I’ve just bought a 150-year farmhouse . The house is wonderful! It has four fireplaces downstairs, 12’ ceilings and large rooms (most around 17’ X 17’. However, presently the house is heated with propane heaters in each room. This scares me, plus I’m under the impression that propane if a very expensive method of heating. Does anyone know of a website that will give me comparative costs for gas, heatpump and any others?
Thanks for any help!
StG
Is natural gas piped into your area? If not, if you want to heat by gas, you’ll use propane. A heat pump doesn’t heat very well if the outside temperature is below 32 degrees fahrenheit. In the heating mode the outside coil acts as an evaporator and absorbs heat and a compressor moves the heated refrigerant to the inside coil that repells heat. If it gets too cold for the outside coil to absorb heat, auxilliary heat (a series of 1 kW electric coils) turn on. Also, as the outdoor coil absorbs heat, they tend to freeze up and have to be defrosted, the refrigeration process is reversed and hot refrigerant is sent through the outside coil. When this is done auxiliary heat is turned on. I would rather have straight electric heat than a heat-pump. I heat with propane, when I get cold I turn up the thermistat and I am soon warm. I don’t know if these are available in your area and they are expensive to install but I believe the most efficient way to heat is with a kerosene furnace tha uses gunn burners, they are nice.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I can recite refrigeration theory and give you anecdotal advice on what I’ve used and can fix but I can’t cite numbers.
I’ve been told that pellet stoves are very efficient and a relatively inexpensive way to heat. We were going to investigate one for heating the basement in the house we haven’t built yet. I toss this out as another option you might want to look at. Sorry I can’t offer any more than that.
you could go w/ oil. Propane should not be all that expensive though, and with heaters in each room you could just turn on the ones you need
Thanks for the info. hlanelee, is propane safe? What is the possibility of converting the fireplaces to natural-looking propane heaters? The propane heaters that are in the house are ugly and I’d like the heating method to be inobstrusive. Fires always look nice, but I worry that running 4 fireplaces would be expensive. I don’t know how well the heat would circulate through the house. It was originally heated with the fireplaces, I believe, so it might be okay.
I live in Middle Tennessee, so it rarely gets really cold here. Rarely will the temp stay below freezing.
FCM - Would you have a link to a pellet-stove website, by any chance? What are the pellets made from?
StG
Have you ever watched “This Old House”? In some of the episodes they were installing baseboard heating that have plastic pipes running inside them. These seemed easy to install for a retrofit. You would need a boiler for heating the water and a recirculation pump in the system. It might be worth checking out. Oh and here is a page on pellets
I used to have a big old house in New York that was heated with radiators (piped in gas for the boiler). After I got the first heating bill ($500) I put doors on the entranceways into the family room and used a woodstove that vented up a fireplace. I kept the thermostat at 60. Of couse going up to bed in the winter was a bugger. I used an electric blanket and wore a hat to bed. Later I used a propane heater in the family room, but it gets black soot all over the walls and ceiling, plus you are breathing that stuff. But, it used to be pretty cheap. I don’t know now. I think I used to use about 5 gallons for the weekend to heat one room.
Now I live in an old house in Maine but it’s much smaller. I recommend the first thing you do after you survive this winter is to insulate it as well as possible if it hasn’t been done already. Insulation in the walls (remove the siding and put up insulation); insulation in the attic; wrap any exposed pipes; put up good storms on all the windows (if you want to be authenic, you can use removable wooden storms which a carpenter can make). For now, you can put plastic clear insulation on the inside windows. You blow dry it and you can’t even see it. Don’t use the fireplaces pe se; most of the heat goes up the chimney. Have someone check out the chimney for soot and a lining, and if okay, use a woodstove/ or pellet stove vented up the chimney. A pellet stove and the pellets are expensive so this would be part of your long-term heating plans.
