What and how do you heat your home and possibly shop during the cold winter months??

[dodge man]

Just got our electric bill and they show a graph of our electricity usage. Hard to put an exact number to it but it looks like we probably average $220 a month. That’s for a 1900 sq ft house plus a full basement. It’s all electric but geothermal. That’s paying $0.16 per kilowatt hour if you figure in taxes and all. We’re in West Central Illinois straight west of Peoria for our location.

 

[ultrarunner]

That's an amazing rate as we are heading for 3x that amount...

 

[ovrszd]

Just got our electric bill and they show a graph of our electricity usage. Hard to put an exact number to it but it looks like we probably average $220 a month. That’s for a 1900 sq ft house plus a full basement. It’s all electric but geothermal. That’s paying $0.16 per kilowatt hour if you figure in taxes and all. We’re in West Central Illinois straight west of Peoria for our location.

That's really good. We average $115 p/month electric. Then we average $200 p/month for propane. 4300 sqft in two buildings. I think we pay $0.15 p/kilowatt hour. NW Missouri.

 

[Jstpssng]

My first indoor fire of the season is crackling in the wood stove.

 

[jyoutz]

My first indoor fire of the season is crackling in the wood stove.

I just lit the pilot and fired up the gas stove fireplace for the first time today. Been raining and cool for a week now.

 

[Jstpssng]

I just lit the pilot and fired up the gas stove fireplace for the first time today. Been raining and cool for a week now.

It's been sunny and close to or at 70 this week. Tonight it's cooling off though, the skies are clear and I'm hoping for a good killing frost.

 

[ultrarunner]

Maybe a return to the 70’s when keeping a home hearth was seen as patriotic and insert eligible for tax credit?

The more using home grown heat the less oil and gas used.

Not bragging and I realize a lot is due to mild climate but on my residence have always run a surplus from solar I cobbled together for basically my time…

 

[Oaktree]

Didn't mean to imply that the fans on my pellet stove are excessively noisy. Its just me - older I get the more sensitive I am to any noise. When I am kicked back in my easy chair in the evening, reading, I can clearly hear the battery-operated clock ticking away on the wall 20 feet away. Most folks can't even hear it. But then I don't have the TV on, or any other noise. It is QUIET. So yes, if the pellet stove fan comes on I hear it loud and clear. If my central furnace comes on (I run it only to test it, propane is ~ $4 a gallon around here) it sounds like a jet plane taking off to me.

That's why I prefer the silence of a wood-burning stove. Silence.

I wonder how much of that is individual tolerance of background noise. Like you, when I want quiet I want quiet. Everyone I know who has a pellet stove I find it quite noisy. Probably not to the level that it would be an issue in a workshop or something, but in my living room...yeah. Maybe they make quiet ones, but I've never seen one.

 

[Oaktree]

It's been sunny and close to or at 70 this week. Tonight it's cooling off though, the skies are clear and I'm hoping for a good killing frost.

Already had one here...earlier this week had a couple of nights where it got into the low 20s. Other than my swiss chard, everything in the garden's done.

Maybe a return to the 70’s when keeping a home hearth was seen as patriotic and insert eligible for tax credit?

The more using home grown heat the less oil and gas used.

Not bragging and I realize a lot is due to mild climate but on my residence have always run a surplus from solar I cobbled together for basically my time…

Wood heating never really went away in my part of the country, of course we don't have the strict pollution laws you have in Calif.

I do wish solar was a better option where I am...we do have a 3 season sun porch that warms up nicely on these sunny but cool fall days. Unfortunately from roughly Halloween thru the end of Feb. the sun's too low in the sky and is mostly blocked by trees for other than a couple hours in the morning. Trees are on someone else's land.

 

[Jstpssng]

I think that it also depends on the quality of the pellet stoves. I've stayed in rentals where you couldn't even watch tv when the blower kicked on; it was like sitting next to a Miller hot air furnace. I don't have tv, so when watching it is like a consolation prize if I have to stay away from home.

I like it quiet, also dark. I hear when the refrigerator kicks on, and in winter, go to bed listening to my thermo powered fan spinning.