What to use for heat??

[abigalerose]

What's the cheapest, yet still safe, way to heat?
Ill just need to heat a 12 x 20 house.

Also, as a bonus, are there any cheap alternatives to cooling and how expensive are 12 volt refrigerators?

 

[Beekissed]

I nice little rocket mass heater built for that space would be a nice addition and may not require the clearance that a traditional stove would do, while also using small wood and smaller amounts of wood.

Or just a rocket stove, period....

 

[sumi]

The cheapest way to heat a small house, that I can think off right now, would be a wood stove. You can buy a big or small one, some come secondhand in good nick. Wood, if you can get to a good place to collect it, is free. Windfalls in forests, damaged wood pallets, etc make good fuel and it doesn't cost anything except the effort to cut it into smaller pieces to fit the stove. A looked after chimney and stove would be perfectly safe too.

Cooling down a small house… We lived in a tiny house years ago in an area where the summer daytime temps were between 115 and 130. We kept the house closed up completely during the hottest part of the day to keep the heat out and the windows open in the evening and during the night with an electric fan or two to help keep us comfortable. Insulation under the roof is a huge help there too.

 

[abigalerose]

Not really finding the answers I want on google, that's why I came here.
Trying to think outside the box, I wanna know what's cheap AND safe for heat.
Because I know wood stove is cheap, but would it be safer to have a propane heater? But how expensive is propane? Maybe there's a better option. Idk. Google has too many different answers. I want some real life advice

 

[Britesea]

Not knowing what sort of foundation you might have... You might want to look into Rocket heaters too. The thing about propane heaters is that if SHTF, propane might be hard to get, while wood is always there (unless you live in the desert, or the great plains).

 

[waretrop]

In my house I use fuel oil...our house uses very little.. like I get a fill up 1 time a year. I also close off the back of the house, bedrooms and bathroom. We go pee fast in the winter. Lol. At night the thermostat automatic ly goes up a little before bedtime. Goes off early in morning. Front of house is heated with a pellet stove and if I want also a wood fireplace. I realize I am not set right if TSHTF bit I have other resources. My greenhouse uses a pellet stove and a karocene heater as back up. I have 2 nice generators if I need them. Btw, I keep almost 2 ton of pellets in shed and gave about 12 propane bottles to use with those heaters if I need to. I do believe in lots of Bach up things.

 

[Bruce]

How well insulated is this 12x20 house? Is the total usable space 240 sq ft or is there a loft as well? Is it already built?

I'm not sure I would put a wood/pellet burner in something that size if only due to the amount of space you need around it for safety. It would be a somewhat significant amount of "lost" square footage. Unless, of course, you are using a wood burning cooking stove You could use an outdoor wood furnace. I've not spent any time looking at them but I ASSUME you need a fan and duct work, or hot water pipes going from the furnace to the house and "registers" of the appropriate type in the house. I don't know how complicated this is.

How bad is the humidity where you are in MO? Before home A/C existed people used "swamp coolers" but they aren't very useful in areas with high humidity.

As mentioned, think passive. Overhanging porch roofs to keep the summer sun out, set so the winter sun can come in the windows. If you can set up a "heat sink" inside those windows, you can heat, at least to some degree, with direct sun exposure. Windows you can open to natural airflow to help cool the house at night.

 

[freemotion]

We got new windows and doors and our heating bill was cut at least in half. Maybe 2/3 less, hard to tell yet as the winter was a bit mild. Then a bit cold. Then a bit mild. Then....you get the idea. But we are warm enough for the first time ever.

We chose wood because if worse comes to worse, we can forage for wood, but you can't forage for propane or oil, and pellet stoves need electricity to run. It was a good decision. After a freak October storm took many trees down, especially huge oaks because they retain their leaves the longest, the entire area was without power for many days. It was emphasized to us that the woodstove was the best choice. The only thing we bought after that experience to be ready for the next one was a fan that sits on the stove and runs via the heat of the stove, distributing the heat further throughout the house, and more small cast iron pans that will fit inside our stove for baking. I made pizza during that power outage to use up some stuff that we would lose if not eaten. (We lost NO food, most of my friends did.)

 

[Denim Deb]

There are actually stoves made for tiny houses and/or boats. One of those might work well.

For cooling, I saw this on Facebook. You take a Styrofoam cooler, put a couple of short pieces of PVC pipe in to act as vents, fill it w/ice, then put a fan on it.

 

[Cynthiadoz12]

If you don't have a fireplace.....just for one room...for a real emergency, have these on hand. I have soooo many candles that I've picked up from yard sales for cheap. I just save them. So, I have light, and I could use the smaller ones for this idea I am going to post. I will leave the lids off of the scented candles, because I won't really want different smells all over while using for light.