Heat?

Curious as to how you heat your abode? Not you garage or your tractor, your house.

To start off I heat with a propane central furnace 2 500 gallon propane bottles that I fill in the summer and 2 last the entire heating season with some help...

and that help is... A bio fuel stove that burns any bio mass fuel. That includes processed wood pellets, cherry pits, soybeans, shelled corn, pelleted switch grass or any pelleted fuel for that matter.

This year I'm running on shelled corn because I get it for free but in the past, it's mostly been pelleted wood by products and soybeans.

How about you?

Oftentimes I wish we had NG here at the farm but we don't and most likely never will. Not economically profitable to run a pipe down the road to service just a couple homes.

A fireplace is a net heat loss, not gain. Look nice and feel good but the heat really goes up the stack. Why I like the biomass stove. You get the fire with no heat loss. Mine is 85% efficient. Cats and pups love it. Always 'parked' nearby.

North Idaho Wolfman said:

100% wood pellets in the house, propane in the shop that's attached and open to the house, it buffers the on and off of the pellet stove.

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What brand of stove Wolfman? I have an older USSC 6039 as in 13 years old. been trouble free except consumables of course.

Hardwood pellets here are about $215 a ton in skid quantity. I bought a ton this year which is more than I need. I mix 3 parts corn to one part pellets. or 150 pounds of corn to 50 pounds of pellets. I mix them in plastic garbage cans, 4 cans at a time on a pallet and tractor them to the back deck where I can access them easily. I go about a month on 4 garbage cans depending on the severity of the weather. Corn comes out of the grain tank next to the barn. Have 1000 bushels in it.

I've roasted countless tons of biomass pellets and corn in mine. Running right now. It's on a remote thermostat in the kitchen, right next to the central furnace thermostat.

Run mine in conjunction with the propane furnace (Plus 90 condensing, Bryant). I let the pellet stove make up the difference in heat loss. Right now it's pretty warm outside (just below freezing) so the pellet stove is idling (low fire) and the central furnace isn't running at all. Like to have a newer unit with cal rod ignition but I don't so it runs (low fire) until the 'stat calls for heat, then it ramps up to the set point I have it at.

I can control all the burn aspects from induced draft rate to pounds per hour burned as well as the room fan speed. Usually, I run at 2.5 pounds per hour with minimum draft. Corn burns really hot, much hotter than wood pellets and the dryer it is, the hotter it burns. The corn I'm burning presently is about 10%RM which is really dry compared to off the field corn which is usually 15%.

Only drawback is I have to clean it out every couple days but I use a shop vac with a drywall bag and it takes about 5 minutes but I have to start it up every time and I 'shovel' the ash into the ash pan before I vacuum it.

When it gets colder out or windy and cold, the central furnace will come on, raise the ambient house temp up just over the set point on the pellet stove thermostat and kick it back to low fire and the cycle repeats itself over and over. That way, the basement stays warm enough, the pipes don't freeze and my propane consumption stays manageable.

Hardest part is getting them to work in harmony.

North Idaho Wolfman said:

Oh, Yea the new house will be Hydronic floor heated, including the garage.
Propane instant boiler powered.
Still will have the pellet stove for a boost if and when needed.

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Have that in my shop, in the floor (slab). In floor Oxygen barrier PEX with a distribution manifold and in floor sensing thermostat. I keep the shop floor at 72 (f) all winter long. The slab is 10" thick in the machine tool area and 6" in the other shop where I keep my motorcycle collection.

One circulator pump runs the entire system with a 30 gallon propane hot water heater supplying the heat load. When the water heater craps out, I'll go tankless too, if it ever does that is. I run Cryotek in the PEX. it's good for -50 freeze point. Just in case. Takes just about 400 gallons to heat the entire shop all winter. Trick for me at least is starting the heat cycle before winter sets in and the ground temp is still high. Keeping the slab warm when it's already warm is a lot less costly than heating a cold slab up. learned that the hard way.

Nothing better than a warm floor to work on. Warm feet equals comfort and laying on the floor to do anything is nice too. You'll like it.

Lil Foot said:

The plan was to replace the fireplace with a modern computer controlled pellet stove 3 years ago, but that (and most other things) got squashed when we had to become caregivers for the wife's folks.

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They are hard to beat. Initial cost is pretty high but return on investment is pretty quick, especially if NG isn't available like it isn't here. if it was, I'd be on NG in a second.