I live in North Carolina, climate zone 7 at 1200 feet. After spending hours reading this forum, I don't see a path that works financially for a gasification storage system. Can anyone suggest one?
My heating costs were $600 for the year. ($150 each for Dec, Jan, Feb, $70 for Nov, March)
There are two adults and water-heating costs are guesstimated at $500 a year--based on 25% of the electric bill for April (no heat and no air conditioning.)
Wood would be free since I can cut 4 to 8 inch trees from my own land. (I'm 63 so I won't be able to do that forever.)
The house is 10 years old, pretty well insulated, with double pane windows. It's on a small windy hilltop with no close neighbors. It's 2000 heated sq feet on two floors with a separate heat pump system for each flour. (One in the attic crawl space and one in the unfinished basement.) There's not a good spot to add a fireplace, a stove or a wood furnace. A shed would need to be constructed for a gasification boiler, storage tank, and wood storage next to the garage. The basement has one above ground wall but it's at the bottom of a steep hill--difficult to get wood there, and the chimney would need to be 4 stories high. (basement, 2 floors, and attic peak)
There are a couple of reasons for looking at wood heat. (1) We're looking at solar-electric but that doesn't make sense unless we have wood heat. (2) We loose power due to freezing rain, and/or high wind about 6 times a year for 4 to 8 hours. We have an unvented gas fireplace but it costs 50% more to heat the house with it than with the heat pump. (3) We fear that electricity rates will increase and reliability of the grid will decrease in the coming years.
Gasification costs look to be in the $10 to $15 K area. I started looking at OWB but the best site, next to the garage, will most often blow smoke directly against the house. I then looked at EPA rated OWB stoves but they are only the larger more expensive units--without storage they probably wouldn't work very well. Once I found this site, gasification and storage makes the most sense but seems to come with a 10 to 15 year payback for my situation.
Any suggestions or is my current heating bill just too low?
My heating costs were $600 for the year. ($150 each for Dec, Jan, Feb, $70 for Nov, March)
There are two adults and water-heating costs are guesstimated at $500 a year--based on 25% of the electric bill for April (no heat and no air conditioning.)
Wood would be free since I can cut 4 to 8 inch trees from my own land. (I'm 63 so I won't be able to do that forever.)
The house is 10 years old, pretty well insulated, with double pane windows. It's on a small windy hilltop with no close neighbors. It's 2000 heated sq feet on two floors with a separate heat pump system for each flour. (One in the attic crawl space and one in the unfinished basement.) There's not a good spot to add a fireplace, a stove or a wood furnace. A shed would need to be constructed for a gasification boiler, storage tank, and wood storage next to the garage. The basement has one above ground wall but it's at the bottom of a steep hill--difficult to get wood there, and the chimney would need to be 4 stories high. (basement, 2 floors, and attic peak)
There are a couple of reasons for looking at wood heat. (1) We're looking at solar-electric but that doesn't make sense unless we have wood heat. (2) We loose power due to freezing rain, and/or high wind about 6 times a year for 4 to 8 hours. We have an unvented gas fireplace but it costs 50% more to heat the house with it than with the heat pump. (3) We fear that electricity rates will increase and reliability of the grid will decrease in the coming years.
Gasification costs look to be in the $10 to $15 K area. I started looking at OWB but the best site, next to the garage, will most often blow smoke directly against the house. I then looked at EPA rated OWB stoves but they are only the larger more expensive units--without storage they probably wouldn't work very well. Once I found this site, gasification and storage makes the most sense but seems to come with a 10 to 15 year payback for my situation.
Any suggestions or is my current heating bill just too low?
!! I've had years where I spend that in two months with natural gas, 90% effecient furnace.
