Old House, Poor Owners

[4brownies]

Hi, I've been reading through the posts and gotten some great ideas... too many, I think, to make heads or tails. I'll start with our scenario:
My hubby and I have a large 200 yr old farmhouse. Complicating matters is a large outbuilding that is now an apartment that must be heated - but is heated using our boiler - the pipes underground and heats via radiant floor. Our main house has zoned baseboard heat. We shut off a large portion of the house in the winter, as it has no plumbing and the forced hot air furnace is ancient and very inefficient. When we wanted to use the shut off space, we heated it with a wood stove (a nice little Jotul). In the main house, with the baseboard, there is another wood stove, and two fireplaces that we rarely use. Last year, with part of the house closed, thermostats low (avg @ 60), the apartment at 55 (it was unoccupied - not the case this winter), and running one of the wood stoves almost full time we burned nearly 1800 gallons of oil, and six cords of wood. Our windows are new, parts of our house are insulated - although poorly we believe (for obvious reasons), and the apartment is well insulated new construction. The apartment is also using an electric hot water heater. Insulating is a challenge due to finances and that the house is post and bean and over 200 years old.

What we are thinking of doing:
a. installing an additional wood stove or pellet stove in the main fireplace - in a central location of house. I'm skeptical that this cut our costs enough to justify the cost of purchase, installation, etc
b. installing an indoor wood boiler that ties into our current baseboard/radiant system. Is this an efficient system that will cut our costs enough to justify the installation and purchase? We like the idea of it because we could eventually expand it to the other part of the house that currently is heated with the old forced hot air furnace.

Any thoughts or are we just up a creek this winter?
thanks all!

 

[Willman]

Any thoughts or are we just up a creek this winter?

No matter what, you will need well seasoned wood for any boiler. I would investigate an energy audit. My guess is you have a huge heat loss going on. 1800 gals or however many cords of wood is way too much. One of the cheapest fixes is to cure as much infiltration as possible. Think can foam here.

 

[maurice]

We have a 100+ year old farmhouse, when we bought 20 years ago there was no insulation, windows leaky, you name it! One thing that may help is that any time you make an efficiency improvement, on paper put that money in a fund fo more improvements. It is very easy to think that I don't have money to replace that window, to add more insulation, switch fuel/equipment.

Our framing is a real 2"x4" and 10 foot cielings. I found that in the attic, I could drill a 1" hole in the single 2x4 across the top of the walls, and pump in blown in cellulose. Then afer I crawled out of the attic, I blew in 12+ inches of cellulose. You may find in some of these old houses that there is a hollow wall from cellar to attic with no fire-stops between. Very easy to fill with cellulose.

If someone is paying rent on the apartment, is it wothwhile to set up it's own boiler? The renter can crank the heat up all they are willing to pay for!

Windows - ours are 30" by 80". I have bought custom ordered vinyl clad double-hung, double glazed, tilt-in-for-cleaning windows from Menards (similar to Lowes, HomeDepot) for $300 or less. Catch them on slae at times (20% off custom orders sale)

 

[flyingcow]

Grew up in a house a couple of hours north of you. The house is 150 +/- years old. Big 2 story house with true 2x6 walls, and it also did not have any headers between floors, or insualtion for that matter. So as mentioned above, check this out and look into blowing insulation in the walls.

 

[MrEd]

-delete-

 

[maurice]

I have seen those 1" holes drilled into siding and plastic caps snapped in. I even knew a guy who drilled the interior of the wall and blew in that way. Easy to patch plaster, but had to be REAL careful about letting it blow in the living space!

 

[4brownies]

thanks for the replies... I've tried calling a few people about insulating and none have wanted to tackle a house like ours. Too many folks out there are easier to do and are willing to pay. Any ballpark idea how much it costs to do this? We are weekend warriors that are chasing our little ones so have little time.

 

[maurice]

You are in luck! This is definitely can be a do-it-yourself project! If forum rules allow, let us know what your walls/attic look like, and we can give more advice. If rules do not allow, you can contact me at maurice5387196 on a gmail dot com. I'm in Indiana, so even tho' Maine would be a great place to visit, it is a bit of a drive.

One 1" hole per wall cavity (between studs) is enough for that blower to fill the space. The air escapes thru all those cracks that you are losing your heat thru!

