Quote:
Originally Posted by The Phantom Gourmand
We heat our house the old fashioned way. There is a little thingy on the wall that controls a machine in the cellar that somehow keeps the house nice and toasty in the winter. There is a pipe that comes in the house from the street that feeds it when it is running. Seems to cost a lot less than the prices and amounts of wood that are needed to keep the house warm in the winter. And I don't have to worry about seasoning, unless I'm cooking something.
Seriously, we did the wood thing for several years, had a wood furnace in the basement tied in to the warm air duct work, even had a coil in it for hot water that used to blow once in a while because it made more hot water than we could use, even with 3 young kids.
In my old age, I find that the old fashioned way we do it now is certainly not just easier, but much cleaner and a lot less expensive.
|
I fully appreciate what you say, and believe me, I would be thrilled to not have to pay for the wood, look at it on my driveway for the summer (love the smell of fresh cut wood tho', maybe Glade will put it out
), stack it in the wood shed, go out every day and bring a wheelbarrow full of wood into the mudroom and fill the Hearthstone wood stove 3-4 times per day; I would rather watch the slightly overweight guy back a truck into my driveway, drag an orangy looking hose 50 ft to the outside tank, and stand there for 5 minutes listening to the whistle til it stops, then drag the hose back to the truck, hit the button to retract it, climb in the cab for a few mins, then leave a wrinkly piece of paper in an envelope hanging on my door knob and then drive away. However...
...our house started out as a 40x8 Detroiter trailer with a 22x8 screened in porch. By adding a gambrel roof, enclosing the whole area, adding space off both ends and the back, putting in a solid oak circular staircase to access the area over the trailer, Mom & Dad's modest 2 BR, 1 bath, kitchen/LR weekend retreat trailer became a 10 room house!!!!! It is replete with 16 4x5 sliding glass windows from the mid80's downstairs and two upstairs, with every thing supported by concrete piers sunk deep in the ground, creating a crawl space that is extremely drafty.
Having to have an outside tank, we must use Kero. Ouch. With the structure being Post and Beam, the exterior walls were 2x4 construction (remember it was primarily to be weekends and summer vacations
), little insulation, drafty, heat loss out the Gazoo through those windows, the cost to heat primarily by oil is prohibitive. We would be filling twice a month each month from Dec to March @ over $800 per month. Without tearing the place down and starting over, or spending nearly an equivelent amount to renovate, I guess that I will gladly fill with oil (my backup) 1-2 times per year, pay for the wood, look at it in my driveway all summer...