How many heating systems is enough?
Posted by davidm2232@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 49 comments
I live in a cold area. It is not uncommon to see temps in the -20F range and we can see below -30 which means freezing in the winter is a big concern.
Right now, I have an oil forced air furnace that I am looking to retire. I have put in an oil boiler with radiant floor and hot water fan coils. I also have a woodstove that can heat the whole house and plenty of wood for a few months. To back up the boiler and woodstove, I have a 6kw electric heater hardwired into my panel. If there was a power outage and issue with the oil/wood, I could always use my Mr Heater on a propane tank of which I always have several. I have used the boiler for two winters now to heat the garage, bedroom, and part of the main house. It has been very reliable. I will be getting an entire spare burner for it in case anything was to fail.
Would this be enough for you all without the oil furnace? The furnace works great but the ductwork takes up so much room in the basement. I would rather get rid of it and have more storage and not be knocking my head off the ducts.
factory-worker@reddit
Backup battery and electric blanket? I live in Florida, just a thought.
fenuxjde@reddit
If switching from oil to natural gas is an option, it is much cleaner and more efficient, and you can often switch them to be able to handle propane with some modifications if need be. Additionally, you could pick up an emergency wood stove to have. I did that, and have a valve on the boiler exhaust if I want to use the wood stove. I've also got solar and electric space heaters as another emergency backup, but it rarely gets below 10f where I'm at.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
No natural gas within miles of my house. I like natgas for the cheapness but don't like the idea that you can't really store it. Propane is slightly better but still hard to work with. I like my oil just because you can easily pour it from one container to another. If for whatever reason I run out of heating oil, I can pull 5 gallons from my diesel tank or even from one of my diesel vehicles to get me through the night. Then I can go grab 50 gallons with my truck tank and dump it in the heating tank.
paratethys@reddit
the carcinogen profile of cooking with natural gas is pretty nasty; propane burns much cleaner.
Oil is much easier to see how much you have, though.
gonyere@reddit
We have geothermal electric, and wood stoves. I cannot imagine a time where we'd have access to electric or oil but somehow the wood stoves wouldn't work...
WinLongjumping1352@reddit
I guess it is not just the stove itself, but having enough wood on hand for weeks/months (and assuming widespread outages for the electric/oil, neighbors come knocking asking for "a little bit of wood").
Another scenario might be that a flood/rain has soaked all firewood?
Yeah, there are many what-ifs.
No_Character_5315@reddit
Also depends where you live in Canada where I am you can always find standing deadwood even in winter be a pain to get but better than freezing to death lol.
gonyere@reddit
Ideally you always burn seasoned firewood. But you can burn fresh cut green wood at need. We have in the past.
No_Character_5315@reddit
True in Canada we are always taught to take the top half as it's usually dry enough to burn come back for the bottom half in spring.
gonyere@reddit
Yeah, I know a few times my dad was cutting live trees in Dec/Jan, hauling them out of the woods, splitting and we were burning them... Within days or maybe a week.
paratethys@reddit
Better clean the chimney real good after that kind of thing!
No_Character_5315@reddit
Probably weren't live but dead trees still standing if your dad has experience with firewood he probably picked those out.
gonyere@reddit
Lol naw. They were live. Thanks for thinking we're idiots though .
Sleddoggamer@reddit
Alaska too, except we also pick put beach wood in areas like mine so we don't need to knock the dead wood. There's usually something for everyone just as long as they aren't in a desert
paratethys@reddit
Properly stored wood stays dry. And in life-threatening cold, the water will be frozen solid rather than flowing around to get your wood wet.
Even so, with good planning you can always have some wood indoors drying out to burn next, and by the time you're ready to use a given piece of wood, it's dry enough to burn.
Hardwoods typically require a year to season, so if you're doing wood heat the old-fashioned way, you start each winter with 2 years worth of wood in reserve. Worst case you end up burning some of next year's wood and it's not seasoned as well as you would hope, but you don't freeze.
gonyere@reddit
Eh, we just got done stacking and splitting wood for this winter - sheds full (I thinky dad says it holds ~3-4+ cords). The better part of another outside it in a pile to split for next year, or if needed (we used to heat exclusively with wood, and burned 7-9+ cords a year; now we use it as a supplement and burn 2-4+).
paratethys@reddit
People survived for a very long time with only wood heat, but they were in larger groups where there was a higher likelihood that someone would always be around to tend the fire even if a few people were sick or injured at any given moment.
