How you heat your home?

[Aaron]

JHH I know you're a ways away from Northern Minn but check out this website:

http://www.centralboiler.com/

They ship all over the country.

We have a Central Boiler outdoor wood furnace with electric baseboard heaters as back-up.

JHH, if your going outdoor wood furnace, go Central Boiler from Greenbush, Minnesota. They are the original makers of the outdoor wood stove and still #1.

We bought our first one in 1991, when Dennis (owner) was still making them in his garage. A group of 21 families (including ourselves) from NW Ontario went in and bought a couple of semi loads of them. That one bought in 1991 last for 18 years and other than the initial cost, never cost anything substantially extra. We just bought our 2nd Central Boiler furnace and it still has the same quality built into it, with substantial improvements in design and efficiency. In buying our second furnace this year, we compared every wood furnace available in Canada and measured them up against the Central Boiler. Central Boiler will always win. Most other furnaces have fancy improvements made to make the marketing slick, but not the warranty to back it up. Limited lifetime warranty on Central Boiler furnaces.

You should be able to find a dealer in your area. I know they sell them far into the eastern U.S. :cowboy:

 

[cfpinz]

We've got a wood stove in our basement, I welded up a hood that sits over it and channels heat up into the ductwork for the heat pump. We haven't used it the past two winters, got an old gto sitting 10 feet from it and don't like explosions. We're using the heat pump primarily with a set of gas logs to knock the chill off. I don't give a crap for the heat from the heat pump, nothing like wood heat.

 

[Ryder]

I'm not from the north, but for variety thought I would jump in.
Normally, when it gets too cold, we just turn the air conditioner down. :nod:
But right now we are in a bad winter spell. :help: Using central heat (electric), three electric space heaters, and sometimes the fireplace (which is nice to look at but doesn't do a very good job heating).

Sat. and Sunday nights it is supposed to be in the teens and not out of the 30s in the daytime.
I'm going to do my best to hold on through this until we get back to AC weather, which should not be too far away. But if I disappear from the boards you will know I didn't make it. :cry2:

 

[Caustic Burno]

Just replaced our 32 year old electric heat strips (central) with SEER 14 and 15 heat pumps. Seeing some pretty significant reductions in our electricity bill this winter. We have a traditional fireplace without an insert, but it's remote from the bedrooms and doesn't do much good at night while we're sleeping. It does a great job of heating up our living room though. Doubt the heat pumps would do much good during the winter up north, but they work well in our climate.

We use a heat pump as well as wood also works great, but I have this place insulated like an igloo cooler .
It is supposed to get real cold tomorrow through Sunday. Mrs has minor surgery tomorrow so I did something I normally don't do I put out hay everywhere in racks and old rings and even had a ton of feed delivered so I don't have to mess with the cows.

 

[jkwilson]

Geothermal. Almost 30 SEER. We had an air-to-air heat pump for years, and it was good, but struggled when the temperature got below 30F. It fell back to electric heat when the heat pump couldn't keep up, which was expensive. The geothermal has an electric backup, but it hasn't been on this winter at all.

I debated an outdoor wood or corn burner, but I don't have enough woods of my own to keep myself stocked, and I mostly hear complaints about corn burners.

 

[backhoeboogie]

We have central A/C. Grew up without A/C of any kind and know how to appreciate A/C in the summer time.

I have a fireplace and wood stove. The wood stove gets used a lot to supplement the central air. Some times the boss lady opens the door until the fire settles. The new unit I have is glass front but without an inlet damper control. One of my next projects is going to be building a good wood stove.

 

[cowwrangler]

i use all corn that i raise,i have used it for 5 years now,its a corn furnace and not a stove

 

[farmgardngirl]

We used to have a fueloil furnace, when it started to go bad we went with heatpump and electric furnace as a back-up. The heat pump don't run much, either because it's too cold, or just because it won't. Heat pump has been nothing but problems since installed. Electric furnace works, but blower is so dang noisy, that it gives ya a headache after a while. Cost for heating hasn't gone down as much as we were told it would either, and that's even with a discount for heating with electricity. Shoulda just got an outdoor woodburner, as I'm usually home anyways. Live and learn, and go broke I guess.

 

[kerley]

Forced conditioned air, natural gas. Only problem is if the electricity goes off as it often does in the storms, we won't have heat from the furnace. We do have a gas burner in the fireplace that will blow you out of the house if turned on hi.
~Tom.

