[RHfactor]

From Vermont - don't tell them that. It's cold up here really really really cold - visit spend but then go away sssshhhhhhh

[Cashmere]

Econo -

1. All electric heat is near 100% efficient. The add you're looking at is a scam. It's only 400 watts, it will struggle to heat a very small space, and it's overpriced by about 80 bucks. Even a 4000 BTU heater at Walmart is only 10 bucks.

2. Try this one Wall Mount if you absolutely must have the in the wall look. If you are more sensible and you can put in any heater, then go with something like this one . . . Heater you'll notice that both of these heaters produce about 4 times the heat as the gimmicky one in your add, and they cost less.

In any event, room by room electric heat is the heat of the near future.

Original Poster -

I strongly suggest you spend time sealing and insulating your house, if you have not done so already. It's much easier and cheaper, in the long run, to stop the heat from getting out than to keep making new heat.

New 2 pane windows - 150 bucks each. Insulate attic, use cocoon or other cellulose DIY spray in. Caulk around all fixtures, sockets, etcetera to stop air leaks. Foam strips around doors. Insulate between crawlspace/basement and 1st floor. Lots can be done fairly cheaply.

Of course, if possible, nothing beats a wood stove for cozy.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')n the flip side you have the deep south, like Georgia.

Ever see old film clips of the south? Bunch of people just hanging around all day, talkin' slow, movin' slow, jes beeeein' slow, y'aaaall.

They're like that because it's 95 F and 90% relative humidity.

[hope_full]

I've lived in the midwest (Central Illinois) and it is miserably cold there in the winter. Just miserable! I now live in Virginia and my first choice for relocating would be toward the mountains of Virginia.

Temperate climate in the summer (warm, but not unbearable) and chilly but not miserable in the winter. Best part of all, this is a very conservative area and marauders and miscreants would not be tolerated!

HF

[Cashmere]

By the way, Georgia?

Holy cow!

Constant drought, average high of 90 for 3 months of summer, humid, can't grow anything without heavy FF use and irrigation.

Versus 3 months of real cold weather and beautiful spring/summer/fall. Worst case scenario, wear a shawl in the house.

Georgia!

Wow, somebody please call the factory and tell them to ship a few extra truckloads of Darwin Awards to Atlanta.

[MarkJ]

Many of our 1,000 plus gallon per year heating oil, kerosene and propane customers have poorly insulated, poorly weatherized homes with old windows and older grossly oversized, grossly inefficient, poorly designed, poorly maintained, single zone heat and hot water systems. Modern properly sized, properly designed, properly zoned three pass horizontal oil fired boilers with outdoor reset controls and indirect water heaters or low mass boilers with system managers like Energy Kinetics System 2000 will pay for themselves in short period of time. The same holds true for high efficiency modulating condensing natural gas or propane fired boilers.


Customers that can't afford or that refuse to make building envelope and system efficiency improvements often use pellet, wood or coal stoves for primary and/or supplemental heat. Many lower thermostat settings, heat fewer zones, shrink wrap windows apply for HEAP, Emergency HEAP or buy kerosene, or propane as needed at the filling stations.

Many of the lower income customers are will-call COD customers that can't afford and/or wont spend money on 100 to 150 gallon minimum deliveries of heating oil & kerosene, short charges on propane delivery or annual service, emergency service, repairs, replacement, new installations etc.

If this past winter was an indication of the future, I imagine we'll see more fuel run-outs, frozen pipes, cracked pipes, condensation issues and emergency service related calls as people neglect their systems and keep their tanks near empty.

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'D')id somebody actually say, "move to Georgia"?

Jesus, now I've heard it all.

Georgia, home of chronic drought? Where nothing much grows well without intense irrigation?

Look OP, 1st question is, how tied to your house are you?

2nd question, how is your insulation?

If you haven't gone around and sealed every air leak around windows, replaced old drafty windows, insulated under the 1st floor decking, and so on, then you aren't addressing the problem from the easy side of the equation.

Some misinformed person wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')A true PO believer, would not live in the northern parts of the USA."

[misterno]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KingM', 'I') think you guys are wrong. If you want to see what the world looks like, consider where people wanted to live 150 years ago. It wasn't in Phoenix or Houston, that's for sure. I think you'd be better off somewhere like Pennsylvania or Oregon. Not too hot, not too cold.

Florida is right out.

[misterno]

Cashmere

You say you prefer north all the time. Man, I don't know what you mean by north but I lived in Boston for 8 years and let me tell you something.

You wouldn't even want your enemies to live around there. Maybe it is just me but if I had to make a choice, I would stick with intense heat and humidity for 3 months like Houston.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('misterno', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KingM', 'I') think you guys are wrong. If you want to see what the world looks like, consider where people wanted to live 150 years ago. It wasn't in Phoenix or Houston, that's for sure. I think you'd be better off somewhere like Pennsylvania or Oregon. Not too hot, not too cold.

