Author Topic: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?  (Read 25900 times)

Retired To Win

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What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« on: February 18, 2015, 06:24:38 AM »
Aside from the question of what temperature to maintain in your house, there's the other question of how to achieve and keep steady that temperature.  In the 3 houses we have owned, you name the heating source and we've tried it or used it.  Ditto for pulse or steady heating.

I am now absolutely sold on zone heating.  And on using anything but electricity (if possible) as our main source of heat.  What about you?  What do you use for a heat source?  How do you use it?  What is your house heating strategy?

MayDay

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2015, 06:37:44 AM »
We don't have zones, but we've always turned off the basement vents, even in a finished basement. The basement stays ~55 regardless.

Other than that we don't do any electric heating like you said ($$$) except for a small radiator on a timer for 7-9pm in the coldest bedroom in the house. That's the compromise since we keep the thermostat set very low.

If I ever installed hvac from scratch I would definitely do zones.

Rural

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2015, 07:53:05 AM »
Passive solar heating and high thermal mass, window unit heat pumps as backup until we get our woodstove installed, then woodstove as backup.


You have to design the house around it, not retrofit, but we don't need much backup.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #3 on: February 18, 2015, 08:48:00 AM »
- natural gas (condensing boiler)
- zone heating (each room)
- pulse heating (programmable thermostats @ radiators)

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2015, 10:25:53 AM »
switched from Oil to hybrid HP/propane system 4 winters ago - reduced heating costs by about 40%

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2015, 10:33:38 AM »
Gas furnace and keep the insulated blinds down as much as possible. I like being able to see out the windows, but when it is super cold outside it makes a big difference to keep the windows closed. I hung a curtain over the basement doorway and closed about 1/2 the basement vents (part of the basement also has no heat vents at all) - basement is maybe 10 degrees colder than the main floor of the house. This also seems to help keep drafts at bay. I've noticed a lot of cold air through the french doors to the outside and am scheming about getting some curtains over them for the winter. Heat is set at 55 at night and during the day when no one is home, turned up for only about 2 hours in the early evening when we get home from work/school. I also had upgraded insulation and sealing put in a few years ago, which I think helps greatly.

It has been super cold lately and I am acutely aware of how much the furnace has to run when I am home all day.  I also snuggle down in bed w/ a heating pad on weekends and just operate from there as much as possible.

austin

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2015, 10:37:36 AM »
I'm in Tacoma and our strategy this winter has been to keep the windows open. One bedroom apartment and our electric bill, which includes our heating, has been under $50/month this winter. Remarkable weather, considering we are farther north than a majority of Canadians.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2015, 10:49:16 AM »
I live pretty far south, so take with a grain of salt...

Our main source of heat is a wood stove.  I cut/split the wood myself, so it is "free."

The backup for that is propane central heat.   We have 2 units (upstairs/downstairs).  The downstairs unit is set at in the low 60s and almost never comes on.  The upstairs is set similarly and will kick on every now and then.  We decided it was easier to have a threshold where the propane does actually kick on instead of just muscling through it.  There is some point where the thermal mass of the slab gets cold enough that it's really hard to recover from.

We have 2 rooms at sort of extremities of the house we've had to deal with as well.
* Master bath: we have an electric heater in the ceiling.  We use it only about 10 minutes a day (when we shower).
* dog room: (Yes, we have a dog room.)  This is usually closed off so that if we're not here the dogs don't have run of the house.  Since the downstairs heat rarely kicks on, it gets cold in there.  I installed an electric convection heater in there that just trickles heat.  It's fairly new, so I'm not sure what the cost to run it will be.

guitar_stitch

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2015, 10:54:38 AM »
1) Thick skin
2) Coats/Blankets
3) Increased physical activity

Failing that, I have an electric heat pump on a programmable thermostat.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2015, 11:04:58 AM »
We don't have zones, but we've always turned off the basement vents, even in a finished basement. The basement stays ~55 regardless.

Other than that we don't do any electric heating like you said ($$$) except for a small radiator on a timer for 7-9pm in the coldest bedroom in the house. That's the compromise since we keep the thermostat set very low.

If I ever installed hvac from scratch I would definitely do zones.


The way I see it, implementing zone heating basically means to heat the rooms you are in and not the ones that are unoccupied -- and you can just do that by opening and closing doors to direct/contain the heat where you want it.  Seen that way, the zone heating strategy could be applied to more than just central heating.  :O

austin

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2015, 11:28:21 AM »
1) Thick skin
2) Coats/Blankets
3) Increased physical activity

Failing that, I have an electric heat pump on a programmable thermostat.

