How will you heat your home this winter? We've had polls in past years,
but I'm curious to see how people will be choosing to heat their homes
this year with the price of everything rapidly increasing as we get closer
to the cold temperatures.

I'm heating mainly with a pellet stove, but will use the oil furnace
as a supplement. Stocked with 3.5 tons of pellets and have already
lit the stove a couple of nights that went down into the 30's.

I got 100 gallons of oil a couple of weeks ago and paid 2.72 a gallon.
It's only going to go up from there as soon as we get some steady
cold weather.

Will use the fireplace a little more this year too.....:geek:geek:geek

Oil for me. I looked at a woodstove, but I can't make one fit without taking up a lot of space in my small rooms.

Xena, let me say hi first.
I’m near Montreal. I heat with oil and when
it gets below 32F, the wood stove gets used.
The wood stove makes for a cozy atmosphere
and is one of the perks of having 4 real seasons.
However, this winter will be especially interesting,
as crude is getting close to a 100 bucks a barrel.

Mostly with coal using wood to help to help it. Gas as a backup.

We use a heat pump but have a natural gas non-vented fire place which puts 100% of the heat into the house the cold air return to circulate through out the house.

non-vented gas fireplace.

this will be the 4th year with the pellet stove insert, go thru 4 or 5 tons each season, warmer than the heat pump but your house needs to be able to move the heat around. Our family room has the stove and it has high ceilings which open up to a look over hallway upstairs, so as long as everyone keeps bedroom doors open it stays nice and warm upstairs also, Baltimore Gas and Electric can kiss my a--. Up 70% in the last 12 months.

thick blankets and woolly socks and when it gets real cold I'll open the oven door :smoke

I'm curious as to where the electric heat people are located?

I use oil, btw.

I live up in the Pacific Northwest where most of our energy is derived from hydro-electric power. I live right down the road from the Bonneville Dam and we get our electricity from there. It's dirt cheap or has been up to now. Last year my most expensive bill was 68 dollars. I don't know how you guys who use oil and gas can handle the bills, I remember when I was living out in Penna we used to use oil and it was pretty expensive then. we had a 200 gallon tank and we use to burn right thru that pretty quick in the winter time. and that was back in 93.

I live up in the Pacific Northwest where most of our energy is derived from hydro-electric power. I live right down the road from the Bonneville Dam and we get our electricity from there. It's dirt cheap or has been up to now. Last year my most expensive bill was 68 dollars. I don't know how you guys who use oil and gas can handle the bills, I remember when I was living out in Penna we used to use oil and it was pretty expensive then. we had a 200 gallon tank and we use to burn right thru that pretty quick in the winter time. and that was back in 93.

Okay that makes sense. Electric heat would break the bank here on Long Island. Oil heat is bad enough :doh

Living in the south everyone uses electric, electric heat pumps that heat or mostly cool in the summer months that is!!! :shhhh :p



BTW- i also have a wood burning fireplace for those real cold nights, been thinking about converting to propane gas, but the way gas prices are going i can get all the wood i need for free, so i'll stick with wood for the time being.:banana

Gas, forced air system. Don't like it but only fireplace is in the living room and would not be able to do the house. Years ago had a coal stove in the ling room but now I am just too old to be bothered with the coal and the ashes. Easier to put on a sweater. Also use a set back type of thermostat to save on energy when we are not home.

Fred

Well to be real honest I'm a bit worried about this whole deal. This winter I will be spending it in an RV and the winters here get to -35 degrees. My neighbor told me his hair( while in bed sleeping ) froze to the inside wall ( his headboard ) of his RV last winter. We've insulated the underneath of the floor and had a tarp ( skirting put on ). So I guess it'll be propane and a few additional electric heaters.......and a bunch of warm cloths ! :wonderlan

Blue,please be careful with those electric heaters,they are killers.We use oil here, trying to get the landlord to ok a wood stove.Oil is going to be very expensive this winter.The oil companies got us by the short hairs up here in the northeast.Supposed to get snow here towards the end of the week.If we do and they put salt down on the road,thats it for me until spring.

I have different heat sources: the furnace burns oil & heats the downstairs, electric is upstairs (I close off everything except my bedroom up there), and when it's cold AND windy, I supplement with a kerosene heater. I'm definitely not looking forward to paying for heat this winter. It's gonna be awful.

I'd love a wood stove, as I've got lots of free wood out back, but I really don't have a place to put it.

For Flathead: I also use the oven on occasion! LOL

I live in Colorado and used just electric untill this winter. This new place will use gas for the heat and electric for appliances. Darn shame electrical power is still quite cheap here.....

Hei burn propane no natural gas line out here in the country. Have some woods but not enough to burn wood although I would like to.

