What are you doing to minimize the coming heating costs?

Hello Laughing Jaguar

I use a very low-emission log burner.

The fuel is recyclable, cheap, and easy to obtain.

Forget using oil-fuelled heaters, don't you know the Peak Oil point was passed several years ago.

Kind Regards....

how are logs recyclable, do YOU grow enough trees to replace all the wood you burn?

Hello Guest,

Thank you for your perspicacious Questions.

1. Logs are recyclable by being auto-replaced, as has been naturally occurring for eons, in natural forests.
   
2. In a way, Yes, as a shareholder in large forested areas, and the wood I burn is otherwise scrapped. The small amount of ash is properly returned to the ecosystem, in the form of natural fertiliser.
   

Trust you are now happy.

Kind Regards....

We do the same thing Sparks... we have several cord of wood up at my inlaws summer cabin which we got for free. We only have to transport it home.

So we basically burn wood, and the ashes go into the garden. For secondary heating, we are electric... Here that is hydro-electric, which is relatively clean. I am so thankful that we do not need to burn fuel oil.

Bill

I do for my outdoor wood burning furnace.

For those who heat with oil - when I lived in Missouri I heated with oil but got tired of buying #2 diesel all the time. I rejetted the burner and made friends with the guy who ran the nearest Jiffy Lube. I got all the used motor oil I wanted for free and it worked just fine. I did filter it before it hit the burner.

Now we live on the North Olympic Peninsula. Last summer we installed a Hearth Stone, soapstone stove. I have 2 wood sheds, each holds 3 cords. I can get a firewood permit from DNR to collect fire wood in the logged areas and take all I can. We don't have a truck but do have a Ford Winstar van which I take the rear seats out of when we go to cut wood. I can get about 1/2 cord per load.

Splitting wasn't a big deal. I split it all by hand using a Fiscars ax - greatest ax I've ever used.

Since I wasn't sure how fast I was going to go through the wood (and that the wood on the faces of the sheds weren't quite seasoned) we burned a mix of split wood and cut up pallets. I've found a never ending source of pallets right on my way home from work. At one point we had about 45 stacked up in the back yard. I cut them up with a chain saw and stack them. Pallets burn great! (Some of the outdoor wood boilers take whole pallets as feed stock - sweet deal.)

Out here central heat is uncommon. Wall heaters in every room seem to be the norm. This is akin to heating your house with a dozen hair driers.

We cut our electric bill by about $50 a month last winter.

To those who are anti wood burning - be my guest, but I'm going to burn wood. I am not convinced human activity is contributing to any climate change (and it is climate change - not global warming). Think about it - when the glaciers extended down as far South as Michigan and Wisconsin - and they aren't there any more.... what human activity caused the glaciers to melt and recede? It wasn't human activity then or now.

Could it possibly be that the sun, which also goes through cycles has something to do with it? Could it be the internal magma activity of the earth it's self?

Who's to say the climate we had in recent history was optimum? We think it was optimum because it is our only point of reference. The earth goes through cycles thousands times longer than a human life span.

Travis

I am contemplating how to add a lot of insulation to the outside of my house. It seems quite hard to find a way to do it easily, cheaply, and reliably.

For example, my old house is over a crawl space. This one is too tight to really crawl in. But it could really use insulation on those walls under there.

Then there are the concrete block walls. I added two inches of foam between them and the aluminum siding a decade ago. Now I realize that it didn't give as high an R-value as I would like. I estimate it is at about a 10 but I desire a value of 30.

The attic has about 12 inches of blown-in cellulose. At least hat's not too bad. The problem is to insulate the house's outside because I consider doing the inside way too inconvenient.

The house is as insulated as it can be, and double-glazed throughout. There's a little more work to do fitting draught excluder strips onto 2 external doors. A scrap-wood store has been completed for the stove, which supplies secondary heating using wind-fall timber scoured from the district. All thermostats have been appropriately set, the central heating diverter valve has been renewed and, when appropriate, all incandescents are replaced for low-energy, efficient lamps.

Apart from solar collectors and micro-generation to come, how's that for starters?

A few years ago I replaced my old windows and added insulation. For years I heated with coal, but gave it up because I'm lazy.

Last year I installed a wood pellet stove, and I love it. Much less work than burning coal.

I don't like being cold at home, or wearing long john's and a sweater. The pellet stove keeps my house toasty, at a fraction of the cost of burning oil.

I've bought thermal underwear.....

Probably by going to the nearest homeless shelter!

About 4 weeks ago, I inquired about natural gas to my primary residence (as alternative to oil). No reponse. Today, I was advised: "we received your email and apologize for the delay......unfortunately the nearest gas main is 555 ft away and requires a customer contribution of $20,628.00. If you have any further questions please contact Nationalgrid at 1-800-427-2001. Thank you for your inquiry and have a pleasant day."

Bummer.

How to tell the Mrs. that I plan to burn wood? Thoughts please!

Tell her you'll help her cut and split the logs.

