating ?

I have here that electricity converts at 3412 BTU per KWH.

I am assuming that the 50000 BTUH is a maximum per hour output of the system used just to make sure the system is up to task to heat in the coldest months ? Because if I take 50000 BTUH and divide by 3412 = 14.654 kwh.

So if this is per hour, that would slurp up 351.69 kwh per day. I know that is not right.

How would you calculate the systems cost to operate ?

Our electrical costs here are .0591 kwh for the first 1350 kwh in a two month billing cycle and .0827 for each kwh over the 1350.

1 btu = .2931 watts

So 50,000 btu = 14.65 KW

That is max. In a 15 KW heater, you may have multiple stages of heat... like first a 10 KW heater kicks in, and if that doesn't sustain the heat, then a secondary 5 KW heater kicks on, giving you a total of 15 KW.

To figure out a per day cost would be much more complicated, as you need to take into effect heating hours and whatnot. Obviously from month to month, the heating requirements are going to change. Where the beginning of February may be frigid, the end of March may start becoming more spring like. The runtime for your heater will be significantly different.

Pseudorealityx is correct it gets complicated... you need to estimate your monthly run hours in order to calculate your energy consumption. This gets real difficult during swing months where the temp fluctuates a great deal during the day (fall & spring).

Also, make sure all of your electrical cost are considered; there is typically a fuel adjustment cost as well as demand charges associated with each kwh used.

You're right, the 50,000btuh is the amount of heat needed during the coldest hours to maintain the indoor temperature you used in your calculations.

To figure out the cost of the heat, you need to determine how much heat is used in a year. To do that there are values called Heating Degree Days. Basically they are a set of values that help estimate the amount of heat used based on a reference temperature.

In this case (again using Salmon Arm data) it looks like you'll should expect somewhere around $2,200/yr in heating costs.

Annual HDD = 7,781
Annual btuh of heating = 103,746,667
Annual kWh of heating = 30,406.41
Cost of elec $2,210.99

Hope this helps.
Andrew

How'd you come up with your heating requirements anyway? What were your calcs?

Wow I am glad I checked back on this thread. I didnt get any email notifications.

I used a heat loss calculator for the readings. I did not have some things exact as the program didnt have options for them ( rafter insulation and insulated slab etc )

Thanks for the feedback