What type of heating system do you use in your house?

[Al Launier]

Water boiler/baseboard heat - (2) window units (15.1K BTU/ea) for A/C - electric stove/cooking. Live in NH. Cost is $3,685/this coming winter season @ $3.35/gal for 1,100 gal. oil

[Steve Peterson]

The house we just sold has propane forced air heating. The first winter we moved in was costing us $500-800 per month for propane. We put in a pellet stove and our heating costs went down to about $800 for the entire year. I wanted a normal wood stove, but my wife made me "girlie out" like Dan. It didn't take too long to really like it. We got an Astroflam Integra with electric start and a 140lb hopper. You can load it with over 3 bags at a time and it will run for days. All you have to do is push a button and walk away. It burns all night without constant care and feeding. There is no mess from bark or other wood pieces all over the place. It also can be installed with much less clearance because the flame is better controlled. The pellet stove is about 9" away from sheetrock and the 3" stovepipe is 1" away. I recall that the installed price was less than $4000 about 6 years ago.

Our cabin with a wood stove seems like you are constantly carrying wood. Plus it is always cold in the morning and takes an hour or so to warm up the house.

Steve

[BOB OLINGER]

We switched from natural gas heat & electrical AC to geothermal for both a year ago and don't look back for a second. Unbelievably uniformly comfortable 52 wks per year. After getting through the initial cost, operating cost is very reasonable.

[Brian Elfert]

I would love to do geothermal, but the numbers just don't pencil out for me. From the numbers I am seeing I would save between $300 and $500 a year compared to natural gas. At an additional cost of at least $15,000 it could take 30 years to pay back the extra cost. I wish I had a crystal ball to know where energy prices might be going in the next decade or two. If natural gas prices go up geothermal might make more sense then. Geothermal absolutely makes sense with propane.

My guess is geothermal is more comfortable because the system runs more often stopping the peaks and valleys during heating season. Geothermal doesn't produce as much instantaneous heat as a natural gas or propane furnace can produce. I've been told you need to minimize setting the temperature back with geothermal is it takes too long to bring the temp up.

[Ed Aumiller]

Brian, if you already have a forced air system and want to do a little of the work yourself, you can save a bundle on installing a geothermal system...

Since the refrigerant is totally contained in the unit, you can buy the furnace on ebay / online and install that portion yourself... you do NOT need a refrigerant licensed installer like you do on a standard heat pump...

Hire someone with a backhoe to bury the pipe and install the circulation pump yourself...

My son & I installed his system (a 4-ton unit with superheater for hot water) for less than $6000 total cost... (this included duct work)

I installed my system for less than $2500 ( a 3-ton unit w/o superheater) but it was 20 years ago... (this included duct work also)

Considering the federal tax credits it really brings it down to a break even time of less than 5 years in my opinion... this is not considering any state / local credits.. on both mine and my son's, with the tax credits, the payback time was about 2-3 years...


Also, when you have someone else install it, they always insist on putting resistance back up heaters in... this is absurd, if you loose power or the fan quits, your still do not have heat... neither of us has auxiliary heaters and never had a problem in over 30 years of combined service...

[Brad Adams]

neither of us has auxiliary heaters and never had a problem in over 30 years of combined service...

Neither of you live in Minnesota either where the temperature gets much colder. The unit MUST have a back up heat source in a cold climate, the unit cannot produce enough heat when the loop temps get cold during the winter months.

[Donna Cooper]

I am using wood burning stove to heat my home. I is energy efficient way to heat my home. It also cutting down my electricity bills.

[Brian Elfert]

Neither of you live in Minnesota either where the temperature gets much colder. The unit MUST have a back up heat source in a cold climate, the unit cannot produce enough heat when the loop temps get cold during the winter months.

I live in the Minneapolis metro area in Minnesota and I don't recall any geothermal companies ever recommending backup heat when I talked to them. Some have recommended having a natural gas furnace to qualify for the dual fuel electric rate although some are saying it makes more sense to go with the all electric option instead. The dual fuel rate for electricity for heating/cooling only is 5.85 cent/kw, for all electric is 9.5 cents/kw for all electricity year round, and the normal rate is just over 11 cents per kw.

[Dennis Aspö]

Over here it's a standard feature of the heat pump, built in. Don't know if you can even buy them without one. You can disable it in menu though, but it might be needed in winter when it gets between -4 and -22F at its coldest.