Alternative Heating | GTAMotorcycle.com

Alternative Heating

Jampy00

Jampy00

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After replacing all of our windows and doors this year we find our house to be still very cold/drafty during the winter months.
House is about 20+ years old, so, I know it's built like crap and there are a few area's I need to attend to this spring to seal up some areas of concern etc.
Anyways, we have a gas fireplace what we love about it is it requires no electricity and works great when we get a power outage.
But I was thinking of adding another heat source but one that does not require natural gas. Thinking of a small wood stove, pellet stove etc. It will be in a useable area of of our home so has to legal and properly installed, maybe even nice to look at...
Basically I need something that does not require a full length chimney. Anyone have any actual experiences with something like this?
 
My dad put a pellet stove in the garage last year that just has a small exhaust chimney out the wall. It works great. Its also nice that it can be set to a temperature like a normal furnace, just by controlling how many pellets it drops in. It's a lot less work than a wood store.
 
48Connor said:
My dad put a pellet stove in the garage last year that just has a small exhaust chimney out the wall. It works great. Its also nice that it can be set to a temperature like a normal furnace, just by controlling how many pellets it drops in. It's a lot less work than a wood store.
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High price of fuel per btu though. But definitely less work and space than a wood stove and associated pile of firewood.

As for the solution to this problem, what is driving the desire to minimize natural gas? Cost of NG? Heat during power outage? Save the environment? Heat in a part of the house not easy to get a gas pipe too? Look of a proper fire? Obviously useless during a power outage and not a great solution for the coldest days (most start losing a lot of capacity somewhere between 0 and -15 degrees C) but a mini-split is a pretty great solution to the other issues. Cost per btu should be far lower than a pellet stove. Installed cost will be far far lower than a stove (and recurring bump in insurance). If you want, you can have multiple heads to effectively zone your house (could have A/C on the sun side and heat on the warm side if you really want).

@Mad Mike put one in his garage. He may be able to provide real world insight into heating capacity in cold weather.
 
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Would be interesting on a cost basis against a simple electric heater with a thermostat. Even a cost over time.
Heating never an issue here tho the occasional mid teens is chilly ..ac for our style of house just about none. Our last quarterly was no cost thanks to a gov rebate.
Happy to be away from the energy crunch.
 
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The province will give you a grant for a heating energy survey. They'll do a leak test and offer suggestions. No cost to you, contact HydroOne or your gas provider

How about a heat pump? Geo thermal is cool and cheap
If your fire place isn't designed right (most of them) more heat goes up the chimney than into the house and unless you have a source of wood, more expensive than gas or electric
 
If a wood burning option does not have a cold air intake from outside you run the risk of it causing more gas use. Most of the heat it creates goes out the flue, with that heat lots of combusted air. That air comes from every crack and air leak in your house making the rest of the house cold and causing the furnace to kick in. Fireplaces are worse than wood stoves, generally.

Restrictive electric is expensive to run. Electric heat pump will be better and possibly a good choice in the shoulder seasons or even when it is not too cold out, even better if geothermal based.
 
GreyGhost said:
High price of fuel per btu though. But definitely less work and space than a wood stove and associated pile of firewood.

As for the solution to this problem, what is driving the desire to minimize natural gas? Cost of NG? Heat during power outage? Save the environment? Heat in a part of the house not easy to get a gas pipe too? Look of a proper fire? Obviously useless during a power outage and not a great solution for the coldest days (most start losing a lot of capacity somewhere between 0 and -15 degrees C) but a mini-split is a pretty great solution to the other issues. Cost per btu should be far lower than a pellet stove. Installed cost will be far far lower than a stove (and recurring bump in insurance). If you want, you can have multiple heads to effectively zone your house (could have A/C on the sun side and heat on the warm side if you really want).

@Mad Mike put one in his garage. He may be able to provide real world insight into heating capacity in cold weather.
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Mine is in my place up north, it's a split zone, 8000btu to the garage, 12000btu to the house. Is 9500sq. Its been unusually warm this year, with only 1 day at -22, and very few at-10, the backup resistance heater haven't been called to action yet.

12000btus isn't a lot, but so far it's keeping the place warm so far. I expect the minisplit to cut winter heating cost by 60% . It should be cheaper than natural gas to -15, and cheaper than resistance to -30.

I have 2 similar sized places in Timmins, one is gas, the other heat pump. Last year gas cost on house A was $1200 for the year, electric baseboards on the other $3000. I'm expecting the electric house to drop below the gas house this year.
 
GreyGhost said:
As for the solution to this problem, what is driving the desire to minimize natural gas?
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Already have a new gas furnace, gas fireplace and gas stove top.
My interest is not based on the cost of natural gas, just to add another heat source to our home.
Like our gas fireplace and stove top, would be nice if it is operational during a power outage etc.
Being winter, I figure this is a good time to discuss heating options for our poorly built Canadian homes.
 
My house is a sieve and the wood burning fireplace is rarely used as it doesn’t help heat the house up at all.

My only solution is to rip the house apart and properly insulate it. New furnace is great, but if the air doesn’t stay in….we’ll that’s another issue.

I want to apply for the 5k grant and 40k interest free loan but it needs some research.
 
