What's everyone use as supplemental or main heat?

[JBourquin]

Do you have any possibility of creosote build up in the chimney with a pellet stove? Burning wood pellets or corn make a difference? Ken Sweet

There will be some build up, but it cleans pretty easy. The pipe I put in is only 3" round and total of about 5' long. It snaps together and comes apart just as easy. As for the corn vs. wood, I've only had my stove a few weeks and have only run wood pellets so far. Can't really speculate on the difference.

 

[Tig]

Main heat is wood, but the renovation in progress took priority over cutting wood. I'll be out of seasoned wood before the end of the month so we'll have to $tart relying on electric to hold the temp at night. I was testing out the electric backup on the geothermal unit this morning. Our limited hydro feed seems to hold it.
Geothermal won't be online until the summer.

 

[idaho2]

LG ductless heat/cooling system. Have an all electric home and with ceiling heat we needed to replace this antiquated system. Cut our electric bill by 75.00 a month the first year. PUD is monitoring ours as well as other users in the area as not many like it but used alot in Europe. It also qualified for energy rebate of $1500.00. I have one (Mitsubishi) here at the hospital just for the CT room as constant temp is a must for the detectors. Nice thing these are ductless and if you have an older home and not able to install duct work these will do the job. Works best in an open area/great room concept. Look them up may work if your in need. We have one outdoor unit with two zone units in the larger rooms.

idaho2

 

[Jaeger]

Good info guys.

Always interested in ways to save money on heat, and heating shops too.

Ray Jay,

I'm on the NEPA crossroads!

Great resource for coal burners!

 

[Scooby074]

Solid wood heat from the woodstove here now.

Next house will be Radiant infloor with either an external or internally installed gassification boiler. Fuel might be biomass. Either pellets or chips.

If I had a large enough tractor and a large enough property, i'd really lean toward a chip fired boiler, with biomass from my own land. It would sure save on labour from cutting and stacking firewood. Real popular in Europe.

I just watched this video from Portage and Main and their chip boiler, looks real good.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have 2 geothermal units I installed myself a yr ago, and I have a pellet stove. Been meaning to write up the geothermal installation in the projects section, but haven't gotten around to it. Actually I still have ductwork mods to make on the downstairs unit. This is my first winter running heat with geo. My upstairs unit was struggling a little when we had single digit temps, so I finally turned on the electric backup. I looked at my electric meter this morning, my next bill is going to be a little high, but I have saved a lot by not burning any oil this year (about $1000 saved). I still have my oil burner, but I think I will get rid of it, it's 15 yr old. I used around 700 gal/yr oil before I added the pellet stove, dropped to 400-500 gal/yr with my first non automatic pellet stove, and then put in a Harmon XXV automatic pellet stove and still used about 300 gal/yr after adding the pellet stove., this is a great stove The pellet stove is on my first level, so I normally don't run my first level heating unit very much, usually just the 2nd level.

 

[Jaeger]

Scooby,

I have radiant floor heat (hot water) under all the tile surfaces of the house. It is without a doubt one of the best things I ever did. It retains the heat better than forced hot air, especially if you insulate with reflective foil underneath. It's worth the investment and work IMHO.

Jaeger

 

[Scooby074]

Scooby,

I have radiant floor heat (hot water) under all the tile surfaces of the house. It is without a doubt one of the best things I ever did. It retains the heat better than forced hot air, especially if you insulate with reflective foil underneath. It's worth the investment and work IMHO.

Jaeger

Current house has electric radiant under tile in the bathroom. First time getting out of the tub on a cold morning was all it took to convince the Mrs that the next house would be entirely radiant infloor heated . Its a great system

 

[DKCDKC]

I have a three-zone geothermal heat pump for central air/heat and hot water. I should have had it rigged for under-floor heat but didn't. My bad. I have a 3000+ sq ft ranch with abundant windows and heat the house all winter for between $600 and $900 - best guess. I am sold on the geo. I have an excess of firewood and a small Irish stove that I use during any cold below 20 degrees F, and for just appearances sometime. Wood is usually cut for me on shares, so I have no cost in it. I have a generator that can run the heat pump fans during an outage to disseminate stove heat through the house if necessary.

I'm please with the heating for the moment. The unit is 11 years old and still under warranty. But has cost me little. When it goes I'll put in another geo using the same piping.