Location: Jacksonville, Florida

:)

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2015, 11:38:22 AM »
I live in a one-bedroom, so I close the doors of the rooms I'm not using.  ...So in the evenings, the heat is only on in the living room.  Overnight it's the bedroom.  I turn it off completely when I leave for work in the mornings.   When I get home from work, I generally don't turn the heat on until after the sun's gone down and it's after 7:00 PM (when off-peak hourly energy prices begin). 


gaja

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2015, 11:55:37 AM »
Old house:
-open plan kitchen/living room built around the wood fire place. Nice and efficient wood stove that heats up to 9 kW
-electric floor heating in bathrooms
-electric panel ovens in bedrooms with thermostats, only turned on when needed. Needed, not wanted. The kids slept outside year round when they were babies, now they prefer ~15 degrees C indoors.

New house has basically same layout as old house but:
-windows are rotten
-walls are less isolated
-no floor heating in bathrooms
-internal doors are old and don't fit well
-wood stove is old and inefficient

So, yes, zone heating is nice. Except when the house leaks heat between rooms and to the outside.

2ndTimer

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2015, 12:06:38 PM »
Wearing a wool hat and wool socks as I write this.  Pellet stove in the main living area which is all one room.  Other rooms closed off.  Down comforter and spouse in the bedroom.  Little electric heater in bathroom for shower day.  The electric whole house heat gets turned on if somebody is sick or the in-house temp drops to low 50's

DagobertDuck

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2015, 12:14:51 PM »
Another strategy: don't heat your bedroom, just use an electric blanket that you turn for an hour prior to bedtime (or a hot water bottle!), so you don't have to step into a freezing cold bed.

enigmaT120

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #15 on: February 18, 2015, 12:46:23 PM »
If we get cold, we build a fire.  The wood is a free product of my fitness program.


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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #16 on: February 18, 2015, 01:05:39 PM »
We have a full house HVAC system (gas) that we use to heat the entire house to a temperature that is reasonably comfortable when up and moving around (60 degrees at night and when not home, 64 degrees when home), and keeps the basement above 50 degrees, so we are sure that any pipes out of airflow areas will not freeze.

We then use plug in electric space heaters for rooms where we will be in and want to get warmer (office or sewing room).  Otherwise, we use blankets and appropriate warm weather clothing to keep warm- such as when watching TV, as that room doesn't work well with space heaters.  Before I convinced my husband that it was unreasonable to wear a t-shirt and no socks in the winter we heated the house to 68, and would sometimes raise it all the way to 70!

We add a second blanket to the bed at night and since doing that have stopped using any space heater in our bedroom.



We do think next year we will splurge to get a gas line plumbed into the garage so we can install a garage heater.  The electric space heaters just aren't working in such a large space, and the garage is rarely above freezing in the winter, so husband can't do woodworking half of the year, which was a major reaason for BUYING this house.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #17 on: February 18, 2015, 03:58:33 PM »
... We add a second blanket to the bed at night and since doing that have stopped using any space heater in our bedroom.

During the day, I hardly ever go into my bedroom, so I keep it unheated and its door closed.  Lately, that drops the temperature in that room to the mid-40's by 10pm.  About that time, I'll turn on that room's baseboard heater moderately, so that the room temperature gets up to the mid 50's by the time I'm ready to hit the hay.  Then I turn off the baseboard heater.

It is amazing to me (1) how comfortably I sleep under blankets with the room temp in the 50's, and (2) how little the temp drops (maybe 4 degrees) by the time I get back up (maybe due to my body heat).

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #18 on: February 18, 2015, 06:06:38 PM »
We have a natural gas whole-house furnace and a woodstove.  I'm strategic, DH is not, though he is (mostly) tolerant of my quirks sensibly frugal behavior.

We had one room added on to our house (a "sunroom," I guess) this past year.  It is separately zoned; everything else is connected.  The addition has a big "whole house" fan, otherwise, our fanning options are limited.

I program our thermostat almost every day, thinking about DH's schedule and when he will/won't be home (I am more predictable, though I do incorporate my own as well), as if he notices I have set it to 52 he will bump it up and keep it on "hold," but if it goes down to 52 when he is out, he doesn't care.  I set it to 52 when we are out or sleeping, but we do use heated mattress pads to warm the bed up before we get in it, and have good down comforters to hold our body heat.  When we are home and awake it is usually at 64, though DH has been grumping about being cold and we have sometimes had it up as high as 68, recently. 

