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Hi all
I am looking into options on how to heat house, during moderate PacNW winters, without external source of heat. Should it be propane, natural gas or electricity. I am referring to space heater. Just to warm up lower few rooms, while we can close the rest of the place.
Pretty much, I am looking into inside cave man source of heat. Oil burning, wood burning, something that can get you by safely, without setting house on fire or poisoning.
I already have interior use gas heater, but it works of propane cylinders thus, it is relying on external supply of them.
I am literally looking into something primitive. I can start saving oil from oil changes on our cars, that will give me gallons of it. We have woods around that can be cut and turned into source of heat. Except that wood burning heaters, for reason unknown to me, are very expensive.
Hi all
I am looking into options on how to heat house, during moderate PacNW winters, without external source of heat. Should it be propane, natural gas or electricity. I am referring to space heater. Just to warm up lower few rooms, while we can close the rest of the place.
Pretty much, I am looking into inside cave man source of heat. Oil burning, wood burning, something that can get you by safely, without setting house on fire or poisoning.
I already have interior use gas heater, but it works of propane cylinders thus, it is relying on external supply of them.
I am literally looking into something primitive. I can start saving oil from oil changes on our cars, that will give me gallons of it. We have woods around that can be cut and turned into source of heat. Except that wood burning heaters, for reason unknown to me, are very expensive.
Any ideas?
Thank you
Don't understand what you mean by no "external" heat. AFAIK there are no utilities that deliver heat to a house except geothermal. You either have utilities that deliver power to operate a heater, or they deliver the combustible substance your house system burns to generate the heat (gas, oil). You still have to pay for either the power or the combustible. If you want to be totally self-contained it could be a wood burning heat source or solar or wind power. You pay to install and maintain those.
Wood burning appliances may be expensive to install initially, but they last a long time if they are maintained. Of course you have to manage your wood properly and that takes a lot of time and energy...unless you pay someone to do it for you. Someone has to fell the timber, store it, season it, and reduce it to the size your wood burner can handle. Yes, an improperly installed wood burner can burn down your house. So can any other heat source!
Also consider that just closing off parts of a house needs to be done carefully. Not heating the structure can damage it if it just sits cold and moist month after month. Condensation build up or freeze damage. Even in the PacNW it can get cold enough to freeze pipes in unheated walls. No predicting when that might happen.
Last edited by Parnassia; 08-30-2020 at 12:32 PM..
External source of heat is something you have to have supplied to have heat inside the house.
Propane. Electricity. Oil. Wood. Wind. Water. Natural gas. All those are external, outside of your house, materials, that are currently provided for various devices in the house, to produce heat.
I am literally looking into self sustained space heater that is safe to use inside and does not require electricity or propane tank or, for situations, when electricity is shut down. We live with septic and propane tank and electricity. I am finalizing backup generator install but, when propane runs out and there is no supply.... got to have something to warm up the place with at hand materials and some device, right? For about 2 months, winters do not last longer here.
When feces will hit the fan, no one will be enforcing local codes and regulation. Really. Where I live, no one inspects us on a regular basis.
Yes, something of that nature. I already started saving oil after oil changes. It'll burn. About the only problem is that the way house is, room where it needs to be installed does not really have space available for it. Seriously. I'll figure it out.
If you are looking to protect against a SHTF situation, this might not be the proper forum. Look up "barrel stove" and get a supply of wood delivered so that it can cure. BTDT, during the oil "crises" in Vermont. It get colder there for longer.
External source of heat is something you have to have supplied to have heat inside the house.
Propane. Electricity. Oil. Wood. Wind. Water. Natural gas. All those are external, outside of your house, materials, that are currently provided for various devices in the house, to produce heat.
I am literally looking into self sustained space heater that is safe to use inside and does not require electricity or propane tank or, for situations, when electricity is shut down. We live with septic and propane tank and electricity. I am finalizing backup generator install but, when propane runs out and there is no supply.... got to have something to warm up the place with at hand materials and some device, right? For about 2 months, winters do not last longer here.
When feces will hit the fan, no one will be enforcing local codes and regulation. Really. Where I live, no one inspects us on a regular basis.
?? Still don't understand what you want. Unless you plan to burn the wood that makes up the structure of your house in order to heat it, you need to bring in some sort of combustible fuel from outside. Gas, propane, oil, wood, something. You will need to buy fuel to run your backup generator too. Unless you create a source of methane gas on your property. Or build your own fission reactor.
Are you trying to describe something like a fuel cell?
You could use a solar or wind generator to charge a battery bank. A solar or wind system would supply power and/or heat but that depends on sunlight and wind...again, external to the house. At the time you are most likely to need heat, it could be raining, cloudy or snowing so a solar system might not work well right when you need it most. Same problem for wind...no wind, no power/heat.
You could always build a human-powered generator out of a stationary bike to run your heater. You'll stay warmer while you're generating the power too!
Re: waste oil heater...I grew up in a house (zone 5) that heated with oil-- 400 gal /winter...That's about 400 oil changes for the car; at 4 oil changes/ yr, it would take 100 yrs of waste oil to heat one season.
If you're preparing against a SHTF situation, then a wood burning stove is easily the best choice: no electricity needed for fans, thermostats, etc. You can use anything that will burn as fuel.
I heat with wood burning furnace/hydronic in-floor piping (zone 4). Keeping the problem of thermal inertia in mind, we don't fire it up until mid-November. For those cold days that pop up in Oct/early Nov, we use an electric space heater ("2 speed"-- 1000W & 1500W) as needed. Our grid juice runs us with taxes etc ~17c/kW-hr. It only runs for a few minutes each hour, so costs are under a buck a day.
We have passive solar and wood heat, with a heat pump backup. The wood burning fireplace insert has a big firebox, so it can use big pieces of wood that will burn all night.
The routine was get up for work at 6, load half a dozen small (2") rounds into the firebox on top of last night's coals. Take a shower. The rounds would be burning merrily, so dry off and get dressed in front of the insert, have breakfast, and head to work. By the time I left, the rounds would have burned down to coals.
During the day, a wall of U.36 window glass on the south side of the house would shine on a tile floor. Cement board and tile were only about a ton of thermal mass, but it would keep the house warm all day, and for an hour or so after sunset.
Upon getting home from work, clean out wood ashes and light a fresh fire for the evening. We kept the heat pump thermostat set for 60 degrees, and it only came on when we were gone overnight.
Wood came from our own acreage, where wood was falling off of trees faster than we could burn it. The key to wood labor is a big firebox. It minimizes splitting. The key to wood efficiency is dry wood. Keep a year's supply in the wood shed, don't try to store it outdoors where it can get rained on.
Turn the septic into a methane producer- use that to fuel your heater. You created the gas- why not use it to fuel your heater?
You could also have sex like a rabbit- creates a lot of heat; but probably only lasts a minute or two!
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I already started saving oil after oil changes. It'll burn. About the only problem is that the way house is, room where it needs to be installed does not really have space available for it. Seriously. I'll figure it out.
