What do you use?

[madman4570]

Ya, a cold night is a 2 doger
a real cold night is a 3 doger

Those weiner dogs(dashunds) work great for that!

[Blaine]

Ya, a cold night is a 2 doger
a real cold night is a 3 doger

Those weiner dogs(dashunds) work great for that!

Yup Thor on my lap covered with a light sweater and it's summertime

[madman4570]

God Love Dogs!

[stretch]

Hey, madman - sorry not to reply - I missed your post.

I have an Englander 25PDVC - the smallest one they make.
My ranch is about 26 x 44, and it heats it on all but the coldest
of nights. I burn about 4.5 tons of pellets a year.

Tonight might be below zero and there is a howling wind out of the
NW, so I might have to either bump the oil for a little bit tomorrow
morning or just let the little portableceramic heater take the chill
off the house.

The little Englander is a little bit more maintenance intensive than some
of the other designs, but I think this is my 6th winter using it. I never run it
flat out, either. Installation took about an afternoon out of the wall in
my daylight basement. It uses less electricity than the oil furnace, too.

-Stretch

[madman4570]

stretch,
That is awesome! Is your's in the basement?
I have found pellet brand makes a world of difference.
Best I have found is Hamer's Hot One's.Made almost entirely out of Red Oak.
My stove is only 0-42000 BTU,It's right now 3 degres with 27mph NW wind!
I have it set at a little less than halfway.I have a 3500 sq ft 9ft ceilings 14 room home.
I have it on the first floor(have 16 28"x60" windows.Though the upsatirs is cooler because
my staircase is enclosed.So in our Master Bedroom upstairs tonight I might have the pelonis on low.
otherwise downstairs it's currently 78 degrees.If the wife would let me,I would install a couple old type iron
grate vents in the ceiling and just open them to let more heat up quicker in the second floor.

[brucew44guns]

propane furnace in the country of Kansas. But Im considering buying and putting an outdoors wood stove boiler. 400 gallons of water at 180 degrees, circulating through underground insulated pipes and through a heat exchanger on the forced air furnace. They are neat installations, only load wood in the thing once a day, heats 8,000 foot home if you got one that big, and all the mess is outside. I have acres of thick standing hardwood. Might even put an exchanger in the barn, keep the cats warm!!

[madman4570]

ya, they are a nice unit!

[madman4570]

So gang, How we all doing so far this winter with the heat.
I just broke open the sealed wrapping starting on the 3rd skid of wood pellets.
So far have only used 2 tons(I have kept all the ashes so far in a 5 gallon pal(about 3/4 full)
I am just amazed that wood can be burned and be that effcient.
For us here,This winter has been much warmer than last,so that explains why
the pellet useage is even lower than last year.

I just keep thinking how can you burn wood all winter(so far) and have not even filled a 5 gallon pal with ashes ? I wish I bought this Harman way back. Figured it has already paid for itself in this second year since purchased. Hopefully rest of winter will continue to be as easy! Good Luck to all
Stay Warm!

[shooter]

Electric heat pump and a fireplace. When I have a fire in the fireplace I turn the electric heat off. My fireplace heats up the front of the house (biggest part of the house) to about 75 degrees. We have blankets in the bedroom, so no heat is needed in there. It's kinda cold when I get up in the morning, but that helps wake me up . I don't like paying the electric bill when I use it exclusively to heat the house, even though the heat pump is more efficient than an electric furnace, which I also have as a backup if it gets too cold. I've turned on the furnace only a couple of times this winter.

[mescalero1]

Airtight wood stove,
solar panels on the roof run hot liquid through the second water heater to the two radiators on opposing sides of the living room during the day on thermostat demand switches, pump power provided by photovoltaic cell.
Kerosun heater for space heating( before shower )
propane to central heating ( not utilized very much )
28 years in Phoenix has instilled in me a need for warmth!

[brno602]

80% wood 20% NG. Mild winter this year only really cold back in Dec a few -40° nights Large woodstove in Shop and a Stove and Fireplace in the home can keep the home at 75° even on the coldest nights. We use about 6 cords of Pine a year for the house and 1.5 for the shop. I love cutting firewood but I do have a small hyd splitter to make it easy.
Fir is the best wood I can get, like it more than Birch but most of it is pine with a bit of Aspen/Poplar

[stretch]

Hey, madman!

I'm into the 3rd ton of pellets this year. It's been a mild winter,
and I'm thinking I won't use more than 4 tons this year.

Pellet quality is all over the map around here. The very, very best
I ever had were from my native state of - you guessed it - Pennsylvania!
They were red oak as well. Most of the pellets around here are a
hardwood/softwood mix, and come out of Canada. I had some Lowe's
hardwood out of North Carolina that were pretty good, too. I'm burning
up the last of them now. The suppliers seem to change from year to
year, and it's quite difficult to get the same exact brand of pellets each
time. Energex out of Canada is pretty uniform. They're not the best, but
they are far from the worst and not too expensive. I bought some made
locally that were absoluetly appalling - filthy dirty, and with two or three
times the ash of any other brand. I think I bought three tons at once
because of the price! 100% hardwood pellets are available if
one looks hard enough, but I'm too cheap to pay the $40 or $50 more
per ton for them.

I've only burnt about a chord of wood so far to keep the garage warm.
Usually it's two or so, but it's been the warm winter, and I also insulated
the garage doors this last fall. That made a HUGE difference - unbelievable!

What part of northern PA are you from? My dad grew up in Throop.

-Stretch

[madman4570]

Sounds like all you guys are making it through the winter pretty darn good, and have some cool ways you are heating your homes.

stretch,
From Bradford County!

[Lastmohecken]

I have a propane fired package unit, (central heat and air) and a wood stove. I live in a two story house, with the wood stove more or less in the middle of the lower floor. Most years I used the wood stove as a backup, in case of a power failure, but propane is a lot higher then it used to be, even though I am lucky and get my propane at the lower agricultural pricing.

The last couple of years I have burnt mostly wood. I did a little research and figured out that, by cutting a few old time heat registers in the second floor, I could get the heat to travel mostly through convection through out the house, and it works pretty good. I do have my thermostat set to kick on the propane furnace if the wood burns down too low, by morning.

We don't measure wood by the cord down here. We use a unit of measure called a rick. A Rick of wood is 8 ft long x 4 ft high, x however long you want your stove wood. I burn 8 to 10 ricks a year. I have been paying a couple of boys to cut it, haul it, and stack it for me, for about 35 dollars a rick, but this year I paid them 40 to help them out. I like to buy my wood a year in advance, so it's seasoned good.

I like burning wood, and I need the excercise anyway.

[RIHMFIRE]

heat pump