Oil on the cold nights. Solar heating if the sun is out . We have faced our house south with an entire glass wall that captures the solar heat. If the temp. is 10-15, the solar heating warms the main living room with forced air returns high up in the ceiling to capture the heat and circulate it through the house. It has worked these last 30+ years. This year will be a test with high oil prices.

Take a guess! :D


Doug Fir
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/y2keglide/wood004.jpg


Locust
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/y2keglide/woodhaul001.jpg

Gas forced air occassionally. Mostly just turn off the AC. Ha Ha.

Burn coal here efm furnace rebuilt it two years ago only burn about 5 to 6 ton an house isn't insulated yet.waiting to hit the lottery

Well to be real honest I'm a bit worried about this whole deal. This winter I will be spending it in an RV and the winters here get to -35 degrees. My neighbor told me his hair( while in bed sleeping ) froze to the inside wall ( his headboard ) of his RV last winter. We've insulated the underneath of the floor and had a tarp ( skirting put on ). So I guess it'll be propane and a few additional electric heaters.......and a bunch of warm cloths ! :wonderlan

Hey you need to come over to the Wet side it stays alot warmer over here !:p

Just got thru insulating the house and up-graded to a high effeciency furnace.

Use to run an oil burner but, the cost of heating oil was just to much.

Heat pump till it gets below 32. Then the oil fed boiler supplements, heating base board heaters.

heat pump here, also have a wood burning stove. First year int his house so I'm not sure how much I'm gonna use the stove yet. Furnace and a/c are less than a year old, so they should be pretty efficient.

Not by choice...but we have an oil furnace for baseboard heat. We also use our fireplace quite a bit. My furnace will also use coal which I have a good amount of if I could ever get it going...

I use: Hoo-Chi, Star, Scooter, Mary, Rooster, Big Mo, Little Man, GiGi, Ragnar, Gus and...
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff72/DRAWTOOL/SANY0008-1.jpg
Oscar.

I have gas heat, a chubby boyfriend, and a fuzzy dog.I stay pretty warm!

Blue,please be careful with those electric heaters,they are killers.

Thanks phantom. Yes, I will be careful. Occassionally one of these babies blows up or burns down.



Hey you need to come over to the Wet side it stays alot warmer over here !:p

I did spend some time over there in Centralia.......no kidding it was way warmer there than where I am spending this winter. :p

Gas furnace. Thermostat set on 64-65F. Didn't turn it on until Nov. 1st.

Run electric space heaters in the bedrooms at night to supplement.

Heck It aint cold here yet but my gas and lectric have gone up 20 bucks so far ! I dont have any other way to heat yet but I have an old wood burner out in the drive way that keeps us warm when outside !

Propane .... wife sets it at 62 - I change it to 63 when she's not looking :D and
to 64 when she goes shopping :shhhh

http://animatedtv.about.com/library/graphics/kohGirlYoullBeAGiant.jpg

When we bought our house in '95 it only had electric baseboard heat :wonderlan
It was put in in the late 60's when everyone was converting to electric, same
time my parents house was built with all electric. Anyway the house was
insulated well... but it still cost us an arm and a leg and we would heat one room
at a time (there were pocket doors to section off the first floor). The next year
we got the propane furnace and spent for the whole house for the whole winter
what we spent every month on just one room at a time on electric.

Gazza

When I finally bought a house here in Germany it had a central oil burning furnace.I ripped it out and replaced it with what the Germans call a multi-furnace,which I can burn any kind of wood(pellets,wood chips,and also logs up to a meter long and in summer oil for heating water)and on top of that it is hooked up to a electricity converter that converts the energy the heater puts out into electricity.In the winter when We use it to heat the house it generates about 50% of the electricity We need in our home.

Last autumn, I replaced gas by heat pump.
Very simple to use, economical and ecologic, of course...
Very nice in summer to refresh the house....

Central Heat and air here in So. Central Ky. We don't get so very cold here. Just once in a while for a short time.

All electric here...

Pellet stove also here, 3 tons last year so we go 3 tons this year. Last year was our first year with it. we have electric heat in the house and we were getting $600 a month bills when I first met my girlfriend. Now its $850 a year delivered. Ours has a thermostat and we leave it at 65. Heats the hole house, just need a fan to get it into the kitchen.

Oil heat. Looking for a fireplace insert now. During the day the temps are set for 60 degrees. Lots of blankets and sweaters for my family. Over the past couple of years we have been upgrading the insulation on our 1950's home and have seen much better savings in the quantity of fuel begin used. Windows are next.

91 degrees here yesterday... we do get some frost in January sometimes...

91 degrees here yesterday... we do get some frost in January sometimes...

I hate you guys down there this time of year :laugh

Been building fires in the stove here since 1st of Oct.:rolleyes:

Went to a hybrid unit last year. It is an electric heat pump(electric cheaper than gas where I live) with a gas backup when it gets too cold for heat pump to be effective. All in a packaged unit. Very efficient.

