What type heating do you have?

[sylvie]

What type heating do you have and are you happy with it?
Pros/cons?
We heat with wood but need to put in another system for our addition.
We have a fireplace and woodstove in there but want something that will kick on when we can't tend it.
My DH is disabled and it falls to me to cut all our wood, split, stack and carry in. I am worried that if I have a bad day I won't be able to bring in as needed. Or if he ends up back in the hospital and I'm there like I was for his organ transplant that the house will go cold and the pipes will burst.
We are on a fixed income and I have to look seriously at the cost of the unit, installation and fuel. Natural gas is not an option in our area.

I am so open to suggestions it isn't funny!

 

[coopy]

wood

 

[PamsPride]

My house is all electric...so electric base board heating in most all of the rooms (except kitchen, boy's bathroom, and spare bedroom.) We have a wood burner and use only it for heating. If we run the baseboards through the entire house we can easily run the electric bill up to $300 a month or more. Right now we only run the base board in my bathroom because that is where a majority of the water pipes are and the heat from the wood burner does not make it that far into there.

 

[FarmerChick]

Sylvie

Where do you live?

What you need for back up heat will kinda depend on the climate you are living in?

I am in the South...NC....so I get by easy with a heat pump. It draws from the air...our winters are not deadly cold here so it is sufficient. It runs on electricity. But when super cold air outside, it has an electric heat strip back up that kicks on to keep the home warm. (and I don't want that on...lol...costs a fortune when that happens..LOL)

I also have a propane fireplace hooks into a 100 lb. tank on the side of the house. Power goes out, heat pump does not work, but propane fireplace does...that is my backup!


Yes you are smart to get a back up heating system.

If you are the only one tending a wood burning stove and DH can't....and maybe have hospital visits etc...YES, I would be sure I had backup.


So where you live will mean how big of a system you will require etc...........

 

[MorelCabin]

Our home has electric back up that we never use unless we are leaving town for a few days, and then we only turn the one in the utility room on to stop pipes from freezing. We also have a propane firplace that we use daily in the mornings to heat real quick and it goes on and off through out the day depending on need. It is fairly efficient as a backup, but probably costs us about $1000 a year as back up only. As a full time heat source, the people that lived here before were using about $3000 if not more propane and on top of that they used $350/m on hydro.

 

[Harley's Girl]

We heat with gas....free gas! I wish I could help ya. Bottle ya up some natural gas and send it. Now wouldn't that be nice?

 

[sylvie]

Sylvie

Where do you live?

What you need for back up heat will kinda depend on the climate you are living in?

I am in the South...NC....so I get by easy with a heat pump. It draws from the air...our winters are not deadly cold here so it is sufficient. It runs on electricity. But when super cold air outside, it has an electric heat strip back up that kicks on to keep the home warm. (and I don't want that on...lol...costs a fortune when that happens..LOL)

I also have a propane fireplace hooks into a 100 lb. tank on the side of the house. Power goes out, heat pump does not work, but propane fireplace does...that is my backup!


Yes you are smart to get a back up heating system.

If you are the only one tending a wood burning stove and DH can't....and maybe have hospital visits etc...YES, I would be sure I had backup.


So where you live will mean how big of a system you will require etc...........

Northern Ohio, updated my info under my hat.
Cold, snowy, windy, brrrrr.

 

[sylvie]

We heat with gas....free gas! I wish I could help ya. Bottle ya up some natural gas and send it. Now wouldn't that be nice?

I don't think one bottle would do!

 

[keljonma]

sylvie, we've got oil furnance and water tank. But we try to use the oil just for the water. I'm not sure that gas would be much cheaper than oil. We're using electric for heat, because right now that is less expensive than oil.

I've noticed that a lot of people in this area have propane delivered. They have 500 gallon propane tanks on their property. When we were kids in Lake County, mom had propane delivered for our gas stove, since there wasn't gas on the street at the time. The deliveries then cameout of Newton Falls...

Have you checked into propane or electric?

 

[FarmerChick]

yea sylvie
it isn't just the cost of what system backup you install, it is also what it will cost to run it.

check your propane per lb. cost.

natural gas is iffy....can you hook up to an existing line in your neighborhood, if not, then that is out.

I don't know if they sell natural gas by the tanks like propane???? LOL never checked.....but if they do, then you need to know that price.

and check your electric cost. Mine over the last year has gone from .08 to .14 ...ouch...stinks but what can one do....and propane here is $3.89 or 99 per lb. right now...no great price either..LOL

but you being in a colder climate, your propane might be alot cheaper. ya never know.


ALSO go into your electric companies website. Sign in for your electric company and use their site. They can also recommend types of systems.

and let us know what you find out on all of this...always interested to see where the threads lead.