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home heating and skyrocketing energy costs.

home heating and skyrocketing energy costs.

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I am struggling to find the best fuel or system to heat my home
here in Pennsylvania. I now have heating oil but it will be 3 bucks
a gallon soon and have a large old house partially insulated which
I am working on but 500 gallons only lasts a month or less
so at that rate it will be $1,500 per month or more to heat my house.
Anyone with some experience here? Solar would be nice but my
house takes about 200,000 BTU/hr to heat and with solar you would
be lucky to get 2,000 BTU much less one hundred times that.
There are corn burning stoves(!), wood pellet stoves, heat pumps,
natural gas, coal, wood stoves, anyone know which is best?

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blankets

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Family members .huddled together.

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under blankets

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Originally posted by sonhouse
I am struggling to find the best fuel or system to heat my home
here in Pennsylvania. I now have heating oil but it will be 3 bucks
a gallon soon and have a large old house partially insulated which
I am working on but 500 gallons only lasts a month or less
so at that rate it will be $1,500 per month or more to heat my house.
Anyone with some experien ...[text shortened]... (!), wood pellet stoves, heat pumps,
natural gas, coal, wood stoves, anyone know which is best?
I'm no expert but I would suggest a wood stove if you have the resources and ability. Your heating costs are ridiculously high!

And what's a corn burning stove?

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Originally posted by darvlay
.....

And what's a corn burning stove?
Ill have a wild guess.....


Is a writing pad.

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move south. you don't need gas for air conditioning.

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Originally posted by iamroot
move south. you don't need gas for air conditioning.
or to Guam. Oi vey it's hot there.

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Originally posted by sonhouse
I am struggling to find the best fuel or system to heat my home
here in Pennsylvania. I now have heating oil but it will be 3 bucks
a gallon soon and have a large old house partially insulated which
I am working on but 500 gallons only lasts a month or less
so at that rate it will be $1,500 per month or more to heat my house.
Anyone with some experien ...[text shortened]... (!), wood pellet stoves, heat pumps,
natural gas, coal, wood stoves, anyone know which is best?
Well i live in the UK. I have gas central heating and only pay £350 a year. Add lighting and various electrical appliances and that is another £350 a year. so i think your best plan would be gas central heating.

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Well I also live in the uk and for me it would have to be a multifuel stove which runs rads as well as heats up the water,you can glean wood from most places with a gleaning order over here in Scotland,and it sound a hell of a lot cheaper than what you are going to be paying in future,I had one in my last house and it was superb it cost £500.00 but it repaid itself over and over.

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You could follow the example of our Monarch: Dig a big hole and let the earth heat your home:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1743819,00.html

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I would suggest investing in some decent insulation to start with. You`d save a helluva lot of money. And it would pay for itself in a couple of months at the rate you`re paying.

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Originally posted by darvlay
I'm no expert but I would suggest a wood stove if you have the resources and ability. Your heating costs are ridiculously high!

And what's a corn burning stove?
Strangely enough, a corn burning stove, uh, burns corn.
It seems there is a type of corn that has a low moisture content,
used mainly for animal feed but it can also be burned.
It burns somewhat hotter than the equivalent amount of wood but
less than the same amount of coal but its renewable.
So just like the wood pellet stoves that feed in a few pellets at a time
and make very efficient heat, corn stoves are almost the same thing
as a pellets stove, the corn is used as is (the kernels of course)
and fed into the burner just like pellets. I hear it leaves more ash
than wood pellets though. Another problem is you have to pick up
all the corn (and wood pellets) yourself, they don't deliver like
oil or coal, of course natural gas is piped in so there is no delivery
issue there.

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Originally posted by sonhouse
Strangely enough, a corn burning stove, uh, burns corn.
It seems there is a type of corn that has a low moisture content,
used mainly for animal feed but it can also be burned.
It burns somewhat hotter than the equivalent amount of wood but
less than the same amount of coal but its renewable.
So just like the wood pellet stoves that feed in a few pell ...[text shortened]... ver like
oil or coal, of course natural gas is piped in so there is no delivery
issue there.
will corn run cars?

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Originally posted by invigorate
You could follow the example of our Monarch: Dig a big hole and let the earth heat your home:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1743819,00.html
I was going to suggest that system.

For anybody building a new house, its the only way to go. The cost might be prohibitive to convert your exist heating system.

For god sake, don't start burning loads of wood. That crazy frenchie doesn't know what he's saying, poor lad. 😉

D