So...How will we be heating our homes this winter.

[Ralph]

I see a lot of threads involving the price of gasoline and ideas on how we are going to get from point A to point B in a less costly & more efficient manner.

I haven't seen much on heating our homes though. Here in New England most houses use heating oil which is looking like it's going to be in the $4.00/gallon range by fall.

It was bad enough last winter @ $2.25 gallon so I'm starting to wonder about some cheaper ways to heat my home....starting with a pellet stove.

My biggest concern on that is I'm not the only one thinking this...so what might happen to the supply of and cost of pellets.

My home is allready well insulated-tankless water heater-and weather stripped so not much to do there.

I'm also wondering at what point does electric become more cost-effective than heating oil
and how you might calculate that.

I remember being a kid in the 50's helping my dad re-finish an upstairs room. He installed electric baseboards & I still remember him telling me how electricity was eventually going to be nearly free (due to nuclear power).....

Just curious if anybody has any ideas on alternative heating methods for the winter--esp the pros & cons of pellet stoves.........

[soylent]

In general the likely candidates are district heating, heat pumps or some kind of biomass like pellets.

Combined heat and power is probably not very useful in low population areas unless you've got some very small CHP plants. Heat pumps come in either air source or ground source varieties; ground source being more efficient and much more of a hassle to install. Pellets I haven't read too much about.

[XBoxWarrior]

Same way as last winter...dead trees in the wood burner.

One of the benefits of living in the forest...plenty of dead trees. I usually cut my own wood in my sub-division, keeps neighboring lots free of fire fuel.

However, my KWH's only cost me 7.5 cents ($US). So if I had to 'buy' wood, it comes out to be a wash...about $150.00 a month to heat my 1500sqf cabin. Wood costs about $130 a cord, and I could burn a little more than a cord a month. (Never burnt the pellets, as it requires a special stove)

Sure the wood stove makes for a dusty cabin, but I love the smell.

When it gets really cold (-10/20 f) I have to turn on the baseboards...I just hate giving money to the power vendor. I would rather pay the hippy firewood dude and keep the money in the mountains. Plus, he needs the money to buy weed...

[kerikiwi]

Or move to a place with a decent climate.

[mhaze]

Get an Energy bill passed thru Congress that has actual energy in it - not consumer subsidies, not inefficient greenie schemes that leave you in the cold, but actual energy incentives - drilling, new refineries, oil, natural gas, loads of nuclear.

[portlandatheist]

I bought my house in 2001 and had oil heat @ $.88/gallon. I switched to Natural Gas in 2004 and I also have a fireplace. $4/gallon is bad but what if this trend continues at its current rate? A few years we could have $8. I have no idea if that will happen but I think we should consider it a possibility and prepare. I intend on buying a cord of wood this summer and am very curious on what other people are considering for their home heating solutions looking down the road. I would also like to add that a heated home is certainly nice, but in my climate (the Pacific Northwest) it really is a luxury. We could all manage with well insulated homes, sweaters, and extra blankets as it rarely gets below freezing. If I don't use any heat at all and it is in the 30's outside, my house will cool to the mid 50's. Body heat, lighting, computers, TV, etc do heat the house somewhat in a well insulated house.

[portlandatheist]

Get an Energy bill passed thru Congress that has actual energy in it - not consumer subsidies, not inefficient greenie schemes that leave you in the cold, but actual energy incentives - drilling, new refineries, oil, natural gas, loads of nuclear.

If we don't pull our heads out of or butts and develop nuclear, we'll soon be heating our homes with coal!

[a_unique_person]

Using oil to heat a home is an incredible waste of a high value energy source. We used to use it in Australia years ago, but stopped doing so.

[TX50]

I wear woollen clothes and wrap blankets around myself.
I never heat my places of residence - even in the coldest
winters here in wonderful Northern Europe (I think I must
have some Neanderthal genes).

[mhaze]

Using oil to heat a home is an incredible waste of a high value energy source. We used to use it in Australia years ago, but stopped doing so.

Yes, you import oil, and export uranium and coal. Coal is your energy source for powerplants, at least until people down under wise up a bit.

[Boo]

Unless my landlord converts to something other than oil I have no choice. We'll simply layer on the clothes, turn everything way down and by lots of down comforters. The other option is to see if we can squeeze six people into a smaller home or find something we can afford that isn't heated with oil.



Boo

[Damien Evans]

Yes, you import oil, and export uranium and coal. Coal is your energy source for powerplants, at least until people down under wise up a bit.

If by that you mean Nukular (sic) then It won't happen in the foreseeable future, as The Greens would just use their balance of power in the senate to block it, and unfortunately they actually are committed to their ideals and can't be bought off.

We are starting to do wind farming though, and solar power has been growing in the last few years.

ETA: Oh, and we also export quite a bit of oil.

[grayman]

If we don't pull our heads out of or butts and develop nuclear, we'll soon be heating our homes with coal!

If you heat with electricity, then there's a good chance that you are indirectly already heating with coal.

My home is heated by propane. Our supplier sent me a notice that for the next year, my monthly bill will be $200.00 a month, up from $153.00 that was paid last year.

[GreyICE]

Electricity is horrible. You are burning a fuel substance to get electricity, transmitting it over the lines, then using it for 1:1 heat gains.

That makes it about 40-50% efficient.

A good boiler is about 80+% efficient

A Heat Pump using geothermal piping is about 400-600% efficient.

Needless to say, I foresee many, many, many heat pumps in our future.

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Wood in an outside wood burner, no smoke or mess inside the house and the wood is just left over from my work, that and free natural gas and oil work well.

In the winter here electricity propane, and oil can not be relied on.

[plumjam]

Seeing this coming I sold the penthouse and moved into a barn, where I get heat from below from 3 heifers, 2 sows, 6 goats, a ewe, and 8 chickens.
I can't wait to tot up my winter savings this year.
Among other things.

[godless dave]

I'll be using natural gas like I always have.

[mhaze]

Seeing this coming I sold the penthouse and moved into a barn, where I get heat from below from 3 heifers, 2 sows, 6 goats, a ewe, and 8 chickens.
I can't wait to tot up my winter savings this year.
Among other things.Start the winter warm and thin, end it cold and fat?

What, we still have winters? Cold winters that seem to be getting colder? What happened to all that global warming?;)

[godless dave]

Expanding on my flip answer above, is the problem in New England that people don't want to pay to install gas furnaces, or that public utilities don't have gas lines running to people's houses? Do the same people that have oil furnaces have to have electric ranges because there's no gas to the house?

Houses where I live have gas run to them by a public utility as a matter of course. Lots of houses out in rural areas don't have public gas (or sewer) even when they have electricity, but they wouldn't get oil delivery either so they heat with propane or LP - which, come to think of it, are also petroleum products, unlike natural gas.