Who hasn't turned on their Heating Furnace yet? - and a graph of my oil usage for 13 years....

[fire_man]

I have made it so far using NO heating oil thanks majorly to the great advice on this Forum. There have been some 10 F nights and the Fireview has struggled, but thanks to a tolerant family the furnace has been OFF. Oil has hit $2.85/Gallon in New England and seems headed up. Who else has made it so far this year with absolutely no oil or gas?

I know Backwoods Savage (Dennis) has not used oil or gas because he ripped his furnace out. My wife would send me packing if I did that! :ahhh:

This is my oil usage for 13 years for only heating the house (Domestic hot water subtracted out):

 

[oldspark]

I dont have one to turn on.

 

[Raptor]

I haven't turned on my electric furnace since I installed an outdoor hydronic system last December. It saves me about 80% on my winter electric bill. The outside temperatures got down into the negative single digits a few times last January and the wood fired system had no problems keeping the entire 1525 sq ft house and full basement at 72 degrees and keeping us supplied with endless hot water. All that with only having to load the furnace once a day except for maybe a half dozen days when it was coldest and I had to add a few splits in the morning. This past spring I was miffed that I had to switch the electric water heater on when the wood burning season was over. So I found some plans on the internet for building inexpensive solar heat collecting panels. I built and installed 2 4'x8' panels over the summer and was able to heat the furnace tank to a little over 140 degrees and used this to preheat the water going to the water heater. A large percentage of the time the electric heater elements never came on since they are set for 110 degrees. This coming summer I plan on building one more panel to get the furnace up to 160 degrees where I figure it will be able to supply 90% or better of my hot water needs during the off season for wood burning. I am also finding that on sunny winter days the solar panels are reducing the amount of wood burned during the day, even on days in the single digits and teens. My next project will be figuring out how to suppliment the electric heater coils in the clothes dryer with a heat exchanger to minimize or eliminate that load.

To answer your question, no I haven't turned on the regular heating furnace and don't ever plan to. This past year I have used a little less then half the electricity I had typically used over the past 10 years in this house and hope to improve on that. I figure I will burn about 4 cords of wood in a typical winter. Since this is the first full winter heating with wood I will have to wait until spring to see if I am right.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That is an interesting graph Tony and really shows the advantages. That seems like something more folks should do and they might be very surprised to find out just how many dollars have stayed in their pockets since beginning the wood burning.

 

[Kenster]

We haven't turned on our heat (two electric heat pumps - 4000 sq foot house - in the past two years and probably less than a dozen days in the five years we've lived here. Granted, this is south central Texas but we have our share of freezing nights. Last year we had several nights in the teens when daytime highs were below freezing. I usually light a fire only when the overnight low is below 40 degrees.
The VC Vigilant 1977 meets our needs quite nicely.

 

[fire_man]

Raptor:

That's impressive dedication on your part. If you don't mind my asking,what was the total cost for the two solar panels and all associated additional parts?

Interesting about the clothes dryer idea, I would imagine the heat exchanger would be difficult to build into the dryer. Around here there is much less bright sunshine especially since we live sort of in the woods.

 

[Raptor]

Fire_man:

I had to add a tempering/mixing valve to the outlet of the water heater to regulate the hot water supply to 120 degrees, cost was about $200 for the valve and plumbing fittings. I also had to purchase a differential controller to run the pump for the solar panels, cost of the controller and temp sensors was about $180. I had a pump, so didn't have to purchase one. The solar panels are set up in a drain back configuration on the shed roof next to the wood furnace. The panels cost about $300 each to build. The plumbing and line insulation to hook them up was about $200.

Soooo.... the current 2 panel system was about $1180 complete cost to fully set it up. I will be putting another $300 into it next summer to add one more panel.

My thoughts on the dryer is to add the heat exchanger and a duct to the air inlet upstream from the electric heater coils. The dryer temp is thermostatically controlled, so if the inlet air is warm enough the electric elements won't come on. I may be able to rig it with the heat exchanger in the basement under the dryer and duct it up into the air inlet.

 

[Dune]

Used no oil for a couple years now.

 

[murphy0421]

Last year we burned 37 gal of heating oil with 1 stove going 24/7. Part of the house was cold and we really had to cook out the room that the stove was in. This summer we installed an insert in the old fireplace and both stoves are now going 24/7.

The temp in the house is around 75 degrees and my wife is happy. She is home with our 5 kids and does a great job tending the fire while I'm at work. Our kids are 5 and under and she doesn't get out much!

The furnace has not been turned on yet and we don't plan on it.

 

[joefrompa]

Once the temps hit 32-35 degrees, the oil furnace (forced hot air distribution) started being used. We have it set for 63 when we want to use it, 55 the rest of the time.

The stove has been adequate to make the house semi-comfortable with unseasoned wood at 35 degrees outside.

We have a comfortable living space (kitchen/family room)down to 15 and windy outside. But at 20 degrees and windy, the house is 60 degrees at best and the fire is struggling at spreading heat beyond the living space.

I'm also trying to push a stove a bit too small for a house a bit too large using crappy wood.

I'm going to start trying to strategically place 1-2 oil-electric radiators in certain rooms to provide extra zone heating. I think I might be able to come near eliminating the furnace by using wood burning + electric zone heat. So far, the energy bills for this house are really low (been living here since July) - sub $100 a month consistently. So I don't mind adding $15-20 a month in running a 12-15 amp oil-based electric radiator.