Bricktop

Yup, you get warmed twice.

I did it in prior energy crisis (don't know the plural) when it was more fashionable. But she remembers it as messy. Now there are Air Nazi's who go around looking for wood burner people to report to the anti-burn idiots Selectmen who run the Town.

An "Inconvenient Truth".

I would say "Have pleasant Cold Day"

Suresh Sharma

We are probably 15 miles away from the nearest gas main, but we burn gas as central heating and for hot water, but get it delivered from a truck and have a large container buried under the garden!!

We also burn wood pellets since 2006 and that gives an economical warmth throughout half the downstairs and all of the upstairs, that cuts gas usage by about half I feel, but the last two winters were relatively mild.....!!

We have just had 10cm of extra outside insulation added and the outside completely redone, new high efficiency windows were added a few years ago, so the winter can get bad, we don't care anymore.....

We are hoping to lop another €200 off the total previous gas bill of €600 per year (the house was reasonably insulated before).

Cooking is induction Hob and most rooms have either CFLs or/and LEDs.....I have been changing them out now for many years, we are almost complete.

I was thinking of either lowering my thermostat from the normal 73 to 70 and see what that does. There's no way in algore I'll go down to 55f like many claim I should, I would like to remain somewhat comfortable inside my own home.

The next thing would be to cover my home with 10ft of dirt, then I would only have to warm the air 20 degrees to stay comfortable.

I get the neighbor's smoke from their fireplace in my ventilation air. I will have to be a dissenting voice concerning burning wood.

Hello electrone

Here we have a proper Clean Air Agenda, refer: http://www.ecan.govt.nz/Our+Environment/Air/HomeHeating/Wood-burner-rules.htm

The only heating allowed has to comply with the Regulations: http://www.cleanheat.org.nz/

Special wood burners have been designed, extremely efficient, with coaxial tube chimneys, the incoming air arrives down to the burner thus being preheated to 500 degrees Celsius by the outgoing flue gas, with almost zero particulate emissions from the burner.

Kind Regards....

Hi Sparkstation

The new type of burners' efficiency at eliminating particulates might depend on the amount of wood being burned. I guess pellet burners have automatic wood feed. But then they would seem to need to be auto-ignite in order to cycle to meet demand while still burning at the necessary temperature.

The neighbor's smoke becomes a problem once the fire dies down.

Ground source heat pumps are the best, but hard to install.

Best Regards

The newest pellet stoves are self igniting. And consider a boiler rather than an air heat stove. Pellet burning boilers do not smoulder. they ignite, burn full force with a draft fan blowing combustion air, then when the water is up to setpoint, shut off.

When these stoves burn they are as clean burning as a natural gas stove. If you get a large enough hopper these stoves can be self tending for a week or more. Amount of ash produced is minimal since the feed rate of pellets is controlled by an auger screw feed, based on demand. Combustion efficiency is as high as you can get it.

Second choice would be a solid wood burning boiler, also hydroponic. When going, these also have forced draft and thus more complete burning and less smoldering and less ash.

But before you do that; insulate, Insulate! INSULATE!!! Do not forget the vapor barrier on the inside of the house eNvelope. Failure to have a completely tight vapor barrier will negate much of the benefits of insulating.

We now heat with wood and the previous owner already insulated to the hilt. Our problem is too much heat. When it gets so hot you strip down to your skivvies, there isn't much moe you can do, except open the windows and doors. During last winter we sometimes didn't bother banking the fire overnight. We let it go out to keep the heat level down. We only banked up the fire and put an extra round in if the temps were expected to drop to -30 below. We get out wood for free and we have the smallest stove available. All our lights are CCF or LED.

I wish that I could easily get my insulation upgraded!! If it were, I determined that I would need almost zero committed heat during the Southern Ohio winter. But I live alone and heat just one room, which keeps the bill relatively low.

I also heat with wood (maple and oak mostly) and have incorporated a boiler system which when used in conjunction with my solar array produces radiant heat throughout the house. Two systems are at work here ...the first being connected to a clean hot water tank with the pipes coming from the boiler and the second being a solar setup using calcium chloride (which I will soon change) in a heat exchange setup.

Cutting firewood is a large task and requires a lot muscle power which equates into expended energy. 25-30 face chords usually does the trick for the winter, spring and fall but all this must be done the year (or two) before.

As anybody who has exclusively heated with wood knows the 3am wakeup ro refill the stove routine.........I have pushed that figure to 4:30am and created a plumbers nightmare to boot. It was worth it!

On particularily cold and lazy days I fire up the propane stove.

Cutting firewood is my exercise routine. And I better get at it because my latest routine involves hot sun, lounge chairs and summer ale with lime.

My outdoor furnace (water boiler) I built myself. I was a designer of these systems a long time ago. I generally fill it in the morning before I leave for work and when I get home from work. That's it. I clean it out on the weekend (20 min max).

I heat my crawlspace and have a heat exchanger in forced air furnace (oil). I use the oil furnace for back-up. The first year I had this set up I was billed $60 for oil for the whole year.

