eclecticcottage
Minister of Fire
We do not have a central heating system here, just the wood and a vent free fireplace as backup.
Our Old House has two DV gas stoves as the only heat sources.
Obviously money is a factor here. There are a few options, it depends on how much electric is where you live (it's really expensive here). You can get space heaters or have electric baseboards hard wired in. You could keep an eye on the classifieds and pick up a used DV (direct vent) unit to use in place of the woodburner for a year or two (it would need a different flue but your hearth pad should work). There are also DV gas heaters that are NOT stoves. We had one at the Old House when we bought it. It was like a brown box on the wall.
The advantage to the DV units is that there is no loading. No wood, no pellets, just poof-heat. The DV stove option would look nice and should hold the value relatively well, so you should be able to resell it once you're ready to sell it. We plumbed our VF unit in this past winter in less than a day, and that included getting and filling the tank as well as running to the local hardware place a few times to have pipes cut/threaded to the exact sizes we needed (we're on propane though, and it's not hooked to our "main" tank). Electric is easy too, but I don't know about the wiring in your place. We are probably going to throw a few in the Old House before we sell, just so people aren't too put off by the stoves as the only heat sources-however we had the place completely rewired a few years ago and have plenty of room in the breaker box to add more dedicated circuits.
BTW, when we bought the Cottage, there was a central heating system. It was old and full of damaged pipes. We scrapped the pipes and heater-you might consider doing the same with your furnace if it's beyond repair to get a little extra $$ to apply towards your alternate solution.
Our Old House has two DV gas stoves as the only heat sources.
Obviously money is a factor here. There are a few options, it depends on how much electric is where you live (it's really expensive here). You can get space heaters or have electric baseboards hard wired in. You could keep an eye on the classifieds and pick up a used DV (direct vent) unit to use in place of the woodburner for a year or two (it would need a different flue but your hearth pad should work). There are also DV gas heaters that are NOT stoves. We had one at the Old House when we bought it. It was like a brown box on the wall.
The advantage to the DV units is that there is no loading. No wood, no pellets, just poof-heat. The DV stove option would look nice and should hold the value relatively well, so you should be able to resell it once you're ready to sell it. We plumbed our VF unit in this past winter in less than a day, and that included getting and filling the tank as well as running to the local hardware place a few times to have pipes cut/threaded to the exact sizes we needed (we're on propane though, and it's not hooked to our "main" tank). Electric is easy too, but I don't know about the wiring in your place. We are probably going to throw a few in the Old House before we sell, just so people aren't too put off by the stoves as the only heat sources-however we had the place completely rewired a few years ago and have plenty of room in the breaker box to add more dedicated circuits.
BTW, when we bought the Cottage, there was a central heating system. It was old and full of damaged pipes. We scrapped the pipes and heater-you might consider doing the same with your furnace if it's beyond repair to get a little extra $$ to apply towards your alternate solution.