 

[SolarAndWood]

No furnace for four years, doing just fine and my family hasn't left me yet. Dog is pretty happy too.

 

[maxed_out]

Nice graph. By my seat of the pants thats about 700 gallons less per year. Thats some nice savings!

 

[spencer186]

The monster in the basement woke up yesterday morning for the first time and started drinking oil for about 10 minutes before temps hit the 60* that the thermostat is set at. Only came on because I was out much of the day before and never got the house temps up enough for the overnight haul. My first year with the stove in my house and haven't spent a cent to heat my home other than money for gas for the chainsaw. Kinda made me mad as I was hoping to go oil free for the year on heat. Oh well, I guess a gallon of oil used is better than the 400 or so it has cost me past winters.

 

[precaud]

It will be three years in January since I turned the boiler off.

 

[jeff_t]

I turned my furnace on in October to see if it worked, and it didn't work.

 

[Jeff S]

This is my third season without using my propane furnace at all,this fall I used the last of my propane for my hot water heater.
With my wood boiler -storage system and recently installed Amtrol indirect water heater I no longer use propane at all and had the propane dealer come pick-up their tank.

 

[wood-fan-atic]

I went to take a shower yesterday morning, and had no hot water. The oil-fired boiler had gone out, and nobody noticed, since it only provides hot water. It was in the 20's outside. Before I installed the stove , I burned thru almost an entire tank (275 gal.) per month in the heart of winter. At even $3.00 a gallon (its $3.40 now), for 4 months,thats $3300 for the winter. I'm away at work alot, so I do have an oil contract (64 yr. old boiler under repair contract) and they force you to have automatic delivery----> last time they came, they pumped 11 gallons.....I'll take it

 

[ControlFreak]

The thermostat to the oil boiler is set to 63 degrees. The only time so far this year it has been needed was the night when someone named "Not Me" failed to latch the front door closed. The wind blew it open and as far as I can tell, it was wide open all night. Outside temp: 10 degrees F. The downstairs was at 55 degrees, furnace working full time. Upstairs at 60 degrees, the heat upstairs is shut off, so any heat comes from the stove downstairs.

We're going through about 300 gallons of oil per winter, and that includes oil consumed for hot water. In the summer, the solar panel provides almost all the hot water we use.

Nothing would make me happier than for someone to say: "It was me"

 

[NH_Wood]

Nothing by the stove so far, and hope to keep it that way. I use oil for hot water, and hate hearing the furnace (damn, just kicked on) running to heat up a tank of hot water that might not be used for a long time anyway. I have a 330 gallon tank, and I need to fill it once per year to heat my hot water. So.....with all of my wood scrounged, I'm still doing pretty well $ wise to heat my home and hot water. But.....I'd like to look into the solar water system that Raptor discussed. Anyone have links to plans and discussion of how to do this in detail? Cheers!

 

[agartner]

I wish I could go 100% stove and no furnace but unfortunately I just don't have enough stove to do the whole house without doing a reload at something like 3:00 AM which I"m totally not going to do. Programmable stats in the house drop my overnight temps down and if I don't oversleep in the AM I can usually get the stove refired to keep the furnace run down to a minimum. That being said, since I've gone to 24x7 stove ops, my propane consumption is significantly lower than it has in years past - so it's doing what it's supposed to - keeping us warm and keeping money in our pocket.

 

[madison]

Just to add another graph, but for nat. gas baseboard hot water heat in a leaky 3300 sq ft mucho glass sided home on a windy hill. t6 stove installed fall 2008. Blower added fall 2009. Peak nat gas use ~ cut in half,

 

[agartner]

So this thread got me to thinkin just now...damn when was the last time Mr Propane showed up at my house. I couldn't remember. So I checked the last time I wrote a check to Mr Propane, and it was back at the end of October. Wow, it's been a long time since I've seen him and it's been awful cold outside. Wonder how low that propane tank is. Checked it and its' still at 45%. I might have to just give them a ring to make sure they haven't forgotten 'bout us.

 

[PapaDave]

Got a nat gas fired direct vent heater in the laundry room, and a nat gas wall furnace in the living room (hate that thing). Turned off the gas and elec. to both about 3.5 years ago, and the only thing using the gas is the water heater. 11 ccf/month, which equates to about 25/month all year. Wood heat cost is less than 60/month. Stove and splitter were here when we bought the house.
Wife mentioned the other day on her facebook page how the wind was howling, it was close to zero outside, and she was nice and warm in the house because of the stove.
I guess she HAS been paying attention. Sly devil, that's what she is.

 

[MetMan]

I program the thermostat to get the (~2400 sq ft circa 1870 Federal style) house to 64 at 7 am. By then I'm well up and the fire is going. The thermostat is set for 60 for the rest of the day and 55 at night and it's only kicked on at night a few times, never during the day yet. All the good advice I've gotten here has resulted in a much more comfortable second year of burning. First year I saved over 400 gallons of oil. We'll see how it goes this year.

 

[woodchip]

I have not yet used the furnace for heating, it just comes on for an hour a day to heat the water, which does give a small amount of supplementary heat in our bedroom (daily gas costs currently come to just 40p (about 50 cents) a day compared to £2 a day average before installation of the woodburner). All our heating now basically comes from our 34,000 btu per hour woodburner with free/foraged wood.

Our house has just 1200 sq ft, with a foot of loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, and double glazing all round, and we do not get the extreme low temperatures you guys get (although December is currently the coldest here in 100 years).