There is very little smoke. I do not dampen it so it stays hot.

I take it you have an outdoor firehouse.

We get about two weeks of -30C and that's when all systems are go. I have a hardwood bush lot and cut out the older trees on a yearly basis. What can't be sold as timber is cut up into firewoo. This greatly improves my maple syrup production and puts a few bucks in the pocket.

Not being a designer of boiler systems I recall many trial and error setups some of which had bomb-like potential (I think there is still a fitting lodged in my roof somewhere). Have now attached many pressure relief valves and standby pumps.

To be honest, I think I got lucky. I planned on running thermostat control and forced air with damper. Before I got to that part I set it up and ran it to test it out. It ran so well as is that I have never changed it. the house does get up to about 29C some times but never too cold.

It's an open system with heat exchangers.

It is an ongoing project. And that is just because I like to tinker.

I redesigned a Warm Morning wood stove to slow down the draw from the flu and allow more heat to stay in the house. I also welded up 8 in steel pipe with a lot of fins around it so air flow can pull heat out of the flu pipe before it goes into flu.

We have insulated and floored the entire attic to slow down heat lose and during the coldest days I will be bringing my 2 mother in laws to live with us so we will all save on food and heating.

For cooling I have solar pumps that move water from under ground thru lines into the house. I have not yet finished the install. Trying to decide to run under the floors or into the condensor for the fan do it tricks.

We live in Southern California and have natural gas available for heating when desired. I use a fireplace with a "heatalator" fan to increase the efficientcy a little. I plan to install an wood burning insert soon to increase output even more. Our home is probably one of the most thermally efficient homes on the planet, at least I think it is. It was built with 2x6 studs that allow more insulation in the walls. Dual glazed windows. R36 at least in the attic. We use an evaporative cooler on the dry days (most are dry). The evap air is vented into the attic through "upducs" in the ceiling to cool the hot attic some. We never are uncomfortable in hot or cold seasons. We took advantage of Edisons offer to hook up a radio controlled device to shut off our refridgerated AC units compressor when peak power demands threaten brown/black outs. This saves 16 percent during the warm months.

Anyway, our total energy costs for gas and electric per month is 110 dollars year round. Our house is 2030 square feet livable space and 2200 sq/ft shop/garrages

Here in nortnern India people use small portable electric heaters of 2-3 Kw they are used in rooms where they sit. Like if they sit in drawing room they carry there, if they go to bed room they shift there. Point is that it does not heat whole of the household it only used for personal heating. It depends on the electric unit cost and hours used to calculate the cost of heating.

Suresh Sharma

I stay under a special infrared heater. It enables the personal temperature space to be 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature. I cut my electric bill a lot this way.

I believe the NBR (Nightly Business Report) fuel oil price is a wholesale price, which is even more compelling. I switched to gas last winter and still kept a blanket on the sofa.

I guess I'll be doing about the only thing I can - living in Florida where heating is usually not much of a problem. Yes, it DOES get cold - we had some 30°F nights last winter (that's + degrees, not -) and there's an electric heat pump that cools in summer/heats in winter. We do have a wood-burning fireplace, but it's more for romantic atmosphere than anything else. Extra blankets on the bed, and if it gets bitter cold, there are 4 dogs available (Three Dog Night, remember)!

BBEI wrote: "Build your own windmill"

I have a friend near Springfield, Vermont who has lived in an all solar powered home for about ten years. Solar collectors charge the batteries in his basement and heat the domestic hot water.

Most all his appliances are DC devices, including the heaviest consumer, the refrigerator.

Not sure how he's heating the house but I'm sure he'd encourage me to do what you suggest to heat the water. In my case that would be especially helpful since using my domestic hot water means the main furnace must go on.

I've a 3 axis pantograph that is used for carving replacement blades for propellers using a simple stylus and a spherical cutter on a router. No reason why I can't custom make blades and then wrap them in fiberglass.

The problem with that however is that the blade angle should be automatically adjustable via a governor and there is no way to do that with out burdening the design with expense or complexity.

Still, I like the idea.

Thanks

L. J.

Just a note for those of you burning pallets.

Many pallets for interstate and international freight are treated with chemicals that are not destroyed by burning, but rather released as poison gas into the environment.

Please check the branding on the skids before you take them home.

True, and even if only painted, nasty fumes can be released!

About 15 years ago, I anticipated the increasing cost of comfort. I moved to the tropics. My heating bill is now 0. Since I am close to the ocean, I do not need air conditioning. I am thinking of solar panels to power my computers, but that is hard to justify with a monthly electrical bill less than $10.00...

I am contemplating building a new wall outside of the existing outer wall with insulation in between the two.

Bypassing the electricity meter?

Del _{<Baaad kitty>}

Grow houses do that around here. (illegal MJ)

Some times the bypass ends up burning the house down. Which would be great for keeping warm short term. And for roasting marshmellows.

I'm sure you've heard the old saw - build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a day - SET a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his life!