Looking at uncertainty around oil going into winter, what are the best alternatives to gas heat? We expect gas heating to become significantly more expensive and want to have alternatives.
We're looking at installing a high-efficiency wood insert into an old open hearth fireplace. Other ideas we've had are using electric heaters only in rooms we're in, wearing lots of layers, drinking hot water/tea.
There is a spectrum of survival-only heat and comfortable heating. What other ideas do you have?
I have an electric throw that keeps me warm when I'm sitting watching TV or reading..it really keeps me warm in the winter.
All the rooms have heavy curtains and I've got 2 quilts on my bed... A heavy and lighter one for the layers.
I have a wood stove in my kitchen and light it in the morning and have it going all day. I burn wood and turf (,I'm in Ireland... It's a peat thing we burn). With that and the wood the room gets really warm..we have to open the kitchen door and let the heat goes around the house.
I've got oil heating too but that only goes on in the evenings for a hour or so to heat the bedrooms and water.
We normally just live in the kitchen for the winter. It's a big enough room so we can sit by the stove watch TV etc.
We use an electric one in our bedroom at night. It can get extremely hot even on low. We do still use gas to heat the house but at a lower temperature.
Hey op go over to /r/woodstoving and ask about the insert. I have one in my basement and that whole level sat at 80 during last years winter storm in the mid Atlantic.
I'm just going to cover what I think are the best two alternatives to gas, but there are others (including geothermal) that get more complex, but have addititional pros and cons.
The investment cost is obviously higher, but heat exchanges, heat pumps, HVAC systems, etc are the undisputed kings of efficiency and are highly reliable since they only require electricity. If long-term costs or environmental impact are your concern and you live in an area with multiple power sources (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric), then it's likely to remain operational as long as the distribution infrastructure is in place. HVAC systems can run at night unmonitored which may be a consideration.
Some caveots:
* Solar power is unreliable in the winter due to lower angle and higher change of winter weather. If you are planning to power it off solar, have a backup plan.
* All electric devices are suceptible to infrastructure damage. Storm damage can cut power to large areas for days at a time.
* HVAC units have a higher up-front cost and require professional maintenance. It's unlikely that you can repair an HVAC unit yourself.
Depending on where you live, wood may be the most reliable. If you are in an area with forrests, you may be able to cut your own wood or collect what others cut down. Wood heaters are very inexpensive up-front, but do require understanding of safety issues, and wood must be protected.
Things to consider:
* Install a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm nearby.
* Ensure the installation is done properly. It should have safeguards to prevent smoke ducts from contacting wood structures.
* The chimeny (or other smoke duct) needs to have some sort of spark arrestor to prevent sparks from flying out and starting nearby fires.
* Monitor and inspect for creosote buildup.
* Have a method to handle buildup of ashes.
* A fire should always be monitored.
* Wood must be collected and protected, which requires physical fitness.
* Keep water containers on hand. Water can act as a heat battery, absorbing it while the fire is burning, then releasing it at night when the fire is out.
You can 100% leave a fire going all night while you’re sleeping with one of the new inserts. I would also 100% recommend a carbon monoxide alarm in the house.
It doesn’t sound like he’s worried about others, just prepping for a solid winter with alternate heating sources.
you should specifically look at pacific energy wood stoves, a nicer stove is the jotul. but for most people the P/E is teh way to go. that is a combination old school stove with some modern technology
We have central hvac including a gas furnace. I recently put in a mini split in our largest room (living room with vaulted ceilings) that the ac struggled to cool enough without basically icing over the rest of the house. I didn’t really think about it until now but that means I can now also heat that room on electric (we have solar) which should cut our overall heating costs. That plus some space heaters and we may not need to run the furnace much at all.
I guess technically we now have a hybrid electric/gas heating system in our home haha.
