How do you heat your home

[72c20customcamper]

I have two houses. My rental is heated by fuel oil. Tennant pays for all utilities. So that's pretty straight forward

Where I live the main heating source is
electric baseboard . But 80% of my heat comes from wood . Have a Drolet ht2000 that we installed last fall after the old 1973 Vermont castings went south. Went from 6 plus cords to less than 5. And the house is warmer. But I like the electric as I can just heat a room not a whole zone.
Thinking of installing some solar panels and go from propane hot water to electric on demand.

So what you got?

[Stocker]

The original part of our home has baseboard electric heaters and we almost never use any of them in spite of cheap hydro power. We used to have a fireplace but it gobbled wood like mad so we set a wood stove in front of it. When we added the family room, bathroom, and laundry room, we put in a wood stove which was our main heat source. Several years ago we added a Monitor kerosene heater in the family room, and it shares duty with the wood stove.

We love the steady even heat of wood even though it's a pita to cut, split, haul, & store, not to mention it's messy. Gonna stick with wood as long as we possibly can!

[72c20customcamper]

I like the even heat and there's something about the heat from wood it kinda penetrates the body. Electricity is expensive here as is oil . Dont have natural gas at either house.

Saw lots of state of Jefferson signs on our trip down the coast . 7 weeks on motorcycles in 07 from NY to CAand back

[Coley]

Our house is pretty old and built in the 30's...so it wasn't initially an easy candidate for heating.
We have owned it for about 15 years so a lot of it pre-dates us.

Regardless, we have the original oil furnace 'shell' or chassis in place in the basement...but the original oil burner and system (including tank) for that was removed and scrapped back in the 90's I think.
In it's place a large (220v/xxx Amps) electric plenum heater was installed in the main burner area. This was a common upgrade available to oil furnaces back in the 80's and 90's when electricity was supposedly cheap and preferred over oil.
As such it uses all the same ducts, and blower etc to heat the house.
It is pretty good overall.

However, to get any efficiency in this house, and retain heat to keep the furnace from cycling.... I have had to make storm windows to go over the original wood single pane windows...and that too has worked great.
As well, I have insulated the heck out of everything I can in the attic, accessible walls, floors, basement, etc, etc....including heavily caulking all the main window exterior and roof/rafter line join points, etc, etc....lots of work to do this....but it has paid off in a big way from a billing standpoint compared to what it was when we first bought the house.

hand in hand with all this we currently have the original fireplace available.
The bigger news is that we are pricing out installing an 'air tight' high tech wood stove in the fireplace to take advantage of a supply of free hardwood that is available to us.
The upgrade to the air tight tho'....is probably going to run about $5k or a little more.

All good
Coley

[mongocanfly]

LP gas here...

[1968k20]

Wood and propane. Because of where I work, wood is free. I just have to get it! I love wood heat as it disperses through the house

[72c20customcamper]

Ya free wood isn't really all that free. Bought a new timberwolf logsplitter a few years and a dump trailer. Then theres the saw fetish .Have about 10 . Mostly stihls going from a little 180 to a 660. But the two I use the most are the 460 magnum and hot Dohlmar 7910 with a 30 inch lightweight Oregon bar. Then you need a kubota tractor and a helper Ralph

[Steeveedee]

Natural gas in central heat. We also have a fireplace (that we've never used in the 16 years we've lived here) in the living room and a free standing fireplace in the family room which gets used occasionally.

[Canuckvetter]

We built a new house in 2017 so it's very efficiently heated with natural gas. We live on an acreage that is all trees. We are in the midst of designing a 40 X80 shop/hip roof barn that I would like to heat with a wood fired boiler. Radiant heat the floors and an overhead radiant as well. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1547668358http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1547668476

[Grumpy old man]

HEAT? who use's heat ? Ms Grumpy is so hot I run the A/C year round .


Is she gone ?

