Pellets, corn, inserts, boilers or what?

[Scott in IN]

I've got about 4200 well insulated square feet that I heat with a 90% propane furnace @ around $3000 a year. I've got a double sided fireplace in the basement that I don't burn due to it smoking and heat losses (possible insert location). I've got plenty of free fire wood and the tools to cut it but I don't have a bunch of spare time to do so.

I've looked at the outdoor boilers but they look to be a pain (outside stoking and lots of cutting time). Though the gasification ones look kind of interesting.

The corn inserts look kind of neat but corn prices are going up.

I stick burning insert would be ok.

I don't know much about the pellet inserts but they look interesting too.

Sooooo, what is the best bang for the buck as far as heating. I don't mind paying some for propane but there has to be a way to save some $$$.

 

[charlz]

I'd start by punching your areas fuel cost numbers into a fuel cost calculator and see what fuels are the cheapest:

Compare Fuel Costs

 

[Sigarms]

What's killing you is the furnace.

Heck, even going with a two stage 80% would save you some good money and going with a 94 plus two stage, you'd probably see the payback within a couple of years.

Not sure with the square footage you have, along with the insulation, why only a standard 80% (I'm guessing) was installed.

Do you have A/C now?

Mentioned it numerous times, dual fuel. Run a heat pump on the furnace and use the furnace for emergency heat only. You'll be able to run the heat pump down to 20 degrees (or set it to switch at a higher outdoor temp) if you wish, then the furnace comes on for heat (taking over for the heat pump).

I'm guessing you probably have at least 100k BTU furnace.

 

[Scott in IN]

My bad, it's a 90% furnace (I just changed the original post) , I've got cathedral ceiling in the great room with floor to ceiling windows for the view and 9' ceilings in the rest of it. Needless to say lots of air to heat, thus the big ol heat bill...

 

[Bill Barrett]

Geothermal

 

[Sigarms]

One system (furnace) with no zoning?

 

[Scott in IN]

Right, single zone 125,000 btu furnace....

It works fine, I'm just looking for something cheaper...

 

[Sigarms]

Right, single zone 125,000 btu furnace....

It works fine, I'm just looking for something cheaper...

Honestly, not sure with the size of house and insulation it was laid out that way for just one system (or at least zoned).

Problem is, wherever your t-stat is located at, the furnace will run to heat the entire house until that t-stat is satisfied. You could be heating a lot of extra space that doesn't need to be heated because no one there is at that time of day (or night).

 

[RonMar]

You could possibly look at adding some hydronic zones. These would probably be better with high ceilings as pumped in warm furnace air just heads for the ceiling. Hydronic starts the heat out at the floor. This would of course require some pretty major modifications, and a boiler of some sort. If you get much sun, you can quite easilly add heat to the boiler using solar though.

With the prices of propane, you could probably do some good with a pellet stove in place of your basement level fireplace. This would work similar to hydronic in that the heat in that space would work it's way upward thru the floors. Depending on where your cold air returns are in the house, you might be able to use the furnace blower to circulate the heat from the basement area also. A gentleman in the "pellet stove advice" thread said at $2.62 per gallon, and $229/ton for pellets, his pellet stove burning a ton replaced about $470 worth of propane, or saved him about $240 for the same ammount of BTU put into the house.

 

[Egon]

Go for the fireplace wood insert. It would make the most sense as you have wood available. Pellets or corn can fluctuate in price.

If you really want to be serious get a professional assessment of what could be done and what it will cost. This would include the outside wood boiler option.