questions about propane heaters for supplemental heat ... I'm confused! (roof, fireplace, Home Depot)

[karen_in_nh_2012]

Hi, all. I currently have 2 main sources of heat for my 2,400-square-foot 2-story house: an oil furnace with forced-hot-air ductwork (oil is very common where I live) and a pellet insert in my living room fireplace (pellets are also pretty common). The oil furnace died back in late January and I am STILL waiting for estimates to replace it. Since I had the pellet insert (which is normally my 1st choice anyway), I wasn't too worried -- until it, too, died a week ago (this was a few days after I did a one-ton cleaning, so I know that's not the issue, alas). The dealer won't be able to come look at it until next week so I have been using space heaters. Not fun, and my electric bill will be insane.

I am thinking of buying a couple of propane heaters for supplemental heat AND for use in case of power outages (which are quite rare in my neighborhood, but of course completely unpredictable -- and if I have no electricity, I have no heat with ANY of my other sources). This one has great reviews: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DPZ59U2/ . Note, again, this would be SUPPLEMENTAL or emergency heat -- not something I'd be using every day.

My biggest question is about how you attach the propane tank to the unit (trying to figure out how difficult these would be to install). I've read some things that say the tank should not be in the same room as the heater (duh, that makes sense), but does that mean you have to drill a hole through an exterior wall for the connection to the tank outside? I have looked through a couple of manuals but neither is clear on this (which makes me think THEY think the answer is obvious -- but I have no clue).

Note, I have a 100 lb. propane tank (no natural gas where I live, alas) just outside my screened porch, which itself is just outside my living room. (My water heater and clothes dryer both run on propane, and when I remodel my kitchen in 2-3 years, my stove will run on it too!) I could have the company that owns the tank come and put in another couple of lines (one to the living room, which is only a few feet away from the tank, and one to the TV room, which is on the other side of the house so about 60-70' away). Is that the way to go? (Some reviewers write of using 20-lb. tanks like the kind you can use for outdoor barbecues, but I can't figure out how you would attach them?)

ANY help/explanation would be really appreciated!! I like to understand how things work, so the more detailed, the better (assume I know nothing ... which, alas, is the case when it comes to this!).

Thanks in advance!

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012

The oil furnace died back in late January and I am STILL waiting for estimates to replace it.

In New Hampshire? I can't imagine.

I am thinking of buying a couple of propane heaters for supplemental heat
My biggest question is about how you attach the propane tank to the unit...

At 30,000 BTU each you'll need a rather big tank to use them for very long.
That tank and the pipe/tubing... would be installed by the propane supplier.

Note, I have a 100 lb. propane tank...

That might serve but ...

20lb tank = 430,000 btu ÷30,000 btu/hr appliance = 14hrs use
with "duty cycle" that should stretch out some... maybe 22 hours use.

All in all.. I'd be getting the oil burner/furnace job done.

[TrapperL]

Consider kerosene heaters.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Kerosene-...00-btu/2349688

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012

Since I had the pellet insert (which is normally my 1st choice anyway), I wasn't too worried -- until it, too, died a week ago (this was a few days after I did a one-ton cleaning, so I know that's not the issue, alas). The dealer won't be able to come look at it until next week so I have been using space heaters. Not fun, and my electric bill will be insane.

If you went with the coal as I originally suggested we would not be having this discussion. <insert poking in the eye smiley>

What is the brand on the pellet stove? If you bought a Harman or similar quality I'm surprised it's broken. If you bought a low quality unit in the $1000+/- range you are in for a bad ride.

That oil furnace can be replaced with coal and you can keep the wood pellet for emergencies. I'll convince you yet.

https://www.leisurelinestove.com/product/ak-110/

Here is a dealer, if they have any in stock they might be able to get right on it now.

Beard Brothers LLC
130 Wilson Road
Wilton, NH 03086

[harry chickpea]

Call the propane company. Most have units that they sell and install. You will likely need to upsize your tank.

[NVplumber]

Radiant LP space heaters are not recommended for heating inside the house. I'm assuming your talking about the "tank top" IR types? And those usually attach right to the tank. Thus the frowning upon for household heat. I'm inclined to agree with the poster who mentioned kerosene. Theres some very nice very economical kerosene unit out there. Has either your oil or pellet units been diagnosed as to what's wrong with them? They may not need to be replaced. Most operational issue with such units are electrical problems. Some piece of the redundant safety system like a flame sensor or vac switch etc. Full replacement would only be needed in the event of catastrophic failure. Cracked heat exchanger being the one that usually is the biggy that replacement is the only option.


With oil furnaces what I ran into the most problems with was in the ignitors burning out or atomizing jets plugging up. Problems that caused kickouts for flam failure. Newer units have an LED that will blink a diagnostic code. Which doesn't tell the exact issue but it puts a tech in the right area to look. Pellet stoves, newer ones anyway, are set up the same way as are LP and Nat gas. better than 90% of service issues turn out to be electrical in nature. Flame sensors, vac switches, relay, fuses, vent motors, transformers and such. They use a series circuit. One part goes, nothing works. Anywy, I'mjust curious why full replacement is being put out there. In 25 + years of heating service work on all fuel types I rarely ran into such catastrophic failures on newer units. Lots of dinosaurs I had to pull out, but Only a couple late 90s up did I see jut totaled. And those were due to...overzealous...customers who thought they could fix it themselves off the internet and tried bypassing safeties and such. Real horror stories I can tell.