We haven't been using the woodstove, as we are out of wood, and the only wood available at this point in the year isn't cheap.  I'm a little edgy about this, as it would be our backup source if we lost power, but there it is (if we did have wood, DH would keep a roaring fire going all day, which would be both nice and expensive).

I close the vent in the spare bedroom and keep the door closed, and also the vent in DS's bedroom (which is under his bed anyway), as he uses it for little but sleeping, usually falls asleep in our bed (and I then move him to his own), and like us, has a good down comforter.  He likes to take a long bath every night, and we leave the warm water in the tub until it has cooled down, to take advantage of its heat. 

I occasionally think that we should go to bed earlier to make better use of the natural heat/light of the day, especially when it is so cold, but rarely do. 

We haven't had much opportunity to use the whole-house fan, but the few days we did have highs above 60, I used it to suck the warm air into the  house.  Very nice.  We'll make more use of it as we get into spring (and summer, and fall), and it's on a programmable switch, which I think will come in handy.

Emilyngh

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #19 on: February 18, 2015, 06:16:09 PM »
We have forced air on the main floor that comes from a heat pump with backup electric coils.   Upstairs we have electric baseboard heaters in each room that we only turn them on when we're upstairs.   

I thought putting central heat/air in the upstairs would've been one of the first things we did when we bought our house, but it turns out that I like the efficiency of only using the baseboard heaters or window air conditioners when we're upstairs and being able to use them to then control the exact temp in each room based on individual sleeping preferences.   For example, we were able to keep our daughter's room very warm when she was a baby, while keeping ours downright chilly and use an electric blanket.   But, we are still able to have the downstairs heat kick on before we get up in the am and to have the ac cool things off on the main floor before getting home in the summer. I never would have predicted it, but central heat/ac on the main floor and individually heated/cooled rooms upstairs is great.

PatStab

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #20 on: February 18, 2015, 06:43:55 PM »
I couldn't stand living in conditions like that, I would turn into an ice cube.

We keep our house 76 winter and summer and I love it.  WE have geo thermal
heating and cooling. DD and I have the windows open and AC off in the summer
till the humidity gets to high.  Our bill for all electric now runs $240 a month, $20
is the outside light and $20 is taxes, so $200 a month.  Basement is 1800 sq ft
almost finished out stays in the 60's our dog stays down there.  If I'm down there
sewing, I turn on a couple of heaters.  If exercising its warm enough.  Upstairs 1800
sq ft, 9 ft ceilings and in the main living area 12.  Lots of floor to ceiling windows, 11
across the back of the house and a glass exterior door with transom. 

We have been here 2 years, the first winter had some honeycomb blinds made for winter,
last summer most of the rest done. Total about $2k, well worth it.  Keep them pulled at
night in the winter, improves the comfort factor.  I run a heater for about a half hour in
the bathroom while taking a shower. The house is only 10 years old, dual pane windows
and foam insulation so not drafty.

Tonight its to get 9 below 0 and tomorrow night 6 below but we stay comfy, sleep
with a light blanket.  Hubby used to be very hot natured but he has worked in the
tropics for 15 years so its comfortable for him anymore.  I never want to be cold
grew up in an old drafty house with coal stoves, was cold.

scottish

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #21 on: February 18, 2015, 09:00:35 PM »
Forced air central heating with a natural gas furnace.    We purchased a new HE furnace in Dec 2013.    My gas bills would have dropped noticeably if it wasn't so cold this winter.

We keep the house at 21 all winter (that's about 70 Fahrenheit).    One bedroom gets colder, there's a small electric heater in there, but its only on when needed.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #22 on: February 18, 2015, 09:18:35 PM »
Even though it's February, we've had some nice weather in Texas this past week (70's). I open the windows and let the warm air in to trap the heat in the house. I've had the thermostat turned off most of the past week. In October, I did the opposite, I opened all the windows in the morning to trap all of the cool air in the house, so I wouldn't have to run the A/C later in the day.

sol

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2015, 09:31:33 PM »
We heat 2250 sqft exclusively with a natural gas furnace.

MMM's DIY radiant floor heating system has turned out to be less impressive than I was hoping it would be.  My old gas furnace looks like a very reasonable alternative.

It breaks down roughly like this.  His family of three uses about 6 therms per month on showers and laundry and such, and then 193 therms for heating over the three months he cites in that article.  He pays 62.67 cents per therm.