 

[skyline]

Just replaced our 32 year old electric heat strips (central) with SEER 14 and 15 heat pumps. Seeing some pretty significant reductions in our electricity bill this winter. We have a traditional fireplace without an insert, but it's remote from the bedrooms and doesn't do much good at night while we're sleeping. It does a great job of heating up our living room though. Doubt the heat pumps would do much good during the winter up north, but they work well in our climate.

We use a heat pump as well as wood also works great, but I have this place insulated like an igloo cooler .
It is supposed to get real cold tomorrow through Sunday. Mrs has minor surgery tomorrow so I did something I normally don't do I put out hay everywhere in racks and old rings and even had a ton of feed delivered so I don't have to mess with the cows.

Good idea CB, you don't want to be worrying about those cows while you're tending to the Mrs. I'm headed out into the frozen tundra to put out 5 rolls for mine and sling some cubes at them before it hits tomorrow. Y'all stay warm and hope your bride recovers quickly and completely.

 

[EAT BEEF]

We always have lot of trees that need cleaned up,so I have always used wood.

 

[Calman]

We use propane wall heaters.

Cal

 

[KMacGinley]

We heat our house with an airtight earth stove. I have had it since 1986 and it works very well, the boy is old enough to run the chainsaw now and that works even better.

 

[dieselbeef]

vermont castings stove..its 22 here tonite..i have never used my electric heat...

 

[Carlos D.]

We built a new house almost 2 years ago and put in geothermo --takes the heat out of the ground in the winter and the coolness out of the ground in the summer ---heats our hot water ---(don't ask me how it works )----But believe me after living a life time in drafty cold house this is pure luxery---my Hydro bill is about 35 % of what it use to be

 

[Ryder]

We built a new house almost 2 years ago and put in geothermo --takes the heat out of the ground in the winter and the coolness out of the ground in the summer ---heats our hot water ---(don't ask me how it works )----But believe me after living a life time in drafty cold house this is pure luxery---my Hydro bill is about 35 % of what it use to be

What heat in the ground?
Do you drill a hole all the way to the bad place or what?

 

[Aaron]

We built a new house almost 2 years ago and put in geothermo --takes the heat out of the ground in the winter and the coolness out of the ground in the summer ---heats our hot water ---(don't ask me how it works )----But believe me after living a life time in drafty cold house this is pure luxery---my Hydro bill is about 35 % of what it use to be

Did you do vertical piping Carlos, or trenches? Lots put them in around here. Too much money for us. Took to long to pay for ($24,000) over an outdoor wood stove ($6,750).

Neighbour is finalizing his installation with circulating air furnace and the duct work. He did 1200' of 8' trench (2-600' loops) in saturated ground. No idea if it's going to work, but he is sure hoping it will. One of the biggest drawbacks I saw from it was that a person always required an additional heat source to get the house up the extra few degrees to their comfort zone. :cowboy:

 

[jkwilson]

What heat in the ground?
Do you drill a hole all the way to the bad place or what?

It's actually heat from the sun that warmed the soil during the summer. Geothermal is kind of a misnomer.

 

[Ryder]

What heat in the ground?
Do you drill a hole all the way to the bad place or what?

It's actually heat from the sun that warmed the soil during the summer. Geothermal is kind of a misnomer.

Thanks for the reply. This all is a mystery to me.

 

[jkwilson]

Did you do vertical piping Carlos, or trenches? Lots put them in around here. Too much money for us. Took to long to pay for ($24,000) over an outdoor wood stove ($6,750).

Mine was just a little over $14,000 for a 2600sq-ft house(3/5 ton 2-speed unit). There is a 30% federal tax credit which will be around $4200, a $1500 incentive from our electric coop, and $100 from the state (going to $1000 in Feb), which brought our cost to $8200. That included 2 new water heaters, some duct rework to help with circulation upstairs, and disposal of the old stuff. Our existing system needed replacing anyway, and we had a $4700 estimate for replacing it with similar equipment.

That puts my "investment" at $3500 that I need to recover, and with this cold spell, I'm guessing I'm $180 ahead just since mid-December. There is also a property tax exemption, but I won't find out what that is until June.

Other benefits are that the system is very quiet, since the fan runs at a lower speed, and there is no outside unit. It is slightly louder than our refrigerator, but in most parts of the house you have to put your hand over a register to tell if it's running