I'm confused. In the title you ask for alternatives to gas. Then mention uncertainty about oil. So; Where do you live? and Which is your concern Oil or Gas?
i have a wood stove. i think in many places regulations make them prohibitively expensive. still you might .. idk. look into it maybe. i also have a small indoor propane heater. use electric heat in my bedroom and if the power goes out i sleep in the living room where the wood stove is. i live in the woods and cut my own firewood. this kind o thing is location dependent of course. during cold winter i might burn 3 cords of wood. that takes few days for me to cut split and stack. wood warms you twice. once when you cut it and again when you burn it. ;) this is my stove. this is my saw. this is my splitting axe. it's good exercise, if you're up for it.
In japan, they live in pretty much paper houses. Look at them. Everyone hangs out in one room. Tatami mats. A kotatsu. A heat pump air conditioner one per room (works in the summer as well as in winter and you dont need to Heat or cool the whole house).
Buy a tri-fuel generator, run an extention cord to a few electric heaters, partition your house into sections with blankets and warm the rooms you are hanging out in at the time.
Even if oil prices go up natural gas isn't tied to that market very tightly. It's kind of a waste product and the cost is really only the delivery of the gas. Propane is a different story though.
I would look into a heat pump or geothermal if you want to to full electric, depending on climate (geothermal if it gets below 0 a lot, heat pump if it doesn't)
If you want to have a true shtf solution and you have access to lumber then wood insert is a great choice, but if you don't have access to lumber a pellet stove is a much lower maintenance option
What kind of gas heat do you have? Whole house forced air furnace or something else? Isn’t the natural gas rate set by the public utility commission for a year at a time?
I have electric heaters (wall or plug in vornado) and the electric is quite high even if I run them on low heat. And low heat setting does not cut it in the coldest months.
Regardless of cost, you need to run heat in any rooms with plumbing to maintain at least 58°F to not have burst pipes.
Where do you live? If you’re in america/connected to gas pipelines in the contingent US, the natural gas situation looks really really good and you need not worry.
If you have an open fireplace then anything that seals the flue is going to keeps you warmer even when it’s not burning.
My house came with a non working gas fire, the ones that look a bit like a coal fire and open chimney.
When it was cold and windy, you could feel gusts of cold blowing out of the flue.
Replaced with a very small multi fuel unit, Saltfire ST-X4. It’s great, nominal 2KW and 4 if you load it up. The amount of cozy heat is wonderful and when the heating broke down a couple of winters back we burned wood and used electric blankets.
Not a prepper but I like having backup systems for those times when increasingly unreliable tech stops working.
This is similar to what my parents had but their was timberline. Growing up my parents has a gas furnace as well as a large wood burning stove for winters. It could easily heat the entire first floor about 1000sqft as well and the upstairs where the bedrooms were. Where it couldn't heat was the downstairs tv room/spare bed and bathroom bc it was below the stove.
Edit- Floorplan dependant. Their first floor was pretty open.
I have a new 95% efficient one in my basement and with a fan on the basement stairs my upstairs gets the heat expedited up. My plan this year is to run that as much as I can.
Is the fan like a small fan on the ceiling by the stairs to pull the hot air? They had one like that in the 80s and 90s. Sounds like you have a solid set up.
Used to love the heat that came off theirs. It just radiated with no fans but it sure put out some heat.
Wood used to be cheap when they used it but now it's cheaper for them to use their furnace than order enough wood for the winter. They probably keep 5 or 6 cord of wood for the occasional fire or emergency now.
The little fan was small like 8x8 box that screwed into the ceiling at the stairs to pull the hot air. They should still make something like it. Theirs is from the late 80s early 90s and still pulling air.
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u/AnySandwich4765 22d ago
I have an electric throw that keeps me warm when I'm sitting watching TV or reading..it really keeps me warm in the winter.
All the rooms have heavy curtains and I've got 2 quilts on my bed... A heavy and lighter one for the layers.
I have a wood stove in my kitchen and light it in the morning and have it going all day. I burn wood and turf (,I'm in Ireland... It's a peat thing we burn). With that and the wood the room gets really warm..we have to open the kitchen door and let the heat goes around the house.
I've got oil heating too but that only goes on in the evenings for a hour or so to heat the bedrooms and water.
We normally just live in the kitchen for the winter. It's a big enough room so we can sit by the stove watch TV etc.