Hi,
I started a thread (Buying a 3rd wood stove) in the Hearth Room about adding a 3rd wood stove to my house. We currently have a Pacific Energy Artisan and an Englander FPP-12 (thought it was a 13-NCL..shows how much my memory has gone) on the 2nd story, which is the main living floor. We are considering adding a 3rd wood stove to the 1st floor (garage, game room, theater room) with the idea of making that floor more comfortable to use in the winter time. I was thinking of a stove for the 1st floor that could be fired-up and "forgotten" about, since we do spend the majority of our time on the 2nd floor. This is the last time I build a 2-story home with dedicated-purpose (theater room, game room) rooms.
Anyway, a common answer to my post was to forget the 3rd wood stove and go with a wood-fired boiler or furnace. I had considered that a few years back but was turned off by the fact I had read on this forum people were going thru 7 - 10 cords of wood per year. But, maybe I need to revisit the idea.
We currently have a propane-fueled Crown boiler that supplies hot water to the in-floor radiant heating system and also supplies domestic hot water to a Crown in-direct hot water tank. Propane is expensive at about $2.50 per gallon right now, and the price fluctuates like crazy: we filled our 1,000 gallon tank 3 months ago at $1.45 per gallon. We keep the radiant floor set at about 60 degrees on average to avoid using too much propane and we use the wood stoves upstairs to get the heat up to a comfortable level.
We live in the foothills above Albuquerque, NM at 7,000 feet elevation. We get snow when the city doesn't, which happened last night. We woke this morning to 5 inches of snow and snow-packed roads. After driving the 3 miles on snow we finally got to the "maybe it is wet" main road but no snow. I actually do not consider this snow after having lived in the UP, Oscoda, MI, Buffalo, NY, and Plattsburgh, NY but I wanted to give an idea to you that my house's location does get winter weather. We also continually hit the low - mid-teens in the morning.
I am very open also to adding a solar hot water system to my house so if you folks have any ideas on 1) how I can keep my propane use to a minimum in the winter, 2) add a second or third fuel supply (solar or wood or both) hot water system to the house so I can have choices if the price of propane skyrockets, I am interested.
Thanks.
I started a thread (Buying a 3rd wood stove) in the Hearth Room about adding a 3rd wood stove to my house. We currently have a Pacific Energy Artisan and an Englander FPP-12 (thought it was a 13-NCL..shows how much my memory has gone) on the 2nd story, which is the main living floor. We are considering adding a 3rd wood stove to the 1st floor (garage, game room, theater room) with the idea of making that floor more comfortable to use in the winter time. I was thinking of a stove for the 1st floor that could be fired-up and "forgotten" about, since we do spend the majority of our time on the 2nd floor. This is the last time I build a 2-story home with dedicated-purpose (theater room, game room) rooms.
Anyway, a common answer to my post was to forget the 3rd wood stove and go with a wood-fired boiler or furnace. I had considered that a few years back but was turned off by the fact I had read on this forum people were going thru 7 - 10 cords of wood per year. But, maybe I need to revisit the idea.
We currently have a propane-fueled Crown boiler that supplies hot water to the in-floor radiant heating system and also supplies domestic hot water to a Crown in-direct hot water tank. Propane is expensive at about $2.50 per gallon right now, and the price fluctuates like crazy: we filled our 1,000 gallon tank 3 months ago at $1.45 per gallon. We keep the radiant floor set at about 60 degrees on average to avoid using too much propane and we use the wood stoves upstairs to get the heat up to a comfortable level.
We live in the foothills above Albuquerque, NM at 7,000 feet elevation. We get snow when the city doesn't, which happened last night. We woke this morning to 5 inches of snow and snow-packed roads. After driving the 3 miles on snow we finally got to the "maybe it is wet" main road but no snow. I actually do not consider this snow after having lived in the UP, Oscoda, MI, Buffalo, NY, and Plattsburgh, NY but I wanted to give an idea to you that my house's location does get winter weather. We also continually hit the low - mid-teens in the morning.
I am very open also to adding a solar hot water system to my house so if you folks have any ideas on 1) how I can keep my propane use to a minimum in the winter, 2) add a second or third fuel supply (solar or wood or both) hot water system to the house so I can have choices if the price of propane skyrockets, I am interested.
Thanks.