 Frost has arrived in most parts of Texas already in 2005, and I suspect just about every home has had a heater turned on recently.
Most of those homes are heated by gas. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of all U.S. homes are heated with gas. That’s 62 million homes (57%) using utility, bottle, tank, or liquefied petroleum gas as their heating fuel. Electricity is the second most popular, used by 33.9 million homes (31.3%).
Fuel oil and kerosene are used by 8.6% of households nationwide, mostly in northern states.
Utah has the highest percentage of homes heated with gas — 88.5%. Michigan (86.9%), Illinois (86.7%), Iowa (82.3%), and Colorado (80.2%) follow.
Texas ranks 36th among all states in the percentage of homes heated by gas. More than 3.6 million Texas homes use gas for heating — 47.3% of the total.
Texas doesn’t rank among the leaders because we have a warmer climate, and electricity is a viable option for us. In fact, just three states — Texas, Florida, and California — have more than 35% of total homes heated with electricity. Nearly 90% of all Florida homes are heated by electricity. South Carolina is second with 61.8%.
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Former New Englanders who’ve migrated to Texas won’t be surprised that fuel oil is most popular in Maine (79.2%) homes, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
In general, gas is the most popular home heating fuel in the Midwest where 30% of all households use it. More than 60% of U.S. homes heated with electricity are in the South.
Western states have nearly 70% of households that say they do not use any fuel or heaters to warm their homes. I don’t find it surprising that 61% of homes in Hawaii fall in that category; I am more surprised that 17,600 homes in the Aloha state (4.2%) are heated with gas.
Solar heating is the least-used energy source, with only .03% of the nation’s homes using it. Pennsylvania has 37% of all homes using coal and coke for home heating.
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