My family of five uses about 11 therms per month on showers and laundry and such, and then 149 therms for heating over the same three months, in a significantly larger house.  We pay $1 per therm instead of 63 cents, so our total gas bills are about the same.

Our gas furnace is 17 years old, so not even terribly efficient.  We also have significant solar gain, like he does.  And our climate is definitely not as cold; a quick internet search says Longmont's winter is 12 degrees F cooler than ours, on average.  So that's part of the difference.

Even accounting for that, it looks like the key to home heating costs is basically insulation and leakage, not delivery method.

I suspect part of the difference is that a gas furnace can heat a house up very quickly, unlike radiant floors, so people who have day jobs and can let their house cool off during the day derive some energy savings that way.  The MMM family is home much more often, so has to keep their house heated all the time, which works out great with a slow-to-respond system like radiant floors. 

Our thermostat is programmed to not kick on above 55F at night, because we can get from 55 to a comfortable 68 in like twenty minutes in the morning.  I'm guessing the radiant flooring people don't let their homes get quite as cold at night because they can't rewarm fast enough in the mornings.

Previous forum discussion about this topic, for perspective:  http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/continue-the-blog-conversation/radiant-heating-blog-post!/

PhysicsCat

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #24 on: February 19, 2015, 04:55:55 AM »
Gas furnace, whole house HVAC, 1965 Brick Ranch on a basement, ~1800 square feet topside. I keep it set to 55 and bump it up to 60-62 between 4pm and 8pm, then drop it back down to 55 for the night. Electric blanket in the bed and cat on top. Layers and wool socks. Pretty comfortable. I am reluctant to get up in the mornings though. Especially if I leave a fan going. In Georgia so we don't really have a winter. Used 50 therms last month between hot water and heat. Expect to use maybe 65 this month.

boy_bye

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #25 on: February 19, 2015, 05:13:59 AM »
Live in an apartment where heat is included in the rent ;)

lizzzi

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2015, 05:48:42 AM »
Natural gas, forced-air furnace to heat whole, 1100 sq. ft. wood-frame house built in 1950. Keep thermostat at 60 Fahrenheit, except for around 20 hours a week when little grandchildren are here, when I raise it to 65 degrees. Wear layers, have wool sweaters, lightweight merino wool long underwear, wool socks, boots good to minus 32 degrees F. Flannel sheets and down comforter.  In bed (where I love to go, because it's so cosy), I wear the long underwear, thick ragg wool socks, a flannel nightgown, and wool sweater. Sometimes wear a wool hat to bed. Am going to put thermostat to 55 tonight, and see how that goes.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #27 on: February 19, 2015, 06:04:08 AM »
Live in an apartment where heat is included in the rent ;)


I was going to scoff at this, and then I realized that you've described my Dad's strategy.  He lives in South Florida, so it's really a house cooling strategy but the point still applies.  His electricity is included in the rent, so he has no curbs on his air conditioner use.  [However, I do know his rent goes up like clockwork every year.  :(  ]

justajane

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #28 on: February 19, 2015, 06:07:20 AM »
Those of you who say to only heat the room in which you are in - do any of you have a gas furnace? I ask, because I recall reading that it doesn't necessarily help your efficiency to close off vents with this kind of system.

We have a 1920s home that really wasn't built for forced air, especially air conditioning. We get by in the winter and just suffer through the cold in our brick on plaster home (i.e. no wall insulation whatsoever), but in the summer, it is extremely hard to air condition it effectively, especially upstairs. Thankfully we don't expect it to be 70 degrees or anything either in the summer or winter. We would be screwed or move if that was our expectation.

A couple little things we do: we put a draft dodger on the leaky front door. We insulted the attic when we first moved in, which made a HUGE difference. I leave the hot water in the tub for a few hours after the kids have their bath (they are in bed, so not as much a safety issue). This keep that area of the house a little warmer and humidifies the whole first floor.

The bubble wrap on the windows didn't really work for us. Maybe I did it wrong.

kpd905

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #29 on: February 19, 2015, 06:29:05 AM »
I am going to change the settings on the thermostat after reading this thread.  I thought setting it at 60 at night was pretty low, but I am seeing that it isn't.  Just got the utility bill today, and I'd love to cut a nice chunk off it.

bogart

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #30 on: February 19, 2015, 09:26:27 AM »
Oh, a few other things.

