Other Heating Sources

[Shank]

Hopefully this isn't already a poll from previous (not seeing much on a search).

I am just curious what other heat sources some of you with pellet stoves have. I am probably one of the odd ones out, I have a natural gas furnace. Feel free to discuss why you added a pellet stove, especially if you have a cheaper source of heat.

 

[bogieb]

I have a mini split installed last year so that is now my main backup. Then my propane boiler is the very last option if for whatever reason I can't use my pellet stoves.

 

[johneh]

The main heat is a wood furnace with propane backup
The old summer kitchen is heated by my pellet stove
that spills heat into the rest of the house

 

[Ashful]

For some reason, it only allowed me to select two of my four heating fuels. I have multiple different heating systems, covering different parts of the house:

1. Oil ~1000 gal/yr
2. Two wood stoves ~10 cord/yr
3. Two mini-split systems with 3 indoor units (~$100/mo?)
4. Resistive electric baseboard (minimal)
5. Propane ~100 gal/yr

I doubt I'm alone on this, so you may want to open your poll up to more than two choices, if possible.

 

[Shank]

For some reason, it only allowed me to select two of my four heating fuels. I have multiple different heating systems, covering different parts of the house:

1. Oil ~1000 gal/yr
2. Two wood stoves ~10 cord/yr
3. Two mini-split systems with 3 indoor units (~$100/mo?)
4. Resistive electric baseboard (minimal)
5. Propane ~100 gal/yr

I doubt I'm alone on this, so you may want to open your poll up to more than two choices, if possible.

Fair point, unfortunately I think I am past the point of editing...

 

[stoveliker]

(No pellets, but)
1 wood
2 minisplit
3 (not used for heat other than hot water in the last ~1.5 years) oil hydronic.

 

[shtrdave]

Oil for the garage and heat pump for the living space. Heat pump doesn't provide a warm feeling heat. I had a propane stove for a year worked nice but I failed to shop for propane and my supplier was pricey. Thats when I put the pellet stove in.
Oil is $4.50 a gal here and where I buy pellets they are 275 ton plus delivery. Electric is 0.15-0.18 a KW.

 

[tlc1976]

I have a mini split installed last year so that is now my main backup. Then my propane boiler is the very last option if for whatever reason I can't use my pellet stoves.

I’ve got a propane boiler for backup. Only light the pilot when it’s below freezing full time. I’d like to use a mini split, if anything for backup. Would pay for itself after awhile just with not burning the gas for the boiler pilot. Also would be nice for going away in the winter, going downstate for doctor visits, etc. Not only is the boiler super costly, but I don’t like the idea of having a pipe in every room that can leak.

 

[bogieb]

I’ve got a propane boiler for backup. Only light the pilot when it’s below freezing full time. I’d like to use a mini split, if anything for backup. Would pay for itself after awhile just with not burning the gas for the boiler pilot. Also would be nice for going away in the winter, going downstate for doctor visits, etc. Not only is the boiler super costly, but I don’t like the idea of having a pipe in every room that can leak.

I light the boiler's pilot light when the garage gets down to the mid 30's. The supply pipes for the bedrooms run thru the garage, so I set up the Thermguard to run it for 8 minutes 3-4 times per day. I tried to get a quote for cutting off the pipes and connecting the inflow/outflow ends within the basement itself (so I wouldn't have to run it just to keep from freezing), but it appears that no one was interested as I didn't get call backs.

 

[Ashful]

I’d like to use a mini split, if anything for backup. Would pay for itself after awhile just with not burning the gas for the boiler pilot.

I have a few mini splits, and can tell you they're almost unbelievably expensive to run in cold weather. So, depending on whether your use of the word "backup" means shoulder season or dead of winter, you may or may not be right.

Minisplits are awesome fantastic when the temperature is in the 40's, and they work well enough down to and even below freezing. But when the needle dips to 20F or below, they suck electricity like you wouldn't believe, and output drops atrociously low due to frequent defrosting cycles.

 

[stoveliker]

It depends on what type of minisplit you have. Mine work well down to 25 F or so. They still have a cop of 2 at 17 F, but I have a wood stove.... So I use them indeed at 40 or above.

There are ones with way larger cop at 5 F tho.

 

[tlc1976]

Sounds like a mini split might be best for shoulder season, when I could be saving pellets by cycling the stove often. But unless it’s 40s or below full time I’m not even running heat except sometimes at night.

One thought is to run a mini split to an equal efficiency point, maybe making up for the stove output on 1 (10k btu) then make up the rest with the stove. If that’s even possible.

When I’m gone all I care about is the house not freezing. So if I can keep it at 50f I’m good. But hard telling what kind of temps I’ll see. I’m not gone that much. Boiler pilot costs about $25 a month to run but I only run it about 4-5 months out of the year.

Would have to learn a lot more. Probably not worth it in the end. I don’t even need AC here.

Also not worth it to replace the inefficient 1985 boiler, as long as it doesn’t have a catastrophic failure.

 

[Ashful]

It depends on what type of minisplit you have. Mine work well down to 25 F or so. They still have a cop of 2 at 17 F, but I have a wood stove.... So I use them indeed at 40 or above.

There are ones with way larger cop at 5 F tho.

Yeah, 25F or thereabouts is where mine nosedive. All of mine have been Mitsubishi, installed in three phases between 2010 and 2015.

 

[bogieb]

My minisplit can run down to 5* efficiently. Last year, which was pretty mild, I used it way more than my pellet stove. However, I usually only ran it down to 15*, or sometimes lower depending upon other factor like wind. Also, the heat from the minisplit, although less variable (which is more comfortable while I'm working from home), is not as "warm" feeling as from the pellet stove under certain conditions (like when it is super cloudy - which had nothing to do with the actual temp inside).

I put in the minisplit spring of last year to replace window and portable AC units. Not realizing that it could heat well too, I started heating last fall with the pellet stove. When it finally dawned on me, I started using the MS in December and determined to use it as much as possible to see how well it would do and the cost to run it. Besides the room it takes to store 5-6 tons of pellets for a season of heating, I'm getting older and may not want/be able to, haul pellets up the stairs every day in the future.

The cost to run the minisplit at that time, was neck and neck with pellets (that is no where close to true presently though).

 

[rich2500]

Pellets primary, then oil forced hot air and electric baseboard