As long as you have enough wood stockpiled and you clean your chimney annually so you don't burn your house down, wood heat is the high-effort baseline, and everything other than wood are modern conveniences. The question of how many non-wood heat sources you "need" is mostly about how inconvenient you find the wood heat.
Acceptable_Ad_8935@reddit
Im assuming you wont have internet access in that situation. Id look up a couple youtube vidoes of how to get the mr heater working if it fails. They're simple to fix when they clog up or the tip sensor fails. Mine failed a few times when using it long term a dew years ago
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
Mine doesn't have a tip sensor. Just a thermocouple. Very simple
Acceptable_Ad_8935@reddit
Yes thats what i meant, the little pilot light wont touch the thermo if it tips over and shuts off. The pilot wouldn't stay lit in mine even though i used a filter and left me pretty cold until i figured it out
fredrickdgl@reddit
a mr heater doesn't vent your exhaust out. Might be better with a small diesel heater for a power out situation. Also back up power so you can run the oil boiler is worthwhile as a boiler doesn't use a ton of electricity to pump water. You can get ecm hydronic pumps for the boiler that use like 90% less power. I like the Taco Viridians. For the actual burner I don't think they make ecm burner motors yet
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
I have a large diesel generator for power outages. I could bring in one of my 12v diesel heaters if I really had to
funkmon@reddit
That's enough for me.
I have Kerosene, Propane, natural gas, and electric. You have the same number as I do but wood stove is very useful as the fuel is essentially unlimited.
Enigma_xplorer@reddit
Probably but have you actually tested this?
If for whatever reason the oil boiler went down, could the wood stove actually heat the whole house? Also have you considered what it would take to keep it running? I also have a wood stove but the problem is once you go to sleep it will probably burn for 2 or 3 hours unattended, the stove itself will radiate enough heat to keep the room warm for a brief time after that depending on mass, and then it's going to start getting cold. When you wake up it's going to be cold and it's going to take an hour or two to get the fire going again and another hour or two to warm up the stove enough to give off heat again then you still need a few hours to warm up the house again. In practice, I've not found my wood stove sufficient to keep the house warm on its own in the winter and I don't even have -20F temps.
The 6kw heater and the buddy propane heaters are nice but not nearly adequate to warm a house. If you have plans and the ability to drain your plumbing maybe that's ok for you to just warm you in your room but you need to think about what that means. I mean even the p traps in the drains can crack of not empty especially in a brittle porcelain toilet. That also means you need energy to power them be it propane or electricity.
I feel like 1 good redundancy is adequate but I'm not sure if what you have really has you covered well. Personally, I like coal stoves. They can burn for 12 hours to several days unattended depending on model and also could heat an entire house of sufficiently sized. Storing coal is easy too since it never goes bad and doesn't rot or get wet or infested with bugs. It's a pretty ideal backup I've found. As a matter of fact, one year I only heated with coal just because it was cheaper than oil.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
I've found I need about 36k btu to keep the house comfortable on the coldest days. The woodstove will easily do this. I can stoke it full before bed, turn it down, and have good coals in the morning to reload. A reload in the morning will get me through until I stop back home from work at lunchtime. I have heated the house for a couple weeks at a time. The biggest problem is that the bedroom upstairs gets too hot. -10 outside with the window open because it's 80 in the bedroom
blacksmithMael@reddit
I think it depends on your situation.
Our heating, hot water, and air con are all driven by ground source heat pumps. We have backup immersion heaters on all the water tanks (domestic hot water, heating etc). It is a medieval house, so we also have fireplaces in almost every single room.
If we both had a prolonged power cut and our solar failed (broken inverter or similar) then we still feel we can rely on wood. We have a large supply of seasoned wood, and add unseasoned every year through managing our woodland. If you have a source of wood then I’d just rely on that, and learn how to brush a chimney if you don’t already.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
Plenty of wood. I definitely need to get a chimney sweep brush
Femveratu@reddit
This is a great place to be overall, but on more anal days I might want to store another backup emergency heater using a different fuel source, say a Kerosene heater, esp if it can operate for short periods on the same oil you use in your oil boiler. Just to hedge your bets on the propane in times of crisis. Again tho this is nitpicking, sounds like you are in good shape.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
For the price of a kerosene heater, no reason why I should not have one. My dad's buddy used to heat his house with one and we always heated the ice shanty. I miss the smell honestly.
