Heating choice (living, heating bill, eat)

[maureengld]

Heat w/ coal. Its sold in 40 lb bags...no dust....toasty warm and dirt cheap. 325 for 2k lbs.. can heat the house nicely for 2 mos w/ that

[Elcarim]

Admitting up front that I'm just getting into this thread and haven't read all the way through.......... Do you need a special stove/furnace for heating with coal? IOW, could you burn coal or wood in the same receptacle?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

Admitting up front that I'm just getting into this thread and haven't read all the way through.......... Do you need a special stove/furnace for heating with coal? IOW, could you burn coal or wood in the same receptacle?

There are 'receptacles' that will burn wood, or coal / peat.

[chaosX5]

I have read through many threads about heating options, and have learned a lot. Wood will be our first choice....but no one has mentioned masonry heaters (aka finnish or russian fireplaces) There's a guy in Maine who sells the "core" or a finished product. I would love to hear if they really work as well as their supposed to. Does anyone know anything about them?

And by the way, it's really nice to have so many options for heat, if you live in a warm climate and want to cool down (AC) it's usually electric and your stuck with whatever the power company charges!

Thank you for any info you all might have.

[boonelsewhere]

We are looking to use Stelpro or Cadet electric heating to supplement/ backup the wood stove. has any one experience with those brands.
thanks, boon.

[Todd1962]

Originally Posted by starwalker

that 50,000 figure is the ballpark where we are looking for a home, and for that price you are GOING TO get a house with issues. One that we almost bought (we were not here yet) for somewhat less than that, on a couple of acres, I hired a home inspector to look over since I couldn't be here. His report started out "I wouldn't turn on the electric..." and that was the GOOD part. We looked at the place personally when we got here and I can only say, he was very kind. It had been flooded in the past, had only had cosmetic work done, was growing fungus in the closet and the main beams in the basement (ALL OF THEM) were 4' unpeeled birch. Another set of similar trees had been added at some point to shore the place up and then, even later, rough-cut (actual 4"x6") lumber and it was all rotten enough you could poke a nail in by hand. Sills were as bad, who knows about the bottom part of the walls...

Most homes in that price range will be older, have similar issues at best. then there are the old trailers... you find a lot of them in that price range too. Possibly in better shape, possibly not.

...

that being said, yeah, you can find something in that range, I think, but it will take looking hard once you get here. We have issues that require us to be within an hour or so of Bangor for my clients and also require us to have high speed Internet connectivity for my work from home. Without those needs, the pool would be larger.

...building and designing for cold climates, alternative energy etc. I raised my family "off grid" (not in the home we built... we have moved a bit) and though my alternative energy knowledge is from the early 90s, I believe it is still valid. We did not have a lot of $$ then, or now, so "creative solutions" on a shoestring are something I understand.

I really am glad I found this forum. Thanks for all the good advice. I have very recently (in the last week) came up with the idea and decided to move to Maine, looking at Millinocket. I want to go somewhere that is pretty and nice and where houses are cheap enough that I can live off a low budget and not be a wage slave. (also things are not going well at the job and I expect to be out of it soon).

I was SO excited about seeing houses for $ 24,000 and 30's and 40's. Then I heard about the heating bills, which I hadn't considered. I was just thinking that I could manage $ 200 or $ 300 a month for a mortgage. Now I'm a bit nervous. I can do some things, but I don't know much about carpentry and electricity and plumbing. I need internet connection too to work. What do people do in the small towns and in country cabins to get Internet?

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Todd1962

I really am glad I found this forum. Thanks for all the good advice. I have very recently (in the last week) came up with the idea and decided to move to Maine, looking at Millinocket. I want to go somewhere that is pretty and nice and where houses are cheap enough that I can live off a low budget and not be a wage slave. (also things are not going well at the job and I expect to be out of it soon).

I was SO excited about seeing houses for $ 24,000 and 30's and 40's. Then I heard about the heating bills, which I hadn't considered. I was just thinking that I could manage $ 200 or $ 300 a month for a mortgage. Now I'm a bit nervous. I can do some things, but I don't know much about carpentry and electricity and plumbing. I need internet connection too to work. What do people do in the small towns and in country cabins to get Internet?

Maine has a bunch of tiny little phone companies.

I was scared at first. Thinking how is this little group of backwoods goof balls going to keep us updated with the good stuff.

But as we are here, I am amazed. In my township we have like a house every 1/2 mile or so, but we all have DSL.

Go to any of our surrounding towns that use one of the BIG phone companies, and they dont have DSL.

On this forum, I have been reading about folks dealing with Verizon / Fairpoint.

I am so glad that we settled in a tiny town with a tiny phone company

Apparantly the BIG corporations do not care about individual customers.

Whereas the tiny companies are more concerned that if they mess with their customers, those customers are their neighbors, children's teachers, and oil delivery guy. So they really 'want' to be good to their customers.

[takagi1901]

Improved Russian masonry heater suitable for heating and cooking or only for cooking in the summer/warm periods.
I think, it is not for average person even with the building plan ( layer by layer brick laying). Mason would figure that out. They are substantial, traditionally have a couple of sleeping places on top for younger/older people- good for your bones- mild, gentle, radiating heat
Here is the link, if anyone interested, how to build one:

Ðóññêàÿ ïå÷ü XX âåêà — «Òåïëóøêà-15» (http://www.besthome.ru/arrange/info/heating/heating_274.html - broken link)

One room masonry heaters are popular in Norway, they sell in US for 10K, come disassembled, but numbered, use very little wood, need 1 short burn a day only, keep room warm for 24 hours, there was an article in "This Old House" few years ago about them. They do not take too much room (corner of the room)

Regarding how much firewood the wood lot can grow: an average 1 acre will grow 1/3 of firewood and still have all the trees (will not change the appearance, as if nothing was taken)

[takagi1901]

I meant 1/3 cord of firewood per acre

[cdodge04]

Anyone else in the Belfast area heating with a pellet stove?