My house is heated with hot water in the slab from a natural gas fired boiler. EXCEPT for the master suite, which is electric baseboard.

I need to replace my a/c as the present one is old and inefficient. But, it'll cost $3-4K just to replace the condenser and evaporator, more to do duct work. When I get this done, I'll opt for a dual system of heat; heat pump for the mild day/cool nights and the hot water for long periods of cold.

I use Geothermal heating and cooling and like it. When we built our house the electric company gave us a $2000.00 rebate for using it if we insulated the house to their standards. At the time that was cheaper than installing the most efficient heat pump system. We have a non-vented propane fireplace insert in our living room we use occasionally.

I use oil, but try to keep it off , or at least turned down as long as possible. I was able to go into dec. last year with the help of electric heaters.

I use a non-vented propane stove. House is all electric. The first year I bought the house Electric Bills killed me so I installed the propane, but propane then was .99 a Gal. I had some delivered about a month ago and it was $3.09 a Gal. This year I've been trying to pay ahead due to the high prices. I pitty the older people on fixed (Retirement) incomes. Even without using my electric heat my electric bills run anywhere from $150.00 - $210.00 a month.

I live in an apartment with ancient gas heaters. Luckily global warming has taken care of much of my heating costs. I still haven't turned on my heat. I did plug in the electric blanket last night though.

Gas, although I do have a fireplace that I've never used because a wood burning fireplace is a pain in the ass. I am going to have some extra insulation blown in the attic, should be money well spent.

We have monitor heat fueled by K-1. It is backed up by electric baseboards, but we never have to use them.

We have monitor heat fueled by K-1. It is backed up by electric baseboards, but we never have to use them.

I've been using a Monitor stove for ten years in my house in Alaska...two story house and this small heater kept me warm enough to wear shorts during a -35F cold spell! My place up there is not a mcmansion, but this stove heats the 1700sf just fine. http://www.medfordfuel.com/monitor_stoves.htm Great little miser of fuel oil!

Here's what one Monitor owner has to say:
"The Monitor can heat up to 2000 sq ft and operates on a little over a gallon of #1 stove oil a day, making the Monitor hard to beat. Its a gravity feed system so doesn't require a pump. I have personally heated my home for the last seven years in Oregon with this model and comfortably heated 1800sq ft." - Mr. Bradley of Grants Pass, Oregon.


I had a Toyostove prior to the Monitor and was just as happy with it...these heaters are so small yet efficient and can heat large amounts of square footage...I can't say enough good about them, and wonder why they aren't more popular! http://www.toyostove.com/

This Toyostove is rated to heat 2,000SF:

http://www.toyotomiusa.com/products/laserventedheaters/images/L-73b.gif

And this model rates at 1,500SF:

http://www.toyotomiusa.com/products/laserventedheaters/images/L-60ATb.gif

Not affiliated with either brand...just have experienced them first hand and liked them a lot! I do have a woodstove for backup, but haven't had to use it in years!

I selected other, wood fired outside boiler, radient floor heat. My boiler uses
3' lengths which reduces some of the cutting, but splitting those big sticks gets real close to hard work, much rather go ride the Sporty.

will use gas, but I also heat with my firplace that is in my den. I hooked up a vent system that will draw the eat ouf of my den and vent it to the rest of the house. Woold here is about 140 a truck load and I will use 3 to 4 loads a year.

I am using a heat pump, but also in the process of getting a wood stove. Vermont Castings. Hope to have it up and running by Christmas. We have OUTRAGOUS electric bills around the holidays. (I like alot of christmas lights.) We got on a plan where our average cost per last year is what we pay every month. Great in summer and winter (we save money) not needed in spring and fall. Hopefully the wood stove will be enuff to go back to regular billing cycle.

planb I'm only guessing, but I would think that the Monitor
isn't more popular because people not only want the heat,
but they enjoy seeing the fire. I think if wood and pellet
stoves didn't have glass doors, then they too wouldn't
be so popular.

I use Geothermal heating and cooling and like it. When we built our house the electric company gave us a $2000.00 rebate for using it if we insulated the house to their standards. At the time that was cheaper than installing the most efficient heat pump system. We have a non-vented propane fireplace insert in our living room we use occasionally.

Do you have any details on the system? Geothermal seems like a really smart idea (environmentally). I presume that since you only occasionally use the propane stove the Geothermal works well. Cool enough in the summer time?

I have a air tight wood fireplace that heat's my main level. Oil is a back-up and we have 2 electric fireplaces for ambience.

1 month and counting . January 11th wood stove will be installed and operational. Cant wait to see those electric bills whittle down by 150$. BRING ON THE COLD.

I use kerosene. Have no choice. Keep the heat down to save fuel.