Femveratu@reddit
Ah yes at least you go in w eyes wide open on the smell haha. I use K-1 clear Kero and it does help quite a bit but still very present
Maleficent_Mix_8739@reddit
I live in a similar area. I’ve got a few emergency heaters that run on chaff fuel that I bought before really planning this out. My house is forced air natural gas, since these systems don’t pull much power we did an off grid solar kit with a good amount of battery storage and a backup tri fuel generator. It really doesn’t take much to keep a central system running as long as it’s not electric heat. All you’re actually powering is the control board, thermostat and central fan. You’ll come out much further ahead by being able to run your main system on backup. It’s generally cheaper to go this route as well.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
My backup power is a diesel generator. It's about .3 GPH which is not bad. But the woodstove would be the better option for nights if just for the noise.
Maleficent_Mix_8739@reddit
I’d check how much power your central forced air actually pulls, it’ll probably surprise you. Other than our range (which is seldom used) and clothes dryer we could run our entire house, which is 4bdrm 3bath, on one of the small predators from harbor freight. I already had my big tri gas from when I moved up from Texas. I can’t remember what I calculated when I did my winter energy audit after moving into this house, I just remember reading my ammeter and thinking my fluke was broken, then I got my first electric bill and I was like, ok it’s not broken, we just don’t have much winter use.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
Just the oil gun is around 400w. The blower is another 800.
Maleficent_Mix_8739@reddit
That’s not earth shattering amounts. The blower seems a bit high. Is it an older unit that might benefit from a little updating here and there?
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
Maleficent_Mix_8739@reddit
We got lucky here, the seller had just put this unit in a year before we bought the house. It had previously been a boiler system. This gas system is ultra efficient.
jnyquest@reddit
For a small area, you may want to look into a diesel heater. The kind that are used for off grid cabins and camping.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
I have one in my rv and one in the tractor I could bring in if needed. They are awesome
SquareDesperate4003@reddit
Sounds like youve got plenty of layers of backup already. Between the boiler, wood, electric, and propane youre pretty well covered, so dropping the old furnace for more space makes sense to me.
Rough_Community_1439@reddit
Why would you want to rip out a furnace that's probably in good shape and is doing a good job. The average house needs a minimum of 40k-120k btu to heat.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
I'm at 1200 sq ft with half of it spray foamed. I can get by with around 36k btu. The furnace is newer and works okay but is very oversized for the house. It runs and gets uncomfortably hot then shuts off. By the time it turns back on, it's cold. Radiant heat is so much more comfortable.
But the main reason I want to get rid of it is space. The ceilings in my basement are only 5' or so. The ductwork is below that so it makes it very hard to walk through and work on things. Plus, if I got rid of the furnace, I could park another ATV down in the basement rather than having them sit outside.
WhereDidAllTheSnowGo@reddit
Swap the electrical for a heat pump and get both heating and cooling for the bulk of the year.
You then only need to supplement on the rare, colder days
My 20yo 18 SEER HP works fine to -5F then I supplement with LP fireplaces.
Besides backup you need to factor in material and labor costs to sustain each system. And by who. You can’t do it all, who will?
A HP is a no brainer.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
Heat pump will be the eventual goal. But the $6k price tag means it's a couple years out yet.
I do all my own HVAC maintenance, repairs, and installs. I have a MR Cool DIY heat pump in the garage that does about 50% of the heating in the winter. But under around 20F, it is cheaper to run the oil boiler
Tinman5278@reddit
To many systems can be as a big of a problem as to few. You have a ton of different systems that all need to be maintained differently.
We have all electric heat, water heating and appliances. The house had a small propane stove (that looked like a wood stove) when we bought the place. We took out the propane stove and replaced it with large wood burning stove. While we were at it we added a 2nd wood stove in the basement.
Either wood stove is enough to heat the house by itself in most instances. But if things got really cold we could burn both at the same time. Neither is designed as a "kitchen stove" but I can cook basic foods and heat water on either of them.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
This is true too. It will be great to have one less oil burner to maintain and filters to stock/change
AlphaDisconnect@reddit
Keep adding blankets and people until warm. Preferably naked females. Lots more.
gilbert2gilbert@reddit
While your furnace is still functioning, do a test run this winter. Turn off the furnace and see if you can keep warm with one of the others.
davidm2232@reddit (OP)
I ran all last winter like that. I did run the furnace a few times just because I was too lazy to start the stove but when I did start the stove, it was more than enough. With the new fan coils, I shouldn't need to touch the furnace at all.