Heating My House - Options Thoughts Suggestions ?

[Nifty]

First let me start off by saying my wife and I HATE cold! She's especially sensitive to it. It's 67 degrees in the house right now and she's freezing.

We live in an addition tied to my parent's house. We have a main "family room" that is on one side of the addition and our bedrooms are on the other side.

There is a super huge (and old) wood burning stove in the middle of the family room that is our primary heat. Unfortunately:

1) The heat doesn't transfer to the rest of the addition very well.
2) Buying / chopping wood isn't always ideal
3) In Nor Cal we have "spare the air days " where they basically make it illegal to burn wood while it is in effect.
4) It's a pretty old wood stove (1982) that I'm sure isn't terribly efficient.

We've been using electric an oil filled space heater in the bedrooms and another in the family room for when we can't burn. Electricity here is expensive. If you use "too much" it gets into $0.50 per killowatt hour (which is why we installed solar... too bad solar isn't enough in the winter).

We have natural gas in our house, but I'm not sure I want to go through having a wall furnace or whatever added and then having to add a vent, etc.

I started wondering if there is a way to circulate hot water from our hot water heater and use that as a heating system. I envisioned a system that has a built in thermostat that circulates hot water from then back into the hot water heater. The water could pass through a heat exchanging system like they have in baseboards. I was shocked that I couldn't find anything like this (a conversion kit) on the interwebs!

So, what should I do? Here are some of my options summed up:

1) New fireplace: Gas, wood pellet, or more efficient wood?
2) Gas wall furnace(s)?
3) Electric space heater(s)?
4) Something else?
5) Combination of the above?

 

[ORChick]

Long underwear, and several layers of sweaters

Sorry, not much help . I lived in the Bay Area and on the Monterey Peninsula for most of my life, and I know just how clammy cold it can get, so I sympathize. But I also am not too sensitive to it after all that time - we keep the winter thermostat at 64* and, if it were just me, it would probably be lower.

 

[SKR8PN]

Who was it here that built their own solar heater??? XPC??
Anyway, here is another idea.......

http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-Heater/

One more.......

http://www.jrwhipple.com/sr/solheater.html

 

[FarmerChick]

my parents have the hot water heating their home

they just bought a new unit---75 gallons and it cost $1500 just for the new tank and installation-- and to me, it is not a "hot" heat either but of course it is decent heat

a conversion kit, not sure about that...they had it installed when they built the home

go propane. I have a propane fireplace. Installation is super easy. I had a 100 lb tank put on the side of the house and they run the pipe under the home to my fireplace. Now that is a HOT heat. I love it! mine is set wtih a thermostat and it kicks on and off as needed and no electricity required. You can easily put a very small fireplace in your bedroom and have a small tank installed in one day at a super reasonable cost and have very "hot" heat on demand. I bought my fireplace as a showroom model off the floor--was $625, I got it for $405...and I love the look.

 

[Wildsky]

I love our wood stove, I was trying to decide between that and pellet and corn stoves, but wood is free.. and pellet or corn stoves require electricity to work.
Our stove has a fan attached to the back, that blows the air between the sides of the stove and out the front, perhaps you could add something like that to yours? Or a reclaimer that attaches to the pipe above the stove, it blows the warm air around and works pretty good.

I've heard pellets and corn burn very clean, so you'd probably not create any "smoke" at all.

I've no experience with the other ideas, other than a small space heater we use in the bathroom when the kids are bathing and its bitterly cold.
I use an oil filled heater to hang a towel over so its nice and toasty - although the directions or warnings say not to do that.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Not very educated in this area, but, as opposed to a space heater, why not gas fireplace? From what I hear, you can get direct venting, and it's not all that complicated, according to my husband. That really sucks about not being able to burn somtimes, cuz my first choice would always be wood.

 

[justusnak]

I would definately go with a propane fireplace. Easy to get installed...and super warm!

 

[BarredBuff]

We heat with electric and a gas fireplace. Since its been getting cold in the evening, we have been using the fireplace. We probably will not turn the heat on until its low 50s in the day. The gas is fairly cheap for the fireplace too. It generates alot of heat but only in the room its in. It doesnt heat around the house. But you may want to consider it.

 

[Beekissed]

I would go with a more efficient wood stove with fans or venting into the other parts of the house. Wood heat is so much cheaper and warmer than the other methods. Use a dissipation cap on your flue to disperse smoke on illegal days.

 

[FarmerChick]

I would definately go with a propane fireplace. Easy to get installed...and super warm!

hey Just---
that is what I love about propane heat....it is just SOOOO warm with so little usage. A real "hot" heat that I looooovvveee lol