[thecoalman]

Just to add as far as the emergency heat goes that insert I suggested to you many years ago did not require electric. If you find yourself in the position of looking to replace the pellet stove......

Other than that before spending money on anything like propane you can operate your primary heat for about a $500 investment. On the wall for you brand new coal furnace is the main power switch. They sell transfer switches just for them. The way this works is is when the power goes out there is going to be cord that you will connect to this switch, that cord goes to a small generator outside.

The switch, cord and generator might cost you like $400 plus what ever the electrician charges to install. You don't need a large generator.

You can do similar thing at the panel for the whole house but now you're getting into something that is going to cost you $2K minimum.

Neither of these solutions are instant on and require some effort to get up and running but they don't cost much either compared to instant on generators setups.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by NVplumber

Anywy, I'mjust curious why full replacement is being put out there. In 25 + years of heating service work on all fuel types I rarely ran into such catastrophic failures on newer units.

If an oil furnace was 1 day old I would suggest replacing it with coal or even gas if you have supply right to the house. She doesn't have gas supply so that is really not an option. Either would pay for themselves in about 3 or 4 years.

[NVplumber]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

If an oil furnace was 1 day old I would suggest replacing it with coal or even gas if you have supply right to the house. She doesn't have gas supply so that is really not an option. Either would pay for themselves in about 3 or 4 years.

I admit zero experience on coal, so I'm in no position to challenge your reasoning. However I'm still curious as to how she's arriving at having to fully replace the central oil and the pellet stove as well. LP and nat gas are the main unit in use around here with pellet running close. Oil in't that common for household heat. Most oil fired stuff here is for boilers. Some forced air but per capita not that much. Coal? I've seen one coal unit, and it was just a firebox type. Basically an overbuilt wood stove beefed up for the extra BTUs coal put out.


She does have an existing LP pipe system. If she really did HAVE to fully replace the central furnace that' the oute I would go. Personally. Though prices for LP have gotten truly ridiculous . We don't import but a drop in the ocean of LP. Better than 80% is produced domestically. The LP companies are just greedy.
They can follow oil prices so they do. They would still turn a handsome profit at 25% of current delivered prices. They just jack it up using "haz mat" fees and cry about "production cost". LP is a WASTE product of refining oil. Production cost my aching azz. Your coal suggestion seems logical, but I'm still doubting that the central oil furnace actually needs fully replaced.


For strict reasons of up front expense I'm thinking she needs a fully qualified (and hopefully honest enough) contractor to check it out. A new LP unit would cost considerably less than a new oil job, but the flue would need some mods, which might make that option less attractive price wise. I'd like to get eyes on both that oil and pellet unit. With the oil unit my guess is a plugged up nozzle or flame sensor and a flame sensor on the pellet unit. price on repairs would be around 200 bucks for such repairs around here. If the nozzle is hosed on he oil unit repair would be around 90 unless the nozzle needs replaced then its back to about 200. Just ballparking. I'm just not even convinced she had two back to back catastrophic failure that require a full replacement.


That she's gotten no response for estimates on an replace or repair mystifies me a well. Contractors there must be pretty fat and happy to ignore customers in such a manner. Even when I was super busy I NEVER just blew off someone with no heat. If I couldn't, just COULD'T get there I'd refer them to someone who could in a timely manner. Weird.

[karen_in_nh_2012]

You guys are all terrific, and I will rep you all as soon as I finish this post. First, let me answer some questions ...

Originally Posted by MrRational

In New Hampshire? I can't imagine.

At 30,000 BTU each you'll need a rather big tank to use them for very long.
That tank and the pipe/tubing... would be installed by the propane supplier.

That might serve but ...

20lb tank = 430,000 btu ÷30,000 btu/hr appliance = 14hrs use
with "duty cycle" that should stretch out some... maybe 22 hours use.

All in all.. I'd be getting the oil burner/furnace job done.

Oh, I'm definitely getting the oil furnace fixed (or replaced ), and I think the pellet insert will be pretty easy to re-start, it's just not something I know how to do myself (pull it out and do the deep, deep cleaning). But the propane heaters are really just for supplemental/emergency heat. I was seriously worried about power outages this past Tuesday when we had a big (freak) storm ... we were lucky in that the snow we got up here was the light fluffy stuff that is NOT likely to cause outages (the wet heavy stuff, and any ice storm, CAN and often does cause outages, which would be really devastating for me).

Originally Posted by TrapperL

Consider kerosene heaters.