Heating with oil works for me.

wood stove i live in the mountains, so i just cut trees as i need them, gotta open up all the doors and windows though. gets to fcking hot

Any way I can...oil...electric...candles...but I won't burn my whiskey!!! Want to see it get worse...Put another republican in office!!!

Replacing my 30 year old 50 percent efficient natural gas furnace with a 95 percent efficiency one really helped the heating bills. Was pricey but worth it in the long run. Also added a spacegard hepa air filter that really cleans the air. And you only have to change the filter once a year.

oil,electric,candles...but not my whiskey...Thanks G.W.!!!!!

If it does not cool off i will need to cool it

Nat Gas. Eventually I will put a wood burner up here on the first floor to augment the furnace. And I have a kerosene heater in the basement for really cold nights-to keep the pipes from freezing.

Does "Gas" mean NATURAL gas? If so that's all me! I have 2,500sq ft house, and I heat my house, my water, and cook my food with NG. That being said, my total big is only $75 a month. It's less than that in the summer but the extra goes toward the Winter bill.

Want to see it get worse...Put another republican in office!!!

Not sure what that means, but don't want to see this get moved...

I tried a gas heater for our bed but my wife hit me!

Heating fuel(oil)hit $3.35 a gallon. But that was 2 weeks ago so it could have gone up more by now.
With below temps its going to be a financial back breaking winter giving my money to the oil giants.

we recently movedto a place that has a natural gas fireplace and a wood stove as backup(ya right, backup, heh...) and I forgot how warm, and comfortable wood heat was.... love it..

Heating fuel(oil)hit $3.35 a gallon. But that was 2 weeks ago so it could have gone up more by now.
With below temps its going to be a financial back breaking winter giving my money to the oil giants.

Last week I paid $3.69/gallon for fuel oil here in western NY. Ouch!!

Last week I paid $3.69/gallon for fuel oil here in western NY. Ouch!!

Holy holy crap, ouch is right! For a cold winter such as we've had, I would have
needed 900 or more gallons if I were using my oil furnace.
Paid under $700.00 for the three tons of pellets I have. Had a half ton left over
from last year. Even if I need to get two more tons at a higher
price, I'm still way under the $3k oil would have cost me. Oil tank is full just in
case I need a backup but I'm not anticipating using it. I love my pellet stove!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a203/sporty04/hearthpad.jpg

I'm from Long Island I paid 3.02 a gallon for a 100 gallons there talking about oil prices jumping to 3.50 a gallon befor winters threw. I am screwed because in February I am going to need another 100 Gallons.

$300-350 a month it cost me in oilk heat my uncle use's a pellet stove it cost him about $200-$225 a month i think thats the way to go

I mostly heat with gas but also have a woodstove for when it really gets cold.

Holy holy crap, ouch is right! For a cold winter such as we've had, I would have
needed 900 or more gallons if I were using my oil furnace.
Paid under $700.00 for the three tons of pellets I have. Had a half ton left over
from last year. Even if I need to get two more tons at a higher
price, I'm still way under the $3k oil would have cost me. Oil tank is full just in
case I need a backup but I'm not anticipating using it. I love my pellet stove!
That looks like a beauty. I wish I had a good place for one -- I've got too many windows and doors. I'd have to run a chimney through the middle of the house, through 2 floors, for an optimal location.

Wanted to update this thread since home heating oil
prices are going through the roof at all time record highs.
This week my supplier wants $3.72/gallon. Last week
he was at $3.50. Prices seem to be rising as we get
closer to warmer weather. Usually the opposite is true.

Thankfully my pellet stove has been running great all
winter. In February I replaced the room air blower.
It was working but it started to emit a high pitched
screech that was totally annoying. I installed the
blower myself and she was back running quiet again.
Still have 50 bags left that should last me through
until the end of April.

Hows everyone else's situation?

Wanted to update this thread since home heating oil
prices are going through the roof at all time record highs.
This week my supplier wants $3.72/gallon. Last week
he was at $3.50. Prices seem to be rising as we get
closer to warmer weather. Usually the opposite is true.

Thankfully my pellet stove has been running great all
winter. In February I replaced the room air blower.
It was working but it started to emit a high pitched
screech that was totally annoying. I installed the
blower myself and she was back running quiet again.
Still have 50 bags left that should last me through
until the end of April.

Hows everyone else's situation?

Natural gas. I never turn the thermostat up over 64 degrees all winter-so my heating bills arent too awful bad. I've got an electric space heater going out in the greenhouse, and I'm sure that'll do wonderful things to my electric bill, but gotta keep the 'maters and peppers warm!

I'm feeling your pain! This week oil is up to 3.97/gal. My tank is almost on 'E', and I'm not going to fill it again. Screw 'em. I'll use the kerosene heater instead. Kero was 3.89/gal yesterday. Not much better, but at least I don't have to get a minimum of 150 gallons! It's insane.