About $2000 installed for a Generlink and another $1200 (on sale) for a 10-12,000kw genny that'll run your entire house. Unless a heat option that's pretty to look at is a high priority I would (and did) go this route.
 
Hardwrkr13 said:
About $2000 installed for a Generlink and another $1200 (on sale) for a 10-12,000kw genny that'll run your entire house. Unless a heat option that's pretty to look at is a high priority I would (and did) go this route.
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My parents standby generator stopped during the xmas storm. They called the installer and he told them that the snow was plugging the air filters on most of them so you had to open them up, pull the filter and run without it. Not super impressed with generac. A spiral chamber to drop snow wouldn't have been hard to add and the whole point of a standby generator is it just bleeping works. Hell, bleed some exhaust heat back to intake to keep it melted. Most people aren't running at 100% so the slight power loss wouldn't matter. Just work dammit.
 
Having not used ours I was concerned about that as well but it was fine running for the 20hrs straight that we needed it. VERY happy to have it. Snowblower wasn't as reliable but the genny was great.
 
A few years ago my buddy called me when his newly installed propane Generac won't stay running... I don't know why he calls ME, I'm 100 miles away and he has a Generac warranty... but he did.
I sent him out to look at it, and it's buried in a 6' snow bank. BEAUTY
We put a snorkel on the intake, about 10' tall, with a return at he end.
I was talking to him the other day and it's running well, under a 8' snow bank.
I worry about it over heating because of the lack of ventilation, but I couldn't convince him to go out and dig it out. (he's been working 10hrs a day trying to keep the snow a bay. He had 5' as of yesterday and is expecting another foot today. When I told him he should do something about the snow on the roof his response was "screw it, it's insured". But he did knock down the 10' cornice hanging over the front door).
He was ****** when I told him we got 3" of snow here in the Kawarthas.
 
Jampy00 said:
Already have a new gas furnace, gas fireplace and gas stove top.
My interest is not based on the cost of natural gas, just to add another heat source to our home.
Like our gas fireplace and stove top, would be nice if it is operational during a power outage etc.
Being winter, I figure this is a good time to discuss heating options for our poorly built Canadian homes.
Click to expand...

I can manually open and light the pilot of my gas fireplaces with the built-in piezo crystal, but need electricity to actually fire it up. I need to figure out exactly how that works so I can add some type of electrical backup to it.

GreyGhost said:
My parents standby generator stopped during the xmas storm. They called the installer and he told them that the snow was plugging the air filters on most of them so you had to open them up, pull the filter and run without it. Not super impressed with generac. A spiral chamber to drop snow wouldn't have been hard to add and the whole point of a standby generator is it just bleeping works. Hell, bleed some exhaust heat back to intake to keep it melted. Most people aren't running at 100% so the slight power loss wouldn't matter. Just work dammit.
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This is one of the concerns that's kept me from pulling the trigger on a standby generator - after spending the money only to have it fail to run when needed. Why can't a natural gas generator be installed in the basement and have the exhaust piped outside like the furnace? Wouldn't that solve a lot of the potential reliability problems?
 
Relax said:
I can manually open and light the pilot of my gas fireplaces with the built-in piezo crystal,
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You can light the pilot with a match... simple... but right beside the pilot light here is a thermo sensor, powered by 110v that turns the gas on with a 110v powered solenoid.
It's a safety feature so the gas won't flow unless the pilot is on to set the gas afire, so your house doesn't fill up with natural gas.
With a modern furnace with a IC board controller: you have to charge the whole machine. The old mechanically switched ones we could "hot wire".
A furnace without a blower is gonna burn holes in the heat exchanger and kill you with CO2... while it DOESN'T heat the house
 
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If we're old enough to remember the power outage of 2003... we were lucky it was in the summer because after a couple of days of not having the electric pumps turning in the gas lines, there was no pressure. If it was winter the pressure would have been gone in a couple of hours.
 
Relax said:
I can manually open and light the pilot of my gas fireplaces with the built-in piezo crystal, but need electricity to actually fire it up. I need to figure out exactly how that works so I can add some type of electrical backup to it.



This is one of the concerns that's kept me from pulling the trigger on a standby generator - after spending the money only to have it fail to run when needed. Why can't a natural gas generator be installed in the basement and have the exhaust piped outside like the furnace? Wouldn't that solve a lot of the potential reliability problems?
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Another upside to internal is waste engine heat warms the house. I suspect it comes down to fire code. Most generator rooms are non-flammable and sprinkled. Most generators are loud. Physically getting generator to a suitable location could be a bear as they arent light.

Honestly, for most people, most of the time battery back (tesla powerwall or similar) is better imo. Higher upfront cost but silent, can be used for load shifting (charge at night, use during peak rates), good for a few days not a few weeks, almost no maintenance, dont need as much space, etc. Prices are dropping quickly. I will stick with my portable generator until I pull the trigger in battery (either tapped into car like lightinng or kia) or wall mounted. Most standby generators installed violate noise bylaws (for exercising, not running in an emergency where they are exempt) and the municipality could fine the crap out of you. I know my subdivision is a hell of a lot louder during a power outage as more people add crap air-cooled standby generators.
 
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