[richard2717]

I have hot water baseboard heat from an oil fired boiler that also heats my domestic hot water as well. when I 1st installed the boiler back in 96' (the original from 76 froze and busted before i bought the house in foreclosure) the 1st season I used about 1700 gallons. Thankfully it was only 99 cents a gallon back then. When fuel started costing more I went ahead and put all new D/P windows in which dropped it to about 1200 gallons. The next summer I installed fanfold insulation, tyvek house wrap and vinyl siding and it dropped to about 800 gallons. The last thing I did was add 6'' fiberglass insulation over the existing in the attic and I am down to about 600 gallons per year. My home is a 2100 sqft rancher

[Stocker]

Interesting thread! I added attic insulation and changed all windows to double-pane, and when we did the family room addition, the house was wrapped with tyvek prior to new siding.

72c20customcamper, that is some beautiful wood! After hand-splitting for too many years, I finally bought a 22-ton Iron & Oak splitter. Should have bought it a long time ago!

Only 2 saws though, an old 28" Stihl and a newer 20" Husky.

[Coley]

Clearly there are some good results here for people working on making their homes more heat/energy efficient...Richard down from 1700 gallons to 600 gallons of fuel oil is a serious improvement.
Insulating and doing the d/p window thing has payed off in spades for us too.

We are fortunate on the firewood angle. A client of my wives has a very large estate and a recent windstorm took down several trees on their place.
He is an older guy and likes to putz about on his property so he and his maintenance guy like to split wood.
He said to my wife that he can keep us in firewood for the next few years so don't buy any....lol.

...now we just need something (efficient) to burn it in, other than the fireplace which almost takes as much heat out as it puts back, lol.

Coley

[72c20customcamper]

Originally Posted by Stocker

Interesting thread! I added attic insulation and changed all windows to double-pane, and when we did the family room addition, the house was wrapped with tyvek prior to new siding.

72c20customcamper, that is some beautiful wood! After hand-splitting for too many years, I finally bought a 22-ton Iron & Oak splitter. Should have bought it a long time ago!

Only 2 saws though, an old 28" Stihl and a newer 20" Husky.

I have access to about 300 acres of land besides my 20. Most of the wood I get is blowdowns . Still working some from sandy. The only wood I cut that's standing is ash . Lots of dead wood that dangerous now with the emerald ash bore . Iron and oak another American made splitter.

Ya my saw fetish is bad . I belong to an arborist site and I buy old saws . I have a blue Homelite ez automatic and a red Homelite 330 . The 330 I bought from a guy that never even put gas in it.
My rental house had a 1954 GM DELCO oil burner . I replaced it in 2001. Cut most of it up to get it out of the basement. I swear they build the house around it. Was a forced air unit at first but converted to hit water baseboard around 1985 ,but a friend has the cast iron door that says gm on it. I should get it .

I tend to like the old stuff. I'll have to take a picture of my 70's Honda 400 generator it two tone .... wait for it... its gold and white like my truck

[72c20customcamper]

Stocker I would have taken the red oak out un 12 to 14 foot lengths. It was real pretty wood. But i couldn't drag it over the neighbors lawn and the marsh made it so i had to cut it up. Shame the was a lot if board feet there .

[Stocker]

Originally Posted by Coley

...now we just need something (efficient) to burn it in, other than the fireplace which almost takes as much heat out as it puts back, lol.

No kidding! We went through 7 cords a year with the fireplace, now the house is bigger and it's well under 3 cords with an Earth stove, and less than 100 gallons of kerosene in the Monitor.

I mentioned cheap electricity in post #2.... we don't have propane, so everything is electric, and that bill runs around $90 a month. Not bad.

[Red71gmc]

Water furnace open loop system. Well pump has a variable rate to supply only the amount demanded. Pressure tank is literally only a couple gallons in size.
The discharge water from my water furnace supplies my small pond in front of my house. The overflow on my pond is tiled to the river behind my house (I guess I like water lol). Seems to be efficient enough and is a very nice consistent heat. The air cooling part of the system for summer is extremely efficient and I could make the house a refrigerator with the cooling capacity. Expensive to put in, but supplies efficient heat/cooling and has a great warranty for 10 years. Crap, just remembered its just over 10 years old.

[mingoman]

https://youtu.be/Gc1URQgQWNo


No natural gas out in the stix so it's propane here. My heater is 97% efficient, it even vents through a PVC pipe, so it isn't a lot to heat our house. When we bought it 20 years ago I gutted the entire house and put better insulation in the walls and attic so that helps tremendously.

