Estimate propane heating cost from gallons or heat need, including delivery, tank lease, and other propane fees.
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Table of contents
How to use our Propane Heating Cost Calculator
- Choose Start with based on what you know: use gallons if you have tank records, or heat need if you have an energy audit in million Btu.
- Enter Propane used for heating or Heat needed for the season, then enter Furnace efficiency, Propane price, and Months to average cost over.
- Open Advanced options if your bill has Delivery fee, Tank lease, or Other propane fees, and enter only fees that are not already included in the price per gallon.
- Click Calculate and compare Total propane heating cost for the season with Propane fuel cost before fixed fees to see how much fixed charges add.
- Sanity-check the Effective propane price after fees: if it is much higher than Propane price, review the fee entries and heating gallons before budgeting from the result.
Definitions
Propane used for heating: The gallons burned for space heating during the season or year, not all propane used by the home.
Heat needed for the season: The useful heat your home needs, entered in million Btu.
Btu: British thermal unit, a small unit of heat energy.
MMBtu: One million Btu. The calculator converts MMBtu to Btu before estimating gallons.
Furnace efficiency: The percent of fuel heat that becomes useful heat in the home. AFUE is the common seasonal efficiency rating for furnaces.
Fixed propane fees: Delivery fees, tank lease charges, and other season-level propane fees that do not change directly with each gallon.
Effective propane price after fees: Total propane heating cost divided by heating gallons, so fixed fees are spread across the gallons used.
Common mistakes and quick fixes
Mistake: Entering total household propane in Propane used for heating when propane also runs hot water, cooking, or a dryer.
Fix: Use heating-only gallons in Propane used for heating when you can, or subtract non-heating use from your tank records.
Mistake: Typing a furnace rating like 0.90 in Furnace efficiency instead of a percent.
Fix: Enter 90 in Furnace efficiency for a 90 percent furnace.
Mistake: Putting the total delivery bill in Delivery fee instead of the added fee per delivery.
Fix: Enter only the extra charge per trip in Delivery fee, then enter the trip count in Deliveries in the season.
Mistake: Entering a positive Delivery fee but leaving Deliveries in the season at 0.
Fix: If the delivery fee applies, enter the expected number of paid deliveries in Deliveries in the season.
Mistake: Adding the tank lease twice by including it in Other propane fees and also in Tank lease.
Fix: Put the monthly rental in Tank lease and Tank lease months, or put the full seasonal amount in Other propane fees, but do not use both for the same charge.
Mistake: Using 12 in Months to average cost over when you want a heating-season-only monthly budget.
Fix: Set Months to average cost over to the number of months you want to spread the cost across.
Limitations & Key Assumptions / Boundary Conditions
- The estimate depends on the propane price and fee inputs you enter. It does not pull live local propane prices.
- Heat mode uses 91,452 Btu per gallon of propane and treats Furnace efficiency as one seasonal percent.
- Fixed fees are treated as season-level charges. Real bills may add taxes, minimum delivery rules, emergency delivery charges, or price changes by fill.
- Average cost per selected month is a budgeting average. It is not a month-by-month bill forecast.
- If Propane used for heating includes hot water, cooking, pool heating, or generator use, the heating cost estimate will be too high.
- The calculator does not compare propane with electric, oil, natural gas, or heat pump operating costs.
Methodology
How the calculator finds heating gallons
If you start with Propane used for heating, the calculator uses that gallon amount directly.
gallons = propane_used_for_heating
If you start with Heat needed for the season, the calculator converts million Btu to Btu, then divides by usable heat per gallon.
gallons = heat_mmbtu * 1000000 / (91452 * efficiency_percent / 100)
How costs are added
Fuel cost comes from gallons times the entered propane price. Fixed fees are added after the fuel cost, so the all-in result can be higher than a quoted per-gallon fuel price.
fuel_cost = gallons * price_per_gallon
fixed_fees = delivery_fee * deliveries + tank_lease_per_month * lease_months + other_fees
total_cost = fuel_cost + fixed_fees
effective_price = total_cost / gallons
monthly_average = total_cost / months_to_average
Mini-example
For 800 heating gallons at $2.80 per gallon, fuel cost is 800 * 2.80 = $2,240. If delivery fees are $25 for 4 deliveries, tank lease is $10 for 12 months, and other fees are $50, fixed fees are $270. Total propane heating cost is $2,510, the effective price is $2,510 / 800 = $3.14 per gallon, and the 12-month average is about $209.17 per month.