Florida is right out.

[KingM]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('misterno', 'C')ashmere

You say you prefer north all the time. Man, I don't know what you mean by north but I lived in Boston for 8 years and let me tell you something.

You wouldn't even want your enemies to live around there. Maybe it is just me but if I had to make a choice, I would stick with intense heat and humidity for 3 months like Houston.

[Cashmere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('somebody', 'Y')ou will die in cold in Boston or wisconsin but you will never die from hot in Houston.

[PeakOiler]

<--doesn't use heating oil
<--doesn't use natural gas
<--uses propane for the bbq grill sometimes, so I can get my infrequent dose of PAHs
<--has a wood stove
<--has a solar water heater
<--has a little bit of PV (ca. 185 watts total)

My highest electric bill of the year is in February.

Feb, 2008 was $99.15.

My utility electric bill has averaged $72.46/mo this year. April's electric bill was $42.51

[strider3700]

My electric heat/electric hotwater house has it's worse bills in the dead of winter mostly because of extra electric usage on lighting and tv/computer because we're inside more and it's darker earlier.

When I added a woodstove my heating costs where removed from the equation with last winter only have a couple of weeks with the baseboards on simply because it wasn't cold enough to light the fire yet.

I can't wait to get solar hotwater going at my place. I'm aiming for electric bills of less then $20/month during the summer. A max of $50/month in winter.

$5000 to heat a house either means it's absolutely massive, very poorly insulated/sealed or both.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', '
')
$5000 to heat a house either means it's absolutely massive, very poorly insulated/sealed or both.

[WisJim]

I'm with "PeakOiler", but we have more PVs and a wind generator, so our biggest electric bill in the last 5 years or so has been less than $30. We heat with wood, with a forced air furnace in the basement. Here's a Energy Comparison site that I like. You can plug in your fuel cost, the efficiency of your heating appliance, and get the results as dollars per million BTUs delivered as heat, and a nice bar graph comparing costs, too.

Personally, I have always felt that I can keep myself warm in a cold climate with lower technology and less fuel use, than it takes to keep me cool in a hot climate. And here in Wisconsin I do without air conditioning, grow my food without irrigation, and get along fine with my neighbors and community. Snow and cold weather make you slow down and relax, sitting inside by the woodstove, eating goodies from the rootcellar.

[one_more_day]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'E')cono -

1. All electric heat is near 100% efficient. The add you're looking at is a scam. It's only 400 watts, it will struggle to heat a very small space, and it's overpriced by about 80 bucks. Even a 4000 BTU heater at Walmart is only 10 bucks.



In any event, room by room electric heat is the heat of the near future.
.

[WisJim]

I'm with "PeakOiler", but we have more PVs and a wind generator, so our biggest electric bill in the last 5 years or so has been less than $30. We heat with wood, with a forced air furnace in the basement. Here's a Energy Comparison site that I like. You can plug in your fuel cost, the efficiency of your heating appliance, and get the results as dollars per million BTUs delivered as heat, and a nice bar graph comparing costs, too.

Personally, I have always felt that I can keep myself warm in a cold climate with lower technology and less fuel use, than it takes to keep me cool in a hot climate. And here in Wisconsin I do without air conditioning, grow my food without irrigation, and get along fine with my neighbors and community. Snow and cold weather make you slow down and relax, sitting inside by the woodstove, eating goodies from the rootcellar.

[MarkJ]

One problem with the energy comparison calculators is that AFUE isn't a good way to compare Net Efficiency of hydronic systems, especially oil fired hydronic systems that also produce domestic hot water. Net efficiency is a combination of proper sizing, system design, burner setup, zoning and intelligent control. Net Efficiency is in the hands of the System Designer, Installer and Burner Tech.


Energy Kinetics: Real Fuel Efficiencies

People think you're kidding when you tell them how much heating oil or propane some of the older larger homes burn per year. We've had new homeowners that thought that their underground storage tanks were leaking after they burned the first thousand gallons. Many homes still have the original octopus gravity wood or coal furnaces that were retrofitted with gas or oil burners in the 50s and 60s. Net efficiency is probably around 20 to 30 if they're lucky. Boilers last so long that people often won't replace them until they fail. It's not uncommon to see 50 Plus year old boilers still in use.

We also see a lot of efficient homes that burn less that 500 gallons per year providing both heat and hot water.

[WisJim]

Thanks for pointing out the issues with efficiency figures. I just wanted to mention the comparison site as it did allow the user to adjust the efficiency they use--and that of course is up to the user.