I usually make, and drink, a big cup of hot cocoa every evening.  Sometimes also drink hot tea, though not always in the mood for that.  Also:  bake breads/cookies or roast veggies in the toaster (or regular) oven, and cook crockpot meals.  Those latter two generate minimal heat, but I think the smells they generate make me feel better/warmer :) . 

horsepoor

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #31 on: February 19, 2015, 09:41:10 AM »
Central heating with a 95% efficiency gas furnace that's about 3 years old now.  The thermostat is programmable, so it kicks up a few degrees in the evening when we're home.  I try to remember to put the cellular shades up in the morning to capture any solar gains during the day, and then pull them down at night.  This is more important when it's really cold. Also when it's really cold and air quality allows, we'll get a wood fire going in the fireplace insert on the main floor.  We also keep the heat vents to the finished basement closed, since that space isn't used much except for as a home gym.  With this, I've been able to keep the heating bills below $100 all winter in a 3,000 sf house, though it hasn't been a very cold winter here.

CheapskateWife

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #32 on: February 19, 2015, 09:45:52 AM »
We use some of those 3-4 wick candles from walmart in our bedroom and it heats the place up nicely for $20 per year. 

Add in the benefit of nice lighting for other warmth producing activities...

rocketpj

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #33 on: February 19, 2015, 10:12:32 AM »
Pellet stove upstairs which heats the entire top floor - we shut it down at night and the backup electrical is set to 8C to keep the pipes from freezing.  We have preprogrammed digital thermometers in the kids' bedrooms, and a regular one in ours (which is set to 14C).  All other rooms either don't get heat or are set at 8C to keep things from freezing when its cold.

Putting in the pellet stove cut our elecrical bill in half in the winter months, in 5 years it has more than paid for itself.

CanuckStache

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #34 on: February 19, 2015, 10:19:51 AM »
We just bought a gigantic old house (100+years) with several energy efficiency issues.

One being that the heat is all electric forced air. For some reason the previous owners had it installed in the 80's, maybe because electricity was cheaper then.

There's an old boiler and all the radiator infrastructure is there. So, I'm thinking of switching to an energy efficient natural gas boiler and firing up the radiators. At that point, I'd keep the house at an overall 'decent' temperature, but then use the electric heat when in a particular room as a supplement - since the electric infrastructure is already there. Looked into heat pumps, and for a number of reasons I don't think it's a good solution for the house.

Anyways- that combined with some insulation, windows, etc ought to work well for us. On my way out to look for thermal drapes now..

Retire-Canada

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #35 on: February 19, 2015, 10:22:57 AM »
The way I see it, implementing zone heating basically means to heat the rooms you are in and not the ones that are unoccupied -- and you can just do that by opening and closing doors to direct/contain the heat where you want it.  Seen that way, the zone heating strategy could be applied to more than just central heating.  :O

We installed a curtain two separate two rooms we are never in at the same time and heat only one of them as the second we are only in to sleep and it can be cold. That and simply closing doors to rooms we aren't planning to use during that part of the day saves a lot of heating.

A little burst of heating in the AM makes the house comfy while we are getting ready for work. Since it's cold when we get up it's just enough to feel warm even though it's not actually all that warm.

The house stays cold during the day and we heat by zone from 4-9pm and then let things cool overnight.

-- Vik

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #36 on: February 19, 2015, 12:42:59 PM »
... On my way out to look for thermal drapes now..

Jimminy!  Thanks for the face punch reminder.  We gotta get some of those!

(Have you tried searching for them online?)

shallow pockets

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #37 on: February 19, 2015, 09:22:59 PM »
Oh, a few other things.

I usually make, and drink, a big cup of hot cocoa every evening.  Sometimes also drink hot tea, though not always in the mood for that.  Also:  bake breads/cookies or roast veggies in the toaster (or regular) oven, and cook crockpot meals.  Those latter two generate minimal heat, but I think the smells they generate make me feel better/warmer :) .
Likewise,  most nights I have a hot drink in the evening.  I use the stove regularly also during the Winter months   The kitchen is a cold area in my small home. 

DSKla

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #38 on: February 19, 2015, 09:46:30 PM »
Anyone build a rocket mass heater? I tried to find the link but permies.com seems to be down at the moment. It's a DIY woodburner that used way less wood, produces way less smoke and emissions, and supposedly heats a room more effectively than a fireplace or traditional woodburning stove. If I owned instead of rented, I'd be tempted.