[special-K]

My place is an 1857 log home. I stripped the wood siding on firring strips, framed in 2x4, insulated, Tyvek, and sealed edges. I have electric baseboard "intertherm" heat, which is heated oil instead of resistance element. It's a soft heat. Each unit has it's own thermostat. I only need to run it downstairs (4 units). That's what I use at either end of the heating season when it's too warm to use the woodstove.

November through March (usually) it's 100% woodstove. Mine is made by Woodstock Stoves in VT. It's enameled iron with soapstone panels and a paladian window. I use about 4 cords a winter, which fills my woodshed. Wood of choice is locust. If I don't have all locust, I save that for Jan & Feb and use the rest at either end of the woodstove season.

My log splitter's name is Tim. Never owned a splitter. I use a Husqvarna 61 I bought in '86. Been a great all around saw.

Last picture has the flash from taking a picture of the picture I bought and framed from an aerial photo service years ago.

[toms68cst]

We live in a 1929 House with the original gravity hot water boiler. (Huge piping and no pump)

It was converted from coal to gas sometime around the 40's or 50's. We've looked at replacing the boiler over the years but you just can't beat the quality of the heat. it controls well, heats the house evenly and is very quiet except for a faint rumble in the basement. Yea the cast iron radiators take up a lot of room but they add to the vintage feel of our house.

Oh yea, the cat LOVES the cast iron radiators!

[Greg58]

Propane thru a Lennox high efficency 2 stage furnace. Got rid of my drafty old chimney, and now it exits the side of the basement.
My house is 100 years old and is 2400 SF with 35 windows with new storms.
We use 1000 gallons a year, 50% less than we used to, we also use a Nest thermostat.

Greg

[FleetsidePaul]

I have a wood burning stove in one house, and a pellet stove in the other. To tell you the truth I thought I'd like the pellet stove better because it has a blower on it. But I don't. The wood burning stove does a better job. it gets downright hot in that place. I also have central heat running off propane but we almost never use it. Too expensive.

['63GENIII]

Originally Posted by 72c20customcamper

Ya free wood isn't really all that free. Bought a new timberwolf logsplitter a few years and a dump trailer. Then theres the saw fetish .Have about 10 . Mostly stihls going from a little 180 to a 660. But the two I use the most are the 460 magnum and hot Dohlmar 7910 with a 30 inch lightweight Oregon bar. Then you need a kubota tractor and a helper Ralph

The BX 25 is a must! I have one as well. Good little Hoe. Using a patched together second hand Troy Bilt 27 ton to split mostly. Then the Little Red Homie, the 026AV and the Shovelhead of Stihl chainsaws ... the 038 Mag II which I rebuilt during the summer. Saws are a stinking addiction! Have a fire in the Regency airtight as we speak with the furnace circulating fan on. If it gets below 55, I'll light the sealed Lopi Revere downstairs. 1963 house, 2,400 sf. single pane and insulated where I could. Likely heating the rest of the neighborhood more than our home.

Originally Posted by Stocker

I mentioned cheap electricity in post #2.... we don't have propane, so everything is electric, and that bill runs around $90 a month. Not bad.

When we moved in, I had a little scratch left over, a good source and a better back and shoulders. Installed a 45KV array on a brand new roof that a friend and I installed. PG&E electricity has been 200.00 per yr. since 2008, (gas not included - 45$ mo). It was a lot of work but a good place to spend the money for us. Panels have gone WAY down in price and WAY up in efficiency since.

Between the two on the coldest of nights which is low 30s, i sometimes have to open a window or two and make the dog go get some water.

Usually have the upstairs insert running from late October through March, 24-7. 2 maybe 2-1/2 cords tops.
Most of the wood I burn is Acacia which is from my neighbor who will ask for help dropping a tree or two a year. The boy and I will help him for a few days and end up with a couple years worth of some of the hottest burning wood that I've ever come across.

[Canuckvetter]

We have an electric Vermont stove for ambience. With R30 in the walls and R60 in the ceiling even when it’s -40° outside the room get too warm with the heater on.



http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1547704295

[72c20customcamper]

My go to wood is black locust. Have a lot of it on the property. But I'll burn anything that gets blow down red white oak maple and even poplar. Poplar is gopher wood add a few pieces and gopher more. Burns hot but quick.