Cali to Pa need help coal/oil/wood furnace!! (Altoona: apartment, rent)

[mcorrales]

We moved from Orange County in Southern California to the small town of Gallitzin, PA in June. Absolutely love it here but have one problem. The cost to heat our house (1800 square feet, 1950's home) using oil is killing us! We have a combination furnace, oil/wood/coal. How do we use the coal and wood part? Oil prices and being used to being warm is breaking the bank! $1600 so far this year and we will need to fill our tank once more at a cost of about another $650. I need info on what type of wood or coal to use, how to use it and what to expect. I used a coal furnace in the 1970's when I lived in Cherry Tree but forget pretty much what I knew then and need all the info/help/support I can get. I love it here, would not go back to California if you paid me, but help me with my heating problems. You can also email me with any help at milliecorrales@yahoo.com


Thanks

[Azkadellia]

Question:

Does the furnace have an owner's manual? I mean, did the previous owners/tenants leave it behind?

If not, make note of the brand and model, and contact a dealer in the area that sells the same brand and ask them. That's where I'd start.

[orion4461]

Originally Posted by mcorrales

We moved from Orange County in Southern California to the small town of Gallitzin, PA in June. Absolutely love it here but have one problem. The cost to heat our house (1800 square feet, 1950's home) using oil is killing us! We have a combination furnace, oil/wood/coal. How do we use the coal and wood part? Oil prices and being used to being warm is breaking the bank! $1600 so far this year and we will need to fill our tank once more at a cost of about another $650. I need info on what type of wood or coal to use, how to use it and what to expect. I used a coal furnace in the 1970's when I lived in Cherry Tree but forget pretty much what I knew then and need all the info/help/support I can get. I love it here, would not go back to California if you paid me, but help me with my heating problems. You can also email me with any help at milliecorrales@yahoo.com


Thanks

u think that is bad try living in vermont it is almost double that in price
owning my own maint home bussiness i have helped many poor people with their heating bills---#1. make sure ur attic and basement has at least 12 inches of insulation #2 make sure all of ur windows are caulked in #3 make sure any drafts in your walls (cold spots) are fixed---i have seen up to a 35% savings in heating peoples in their homes just doing this
RichModerator cut: advertising is not allowed

[jonny_quest]

I can't offer much more help other than to reinforce that you should contact the manufacturer before throwing anything in there, but I do have a question...
Why on earth did you make that move??? I'm sort of looking at Orange CA as a potential area to move to (since I'm young and single) and can't imagine why anyone would give that up for po-dunkville Pennsyltucky unless family was a large issue.

[mcorrales]

No, family was not an issue as I have 7 grandkids and 3 daughters still in LA/OC, I have lived in LA/OC most of my life and it is not a place to live for any length of time. I brought my DIL, son and their two kids with me. Even with the slump going on now with the housing market, a fixer upper is going to cost at least $650k and rent on a one bedroom apt is going to cost about $1200 a month with no utilities included, gas is right now at $3.53 a gallon, car insurance is high, registration fees on your vehicles is out of sight (what you own is what you pay), high illegal population (not racist, last name is corrales, grandkids are santanas) but it is hard to feel like a foreigner in your own country. Cannot go anywhere without hitting traffic (weekends included). Disneyland for the day is not possible without spending about $500 for a family of four. Go to the beach and spend an hour getting there from 7 miles away, spend two hours looking for a place to park at $15-20 for the day, and you will get a stamp sized piece of sand and no one around you speaks English. There are dirty diapers left on the sand, beer is being drank and the bottles left on the beach and it is just not fun. Half the time during the summer the beaches are closed due to sewage spills, etc. SoCal used to be nice, I was raised there, graduated high school, college, etc. but it is now a nightmare. You will move into a one bedroom apartment and go by the rules of 1-2 occupants only to find that your neighbors are sleeping guys in shifts in their apartment to pay the rent and send their money to their homeland and families there and the complex starts going downhill and before you know it, the majority of the building is doing this and by the time management reacts, it is too late. Unless you can afford to live in one of the "ritzy" areas like Malibu, Agoura, Newport Beach, South OC, forget it. it is just one big, huge place where you do not know your neighbors, nor do you really want to. The gangs are taking over even the nice areas. The nightly news is nothing but shootings, murders, children killed by drive by shootings, etc. Been here since June and I love it, don't mind the snow and loved the summer and fall. I can afford a four bedroom, three bath house here with a bit of land and now know my neighbors. People here are welcoming to you and there are no murders nor shootings here, Altoona maybe not here in my town. The schools are good, parental support excellent and many community churches and activities. Here you can go to dinner and a movie without it breaking the bank. Never will I live back in Orange County, I will visit and my family there can visit me, but to live. No way.

[PATRAIN]

We live in a 1800sf 2 story home in northern Dauphin, Pa and our oil bill runs about 150.00 to 200.00 a month during the winter. It used to be alot more expensive when we had a 30 year old furnace. We replaced it with a York low-density furncace/ 90% efficiency. Cut our bill in half. However, this 1910 house has a great feature....no open staircase. It was built with a door at the bottom and top. That helps alot...it also has two zones....one for upstairs and one for downstairs...I recently installed two digital thermostats...when we come down stairs in the morning the top floor goes to 50 degrees until we get home from work, then automatically goes to 67 degrees at @ 8pm. It is a boiler and does heat our water. It also has a 40 gallon reserve tank that has electric coils to keep it warm.........When we lived in Altoona...our 3800sf home was heated with gas....it started to cost @ 900.00 mo. two years ago and we sold quick........

[Chapy]

Do a search for coal forum and you will find all the info you need.

[kpoeppel]

Gallitzin, PA. That's right on the crest of the Allegheny Mountains by the famous "Horseshoe Curve" right?

I think you made the right decision getting out of CA. I'm a western PA native, I lived in CA for 3 months and hated it. 600k for a crapply little house, illegals taking over, extreme liberal culture, etc.

Anyway, have you calculated how much it would cost to add insulation? A ton of heat is lost through windows, I actually put several layers of bubble wrap on some of my windows that I don't need to see though. Do you have "storm windows"?

[JAG_HRD]

Watch out kpoeppel, there are a lot of Liberals moving to PA. Taking back America from the corporations.

[idesignstuff]

this post is long over, but I highly recommend a pellet stove, installed you can get one for about 1100, then pellets run about 180 a month if that. I currently live in West Virginia, we have electric,propane,huge wood burning stove and the pellet. the pellet has been the most efficient and the least costly. Wood burning is a good price, but a load of difficult work