Edit: http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 11:00:11 PM by DSKla »

aspiringnomad

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #39 on: February 19, 2015, 10:51:41 PM »
We've got pets so we can't go too low while away and we've neither the time nor will to change to something more efficient from our current electric HVAC set up. That said, we live small, so on the coldest of cold months (i.e., this month) our electric bill may hit $140. In milder weather it's half that and it includes hot water, cooking, lights, etc.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #40 on: February 20, 2015, 06:50:50 AM »
We've got pets so we can't go too low while away...


We've got both "furry" pets and tropical birds.  For the furrys, we leave the central heating thermostat set at 55 degrees as a back-up in case we stay out longer than planned.  But the furnace hardly ever kicks in at that setting.  For the birds, our solution is to keep them in their own room with a baseboard heater thermostat setting of 60 degrees.  It's the best compromise we've found so far between keeping heating costs low and keeping the pets reasonably comfortable.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #41 on: February 20, 2015, 09:51:00 AM »
Those of you who say to only heat the room in which you are in - do any of you have a gas furnace? I ask, because I recall reading that it doesn't necessarily help your efficiency to close off vents with this kind of system.


This seems to be a matter of opinion. I was able to find just as many HVAC sources that say it is fine to close vents as ones that say it isn't.  I'm guessing no one has ever done an actual study.

The people who treat our HVAC system tell us to close registers in rooms we shut off, but only if the entire room is shut off- the door never opens.  Closing them, but leaving them open to the rest of the space doesn't work.

2527

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #42 on: February 21, 2015, 11:45:37 AM »
We have a heater.  My wife sets the thermostat at 70.  End of story.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #43 on: February 21, 2015, 03:58:33 PM »
We have a heater.  My wife sets the thermostat at 70.  End of story.


Well, 2 or 3 years ago, I could/would have told the same story.  But my wife got a little MMM religion, somehow, along the way.  And now she is more aggressive about lowering the thermostat than I am.  Hallelujah!

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #44 on: February 21, 2015, 06:01:47 PM »
A bit of this and a bit of that. Ok so its not very cold here in winter - min 5C.  Evenings I light my wood fire, using wood collected from my block. If i'm busy at work i don't light it. I have a gas heater, which I use to dry clothes if its wet, or finish off if they don't quite line dry. I don't heat upstairs, the heat goes up quite well. I do have a ducted reverse cycle aircon (heat pump) but would rarely use it in winter, generally only if the humidity is getting unpleasant in the house. I sometimes use it on fan which takes the air from the hottest part of the house and moves it to the far rooms.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #45 on: February 21, 2015, 06:02:42 PM »
We just got a heat pump and it's a huge savings over propane.

For those throwing around numbers, the only equal comparison is BTU/HDD/sqft

BTU (British thermal unit, the amount of heat, 1 therm = 100,000. bTU)
HDD = heating degree day. (The number of degreesF  below 65F the average temperature is each day)

So we use 900 gallons of propane (.94 therm/gallon) = 84,600,000 BTU per year in a climate averaging 7100 HDD/ year to heat 1600 sqft.
 = 7.4 BTU/HDD/sqft


For comparison in this article MMM has http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/02/06/the-radiant-heat-experiment-did-it-work/

193 therm (19,300,000 BTU)
HDD 2881(jan 16) - 250(oct 15) = 2631
1500 sqft ( 6 zones 250sqft each)
=5 BTU/HDD/sqft

« Last Edit: February 21, 2015, 06:14:17 PM by kimmarg »

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #46 on: February 21, 2015, 06:29:01 PM »
Geothermal heat pump running on solar PV energy in my net zero energy home.


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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #47 on: February 22, 2015, 06:23:35 PM »
I live in coastal Southern California. I rarely have to run the furnace. Didn't fire it up until December and have probably run it less than a dozen days since then.  This is a high cost of living area, but this is one budget item that makes up for it.

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #48 on: February 22, 2015, 08:04:10 PM »
My primary heat source is natural gas which heats up the main living area. My secondary is a heat pump in the basement,which is triggered once or twice a year at most. The average monthly gas bill in 2014 is around 33 dollars.  I use a space heater in my one year old son's bed room at night. I like zone heating. It really is a huge waste to heat up the whole house while every one stays on one floor.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2015, 08:07:28 PM by Sharpy »

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Re: What Is Your House Heating Strategy?
« Reply #49 on: February 22, 2015, 08:07:43 PM »
I burn fossil fuels to generate heat.




sorry couldn't resist