 

[mehig]

I have a three-zone geothermal heat pump for central air/heat and hot water. I should have had it rigged for under-floor heat but didn't. My bad. I have a 3000+ sq ft ranch with abundant windows and heat the house all winter for between $600 and $900 - best guess. I am sold on the geo. I have an excess of firewood and a small Irish stove that I use during any cold below 20 degrees F, and for just appearances sometime. Wood is usually cut for me on shares, so I have no cost in it. I have a generator that can run the heat pump fans during an outage to disseminate stove heat through the house if necessary.

I'm please with the heating for the moment. The unit is 11 years old and still under warranty. But has cost me little. When it goes I'll put in another geo using the same piping.

I have a Water Furnace but it only came with a 10 year warranty. What brand of furnace do you have?

 

[DKCDKC]

I have a Water Furnace but it only came with a 10 year warranty. What brand of furnace do you have?

I too have a Water Furnace. The stuff I got from the dealer indicates different warranty times for different components. The computer stuff and diverters and such are warranted for up to 10 years. The compressor seems to be warranted for 20 years. And the underground loop is warranted for 50 years. So you are right in that much of the unit is already out of warranty. I'll have to remember that. But I am pleased with the performance.

One thing the experts didn't speak about was weak performance the first year or so while the ground settled around the underground piping. Mine was laid in the midst of a severe, multi-year drought, so it actually took almost 18 months before the dry soil compacted close to the pipe and you saw proper efficiency. Of course, the nice level ground I saw over the pipes when they were laid ended up with an 18 inch ditch that traced the entire route of the pipe. Took me months to haul enough dirt to fill it in and level it again.

 

[GeneD14]

We use an EPA rated fireplace as our main heat for a 3600 sqft home. We are well insulated with six inch walls. We use about 4-5 pickup truck loads of firewood per year. It is free, but requires my labor to cut and stack it. Our backup source is a 95% efficient propane forced air system. We haven't had to use it in the last 3 years.

 

[55woodie]

Vermont Castings wood stove and NG boiler for baseboard heat. A lot of dead ASH trees and all my neighbors appreciate my free offer to remove the dead ones for them.

 

[71bronco]

We had the pipes for ours put in with a line boring machine. Put them in at about 20' deep and the only mess was a 12' trench for the manifold to hook all the pipes together. Then they line bored right to the house where they dug a 3'x3' hole to put the pipe through the basement wall. Our whole backyard is a septic field and they bored right under it. Works great.

Jeff

 

[Ted Summey]

I heat 90+% of the time with a wood fired waterstove with heat exchanger in the heat pump. The heat pump is our backup and AC. We burn wood year round for heat and domestic hot water. The system is supplemented with 3 4'x10' solar panels.

 

[Oldtink]

I heat with anthracite coal in an AHS130 boiler with baseboard heat. It also heats our domestic hot water. Oil is a back up but heaven forbid it ever come on. Like keeping my heating $$$ in PA.

 

[Natureboy]

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 happens when the squirrel gets tired?:shocked:

 

[whistlepig]

Do you have any possibility of creosote build up in the chimney with a pellet stove? Burning wood pellets or corn make a difference? Ken Sweet

Pellet stoves are pretty clean burning. The only thing bad about corn is that stored corn will absorb moisture over a long length of time and wood pellets don't.

 

[MWRR]

We had a Water Furnace horizonal gound loop GEO Thermal installed when I built the house in 1995. Our heating and air conditioning bills for the whole year run around $360; less than a dollar a day.:thumbsup: The screens for all the windows are in the attic in their orginal boxes...we never open the windows. If the tempature is 20 degrees outside and the sun is shining my air condition will kick on because of the heat gain from all of my south facing windows. I heat and cool 3286 sq ft. year round.
I keep a dual burner propane heater and a couple of 30lb tanks around in case of a power failure. So far have never needed to use it.

 

[mehig]

We had a Water Furnace horizonal gound loop GEO Thermal installed when I built the house in 1995. Our heating and air conditioning bills for the whole year run around $360; less than a dollar a day.:thumbsup: The screens for all the windows are in the attic in their orginal boxes...we never open the windows. If the tempature is 20 degrees outside and the sun is shining my air condition will kick on because of the heat gain from all of my south facing windows. I heat and cool 3286 sq ft. year round.
I keep a dual burner propane heater and a couple of 30lb tanks around in case of a power failure. So far have never needed to use it.

That's one efficient home you must have. It's difficult for me to get an exact measurement of the electrical useage account of a hot tub and stock tank heaters. I estimate my yearly heating/AC cost at $520 and my house is 1500 sq ft. This spring I'm going to rewire my furnace to a sub panel with an in line meter