I use oil and wood. I have a combination of radiators and baseboard heating. I keep that at 65 degrees and use a wood stove downstairs to keep the kitchen and TV room warmer. I put up removable drapes with spring rods in the two doorways that lead to the hallway and other parts of the house I don’t use in the winter. I buy oil ahead in August (when its cheapest) and this year it was about 1200 for a thousand gallons, which is about what I use between Sept. and the end of May. I burn about 3 cords of wood at 125 a cord delivered.
what kind of heating system does the house have now? They were probably using the propane heaters because it was so expensive. But, you may be able to mitigate that with the insulation and good storms. From my experience, if you live in a really cold climate, you don’t use all the rooms in the winter unless you have a lot of money to spend on heating, so keep doors shut. It’s possible there is no heating system. Personally, I like oil because its the cheapest and I like radiators because they provide a nice, even heat. Natural gas prices are going no where but up, so I wouldn’t use that.
Your house is great, but if you are in a cold climate, you will have to adjust to living in a smaller space in the winter. But, that’s what so great about spring; you can open the doors and windows and enjoy!
I don’t know what it is about old houses. They just have this indefinable aura and compelling character. They are worth some extra work.
In New York I had a rule that I did not turn the heat on until Nov. 30 and it went off March 31, no matter what.
Gas logs are really nice looking and if you get them with blowers they circulate heat fairly well. Propane is as safe as natural gas, if you install a propane or gas furnace get it inspected yearly. The heat exchangers sometimes crack and there is a danger of carbon-monoxide, a detector is cheap. Heating with wood is a monumental pain in the ass. When I was a teenager getting wood was a family project. Dad would wake everyone up on Sunday morning and we would all go cut wood. I have split wood 5 hours or more with a hangover, Dad believed it was good for me. When you heat only with wood there is always a fine layer of soot everywhere and you are continually removing ashes to the yard. Under no circustances will it ever be warm when you wake up, a fire has to be rebuilt every morning. I think propane space heaters in each room that you use would be your best bet unless you have natural gas in the area, then I would advise natural gas space heaters in each room. They are pretty much the same and require no special installation. With a heat pump or a gas furnace you will spend a lot of money on the installation of ductwork. This is hard to do in a house without preexisting ducts and expensive. I hate installing ductwork, I’m out of the HVAC business entirely. It’s just another line on the resume and if Aunt Fannie calls I can fix her air conditioner.
Go to a few propane distributors in your area. Ask around, find out who is best. They probably have gas logs and an assortment of space heaters, attractive and otherwise, for sale. If possible buy your equipment and fuel from the same place. Start a good relationship with the dealer. If you ever run out of propane on a holiday weekend you’ll understand.
What a coincidence! I have a 150 year old big rambling propane-heated house!
It can get expensive. Two winters ago when propane spiked up past $2/gallon it cost me over $2K to heat the house in the winter. Nowadays I have a deal with my propane company where we take the average of the last two years usage and I pay that pro-rata throughout the year so I can manage the cash flow better.
Seriously, no matter how you heat the place the best thing you can do to protect yourself in an old house is to make sure that it’s well-insulated. That alone will save you money and heartache.
Jonathan Chance - Do you have a propane furnace, or do you use room heaters? How cold are your winters? I live in a fairly moderate climate, so I don’t know how much I’ll need. I don’t mind bundling up a bit during the winter. I love my fleece-lined slippers and my down comforter.
I know the house will need more insulation. I’m thinking of doing the blow-in kind for the walls, because I think that’ll be easier than stipping the clapboards off the house.
hlanelee - I have a woodstove in my first house that is only used when there’s a power outage. It’s miserable. It’s dirty and it takes forever to heat the house. Once you go to bed (or work) the fire dies down and you have to start the whole thing all over again.
Shirley Ujest - Haven’t you mentioned you heat with propane? Can you tell me about your experiences?
StG
We have two propane furnaces, one upstairs and one downstairs.
I have conventional insulation in the ceiling and blow in for the walls where the walls aren’t solid timber and plaster. But the windows and doors are sieves we’re constantly trying to plug up.
We’re in a temperate zone normally, too. We’re in Virginia northwest of Washington DC.
You can be pretty comfortable if you keep bundled a bit. Bunny slippers and fuzzy jammies are a big plus.
I wouldn’t say as safe as NG, as propane is heavier then air and tends to collect (if there was a leak) in low areas where it can build up. But overall the risk is small.