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I'd like to hear some opinions regarding home heating obtions and your personal thoughts on the best prices. Gas, natural or propane, electric, oil, wood or any other ideas. Just curious... Thanks ahead of time.........
I prefer cooking with gas but heating with electric. I would rather have a bill each month from the electric company than a huge bill every 3-4 months from the gas company for heating. Wood I've never tried so I can't help you there. It just never seemed safe to me, and then there is the cleaning up of ashes and soot, etc. Not for me.
I prefer eelctric ari conditioning and natural gas heating. Electric is just too high cost unless you get a heat pump and then it needs supplemnt below freezing.Natural gas heating is clean and if it were not you certinly would want to cook with it on vented as done.The cost difference is substancial beteen the two.
I'd like to hear some opinions regarding home heating obtions and your personal thoughts on the best prices. Gas, natural or propane, electric, oil, wood or any other ideas. Just curious... Thanks ahead of time.........
It's going to depend partly on whether you live in the country or in the city.
In the country you'll probably want to go with LP Gas heat. In most cities you can't have an LP tank on your property, but they have Natural Gas.
For the most part, gas is cheaper to heat with than electric.
Fuel Oil heat is sort of a thing of the past - utilized mostly in the Northeast part of the US. Years ago I lived in a Fuel Oil Furnace heated house, and everything eventually had a very thin sooty film on it.
Wood heat is great, but requires a lot of extra work. If you have a fireplace, and want the wood to actually be efficient and heat the house, you'll need an insert - preferably with a fan to move the warm air.
Very interesting but not suprising posts! We live in the country--real country and of course we only have propane and electric. I miss a fireplace or even a wood stove. I guess since I was raised with such I never really noticed the extra work. Our home we bought a few years ago here only has propane gas heat and a heat pump in the den, no fireplace or wood stove (yet)! It is something I am considering since paying $240.00 for gas for one month! I know it has been exceptionally cold so far this year but that is really high. Our home is well insulated but DH keeps the heat a littler higher then necessary I think! I just love the smell of wood burning and the kind of heat it has. It also seems to just cheer up a home to me. We really don't have a particular place to put a wood stove but hey we can always make a place I would think. I know wood is not cheap either but there seems to be an abundance of dead/fallen trees etc. around our area that perhaps could be bought at a good price. At least generally a wood stove takes the smaller pieces.....
Last edited by cynwldkat; 01-04-2010 at 10:42 AM..
Offhand, for a rural application where you can probably get a good deal on wood, and with natural gas not being availble, think about a good high-efficiency wood stove, if you are close enough to the northeast to get anthracite coal, think about coal, if you have room for it, consider a ground-water sourced heat pump.
Propane costs are so high anymore that it's not worth considering as a primary space heating source. If you prefer a gas range, fine, use propane, although it will cost more than electric.
If you want to think outside the box, how about one of the corn-burning stoves that operate about like a pellet stove? If you can get a good source of feed corn that's spoiled, not fit for feed anymore, you can get that really cheap.
I agree that fuel oil tends to be dirty, and the price on it will curl your hair. Not really worth considering.
IMHO the ultimate red-neck heating setup would be a ground-source heat pump with a good woodstove as a power-outage backup and morale enhancer.
If you aren't going to use central heating, the ventless gas heaters work wonderfully. I only have one and use a seperate smaller heater with a thermostat in the bedroom, but it works with convection and despite still too many air leaks it keeps the inside liveable when its in the 20's or lower. Mine works with either natural gas or propane. You can even get them where they have a fireplace style look and frame.
My little house is only 700 sf so putting in anything but seperate units seemed overkill. And the 4k for a central heating unit seemed a bit high.
The other advantage of the small heater I have is that if your area has power issues it is manually lit and run. It does have an electric fan but runs fine without it too.
The one drawback to any kind of individual unit is you are not advised to keep them on when you leave. If you have pets who aren't heavily coated or have medical issues or you don't like coming home to a really cold house it is a consideration.
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