So take some measurements to your home improvement store (Menards, Lowes, etc.) (We are looking for exterior wall hieghts, lengths, thickness, and then attic square footage and your desired depth. They can estimage how many bags you need and the cost. If it is a huge amount, I might break up the job into a couple of weekends.

When I did it, the stores would allow you to rent the blower for free with a certain amount of bags. The cellulose is shredded newsprint that is treated with fire retardant. Some pro's use shredded fiberglass, not sure if that is available for homeowner use. The best time to do it is on a cool day - from your comfort level! You will get dust on you, so you need dust masks, and if you are sweating in the attic, you will be miserable.

Wife would load a bag at a time into the hopper, and the hopper has a stirrer to break up the bale/bag. It sounds like a shop vac. Has a long hose with a start/stop switch that you in the attic use. The hose is about 2" diameter, and has a nozzle to funnel down to 1". If not, you can use card stock paper to make your own funnel.

Oh, when you crawl in the attic with that blower hose, DO NOT TAKE YOUR WALLET WITH YOU! I lost mine, but found it in the last few feet I blew over! HA HA HA!

Good luck, keep us posted, and save your money on the fuel! Are you spending $7200 on oil?!?!

 

[btj1031]

My suggestion would be more insulation, and a huge, efficient wood stove right in the middle of that place. Like a big Jotul or the PE T6.

 

[4brownies]

Burning Chunk,
Thanks for the advice... We are facing a $8k oil bill this winter (based on current prices). On top of that is our wood at $1200. Personally, it makes me nervous.
Good to hear of others who've done this.

 

[WILDSOURDOUGH]

I'm with J-man:
You HAVE TO get some (some more) insulation into the walls, ceiling, and if you can- where the floor joist's meet the outside walls in the basement- you would be surprised how much heat is lost there. Fiberglass batt cut to fit between the floor joist's and the outside wall is the way to go there- easy and cheap.
Get busy- no time to wait.
Can't see investing in heat without getting the most return on each BTU by keeping that heat in the house. Would seem most prudent and you will be warmer ( and richer ) with more insulation.
I would think that more insulation, sealing up the drafty leaks and a new High Efficentcy Stove or Insert would go a long way to a very quick payback.

 

[GARYL]

Our house is 216 years old and 32 years ago we used 4080 gallons of oil. We had NO money but scrounged up enough to just insulate the attic. The following year we used 1960 gallons. After all the ensuing years and a complete insulation of the house we are only down to 1200 gallons.

So my advise is: If you can do only one thing at a time.....DO THE ATTIC FIRST!!

Good luck,
Gary

 

[Willman]

Our house is 216 years old and 32 years ago we used 4080 gallons of oil.

Gary, is this number a typo ?
Will

 

[mbcijim]

Is the apartment rented or a family member living for free?

You have to seriously consider if you're going to make money from this rental. Calculate the cost of the heat and compare it to the rental income. If it is like rent around here, you're going to lose money on that rental.

 

[GARYL]

Gary, is this number a typo ?
Will

Will,
We used 4080 gallons our first year , 1976. The delivery truck came weekly. The house had been converted to oil from wood in 1964. It is a big house and had one zone with what seemed like a half mile of baseboard. The boiler hardly ever shut off and we were still cold all winter. A couple of times the circulator would shut off and somewhere along the baseboard the pipe would freeze so even when the circulator came back on it didn't circulate and we would see the temp in the house fall several degrees in what seemed like minutes. I would rush around with a torch to all the likely spots it could be frozen until I found the right spot. I actually had to heat tape some of the fin tube to keep it from freezing when the circulator shut off. Now I know why they had a wood stove in almost every room. We found that somtime over the years someone had tried to insulate the walls around the pantry. When we ripped the walls down we found them full of corn cobs. I don't know what the R value was but it may have helped.
Alot of years later and much hard work and money we are down to 1200 gallons. Now I am looking forward to a putting a gasifier in my chickencoop and get the oil down to a couple hundred gallons.

Gary

 

[Willman]

All I can say is WOW. Good for you to get heat loss way down. Could you imagine that gallonage @ $4+ a gal. Almost like buying the house every year. Wood will be good.
Will

 

[sinnian]

Take off all of your interior door and window trim and get spray foam cans (probably a lot of them) designed to be used for doors and windows. THAT alone will cut down your energy costs, and make you feel warmer.