What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat?

   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #1  

Jaeger

Silver Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2004
Messages
136
Location
Southern Pennslyvania
Tractor
'05 Kubota L5030 HST, '94 Kubota B7100 HST 4WD (sold 2011),
Was wondering what you guys use as supplemental heat in the Winter?

When we built the house oil was cheap, now we use a Harman SF360 coal boiler almost exclusively from Nov-April and it has saved us thousands in heating oils costs.

Interested in what other use? Wood stove, outdoor wood / cola boiler, etc.....
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #2  
I have a wood stove in the basement and burn about 17 face cords a year. Boiler which also heats domestic hot water kicks on at night and when we are not home to load the stove. Burn about 1 tank plus or minus of fuel a year total. Also have a gas fireplace that we burn too usually burn about 75 to 100 gallons in that. So minus the sweat equity for the wood I usually heat the house and domestic hot water for 1k to 1200$ depending on prices. We also keep it cool at about 65 degrees in the winter
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #3  
I'm a heating /cooling contractor. For my home it's NG.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #4  
House I just bought has a fuel oil boiler. Have copies of past 2yrs of fuel usage. Previous owners went through 1400 gallons of fuel a year!! No way in he11 I could afford that. I installed a 50k btu Pellet Stove last month.. So far so good..
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #5  
Wood with gas backup....backwards, but we pay about 450 a Winter with wood(2 cords), whereas gas was about 300 a MONTH!
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #6  
We have ground loop geothermal as our main heat. We also have a pellet stove for back up heat. Our generator can run the pellet stove in a power outage but not the geothermal.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #7  
Have electric heat pump with propane gas emergency heat . this only works if im too lazy to stoke the wood burning fireplace. I have 20 acres of trees and put up enuf wood to heat the house all winter. but there are days when i just dont feel like keeping the fireplace going.

the furnace does a splendid job...but more expensive.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #8  
Propane with programmable thermostat. Keep most rooms at 68 degrees and use a propane fireplace to bring up the heat in the family room. Have wood heat in the basement in case of power outages. Ken Sweet
 
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   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #9  
House I just bought has a fuel oil boiler. Have copies of past 2yrs of fuel usage. Previous owners went through 1400 gallons of fuel a year!! No way in he11 I could afford that. I installed a 50k btu Pellet Stove last month.. So far so good..

What brand of pellet stove did install?
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #10  
we have a squirrel chasing a nut on a treadmill powering a fan to push hot air heated by an outdoor furnace fueled by methane from the cows ! keeps the house nice and warm and we don't have to clean the chimney much ! :drink:
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #11  
What brand of pellet stove did install?

Pelpro Pellet Stove — 50,000 BTU, Model# HHPP2BDD-M | Corn, Pellet Multi-Fuel| Northern Tool + Equipment

I don't know what the guy in the review is complaining about. I put 3 bags of pellets in my stove the moment I started it up. He claims his only holds 50lbs, well mine holds 3 40lb bags(120lbs) without a problem. The one thing I did notice was Northern advertised it as heating up to 2500sq ft but the owners manual that came with the stove says 2000sq ft.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #12  
100% wood heat. Well, 99%. We do use electric space heaters selectively in the basement, which is seldom occupied and which is poorly heated by the stove. We have an electric heat pump and nothing else, so it runs full-on in Aux Heat mode in the cold months. The one month we did this (not realizing, because we had never had a heat pump before), the electric bill was something like $400. I've made sure that we have never run out of firewood since. Come spring, when everyone is having trees taken out, or after a bad storm, I troll Craigslist like a madman scrounging free wood, then I spend all summer splitting and stacking it. There's also a local tree service that keeps a list of homeowners, and if they take out a tree near your house, they'll call and drop it off if you want. I got from him a couple of trunk sections that were probably 4.5' to 5' in diameter, no lie, and 6' to 8' long. I had to pay somebody else from a tree service to come over and buck them with his big saw, then I split them myself, but I still came out way ahead on the proposition. The wood was so hard that it totally stalled my neighbor's 30-ton splitter. Instead, I had to go at it with sledge and wedges. It was impossible to split down the middle, so I used the wedges to peel 6"-12" wide strips off the outside first until it was down to maybe 3' in diameter, then split it down the middle. It was a ridiculous amount of labor, but I really loved it, and it was an incredible sense of accomplishment when it was done.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #13  
I went geothermal 2 years ago. Took out a wood furnace and put it in my barn. I don't miss keeping the stove loaded or the mess that came with it.

Jeff
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #14  
we have a squirrel chasing a nut on a treadmill powering a fan to push hot air heated by an outdoor furnace fueled by methane from the cows ! keeps the house nice and warm and we don't have to clean the chimney much ! :drink:

The methane from your cows is depleting the ozone layer and no doubt that the animal police are coming after you for inhumane overworking of the poor squirrel. :laughing:
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #15  
I went geothermal 2 years ago. Took out a wood furnace and put it in my barn. I don't miss keeping the stove loaded or the mess that came with it.

Jeff

How much is the initial cost of installing geothermal in an existing home?
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #16  
Pelpro Pellet Stove — 50,000 BTU, Model# HHPP2BDD-M | Corn, Pellet Multi-Fuel| Northern Tool + Equipment

I don't know what the guy in the review is complaining about. I put 3 bags of pellets in my stove the moment I started it up. He claims his only holds 50lbs, well mine holds 3 40lb bags(120lbs) without a problem. The one thing I did notice was Northern advertised it as heating up to 2500sq ft but the owners manual that came with the stove says 2000sq ft.

Looks like a very nice unit to me. Ours is a 44,000 BTU. It only holds about 60 pounds of pellets. We love our pellet stove. For backup heat its hard to beat for us.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #17  
Coal here also have a van wert stoker in the house and a Harman stoker in my shop area use buckwheat coal in both

if you burn coal here is the best place for info ..


Anthracite Coal Forum - NEPA Crossroads
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #18  
Looks like a very nice unit to me. Ours is a 44,000 BTU. It only holds about 60 pounds of pellets. We love our pellet stove. For backup heat its hard to beat for us.

PelPro has another model that looks identical but it holds 300lbs of pellets. That thing will burn for a week before reloading..
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #19  
PelPro has another model that looks identical but it holds 300lbs of pellets. That thing will burn for a week before reloading..

That sounds about right. Ours burns 40 pounds of pellets in 24 hours running wide open as main heat when the power goes out.
 
   / What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat? #20  
The methane from your cows is depleting the ozone layer and no doubt that the animal police are coming after you for inhumane overworking of the poor squirrel. :laughing:

this is east Tn the squirrel is on meth ! so's the dog 399772_338480052848121_205344452828349_1269138_1074011610_n.jpg
 

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