I would consider kerosene heaters, except that they kind of scare me (and I acknowledge that that may be totally illogical), and I already have propane at my house, so it seems prudent to start there, no? I just did a quick check online and there seem to be way fewer kerosene dealers than propane in my neck of the woods (the boonies of southwest New Hampshire).

Originally Posted by thecoalman

If you went with the coal as I originally suggested we would not be having this discussion. <insert poking in the eye smiley>

Ah, but remember, there is exactly ONE coal dealer near where I live, and their prices were insane. I looked into this back in 2013 before I had the pellet insert installed ... remember?

Originally Posted by thecoalman

What is the brand on the pellet stove? If you bought a Harman or similar quality I'm surprised it's broken. If you bought a low quality unit in the $1000+/- range you are in for a bad ride.

The insert is a Harman 52i (and it cost several thousand dollars). Honestly, since it was installed in the fall of 2013 it's been great about 90-95% of the time. I have gotten very good at doing the once-a-ton cleaning, but I just passed 5 tons (255 bags of pellets) for this winter, so I did the "usual" cleaning at the 5-ton mark but that may not have been enough -- it's likely time for a deeper cleaning, the kind where you have to pull the whole unit out, and maybe clean from the chimney, down. I don't do that kind of cleaning (really don't want to be climbing around on my roof at my age!). This is only my fourth winter of using the insert so it's still pretty new and I think it will be fine. I normally have the dealer out to do a deep, deep cleaning once a year, so this year it's just coming a bit early -- not surprising given that I have not been able to use the oil furnace at all since mid- or late January, when it died.

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

Call the propane company. Most have units that they sell and install. You will likely need to upsize your tank.

I am going to do this, but honestly, their prices for the actual heating units are about two or three times what I can buy the units for on amazon or Home Depot or whatever. So I would rather buy the units myself, then just have the company install them.

I may very well need to double my tank capacity (from 100 lbs. to 200), but the company owns the tanks and so services/replaces them at no charge. There is plenty of room for a second tank if they need to install one, although since I would likely use the propane heaters for supplemental or emergency heat only, I may not even need a second tank. (Right now they fill the tank only about twice a year, and even then it's only a bit over half empty -- I just don't go through a lot of propane. So they might have to start coming more frequently in the winter instead of installing a second tank. Their call.)

Originally Posted by NVplumber

Radiant LP space heaters are not recommended for heating inside the house. I'm assuming your talking about the "tank top" IR types?

Alas, I have absolutely no idea what that means.

Originally Posted by NVplumber

And those usually attach right to the tank. Thus the frowning upon for household heat.

I'm a bit confused by this, since the items I am looking at are SOLD as supplemental heaters that don't require electricity to run (big plus in case of power outages). So can you clarify?

(I've seen some heaters -- like this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KRFVCKA/ -- that are used at job sites and/or in well-ventilated garages and that attach directly to the propane tank, but that is NOT the kind that I am thinking of buying. Maybe that's what you thought I was looking at?)

Originally Posted by NVplumber

Has either your oil or pellet units been diagnosed as to what's wrong with them? They may not need to be replaced. Most operational issue with such units are electrical problems. Some piece of the redundant safety system like a flame sensor or vac switch etc. Full replacement would only be needed in the event of catastrophic failure. Cracked heat exchanger being the one that usually is the biggy that replacement is the only option.

The oil furnace is very old (probably at least 20 years old) so it's likely just time for a new one. Honestly, that's fine, I have a "house emergency fund" that I put money into every month for just these kinds of things so I don't have to go into debt for them. Now, the pellet insert, that's a different matter -- I really do think (as I wrote earlier) that it just needs the deep, deep cleaning including the entire venting system (the once-a-ton cleaning that I do DOES clean out some of the venting system but not the whole thing).

Originally Posted by NVplumber

With oil furnaces what I ran into the most problems with was in the ignitors burning out or atomizing jets plugging up. Problems that caused kickouts for flam failure. Newer units have an LED that will blink a diagnostic code. Which doesn't tell the exact issue but it puts a tech in the right area to look. Pellet stoves, newer ones anyway, are set up the same way as are LP and Nat gas. better than 90% of service issues turn out to be electrical in nature. Flame sensors, vac switches, relay, fuses, vent motors, transformers and such. They use a series circuit. One part goes, nothing works.
Anywy, I'mjust curious why full replacement is being put out there. In 25 + years of heating service work on all fuel types I rarely ran into such catastrophic failures on newer units. Lots of dinosaurs I had to pull out, but Only a couple late 90s up did I see jut totaled. And those were due to...overzealous...customers who thought they could fix it themselves off the internet and tried bypassing safeties and such. Real horror stories I can tell.

I suspect I may have a dinosaur.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

If an oil furnace was 1 day old I would suggest replacing it with coal or even gas if you have supply right to the house. She doesn't have gas supply so that is really not an option. Either would pay for themselves in about 3 or 4 years.

Again, basically no COAL supply up here ... one local dealer is not good for pricing.

Well, again, thank you all for the very helpful replies ... I will keep you posted! Am hoping to have the Harman dealer out next week so at least my kitties can enjoy the living room again.