[Highbeam]

Oooh, and be sure to consider duct losses. As much as 15% of the btus that those fancy 95% efficient furnaces make can be lost getting from the furnace to the rooms. A stove burning propane, wood, pellets, or whatever converts these losses to zero.

If I needed completely automatic heating then a propane freestanding stove could be vented through an existing chimney. Would be slick. They only get in the 80s for efficiency but they have no duct losses and most operate fully in a power outage.