What is most economical?

[Sportcraft]

I currently heat my 5 year old 3200 sq foot 2 story colonial with propane hot air. Due to cost I kept the thermostat at 55 degrees all year and burned 600 gallons of propane. If I turn it up to 65 degrees it seems like the furnace kicks on every 20 minutes when it's below 30 degrees outside. I can't even guess how much propane I would use if I kept it a 70 degrees. Ths year I am considering other options. This website is awesome but now I am more confused than ever. I have unlimited wood, but it's mostly soft wood (pine and poplar). There is some hard wood. I can pick up a woodmaster 4400 for around 5,000. I have also considered a wood stove in my family room to burn every night to bring my temp up above 55 degrees. BUT THERE HAS BEEN SOME MENTION OF HEAT PUMPS which I am not familiar with. To put a wood stove in the house will cost me about $3500-$4000 in materials. I figure a OWF will be about 7-8k in materials. And it seems that the gassification boiler are more costly and complicated. Any thoughts would be great. I could alwasy just keep buying propane..........Thanks Tony

 

[Nofossil]

I started a page on my site designed to address a lot of the questions that you raise, along with the choices that I made in heading down this path. It's not complete, but maybe it will help a bit. It's at http://www.nofossil.org/background.html

There are lots of tradeoffs that you have to make, and no one can tell you what's best for you in your situation. I think you'll find a general preference here for gasifiers, mostly because they're so clean and efficient compared to the other choices. They are a bit more complex at first, but they're quite civilized overall.