New furnace - A Tale of Two Winters

[longam]

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

[Jimbuna]

Dear Mr Neal Rothschild Stevens

I believe your needs would be better served if you simply converted some of your financial assets into cash $ and relocated into a newer property.

If you insist on behaving in a miserly manner, might I suggest you spend the winter in the hot club located at the rear of your ranch for longer periods than you have been accustomed to of late.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Just remember to leave the latest GF to me in your will.

I'll leave you my last three GFs if you can spare some matches. Maybe one of them slut busses will break down in front of my house, that could solve all kinds of problems for me...

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Dear Mr Neal Rothschild Stevens

I believe your needs would be better served if you simply converted some of your financial assets into cash $ and relocated into a newer property.

If you insist on behaving in a miserly manner, might I suggest you spend the winter in the hot club located at the rear of your ranch for longer periods than you have been accustomed to of late.

Hey, that's a good idea, I can go sit a spell in the hot tub when I get cold. But it sure is gonna be rough when I get out all wet.

Now, excuse me, I have to visit the neighbor's yard to chop some firewood.

[Catfish]

Hi,
bad luck .. so do you at least have a wood-fired oven ?

When we began to build this house we forever thought about which oven/furnace whatever we should buy and install, to be most independent from those "good-willed" gas- and oil distributors, and there were quite some ideas:

1. Buy a wood fired oven, with water filled pipes to support or even exchange the "normal" furnace. You could also buy an "all-burner" or whatever the right expression is in english, and burn all kinds of advertising magazines and papers, newspapers, coal, wood or whatever. You certainly need a fire-proof chimney for this. And you need a hot water buffer reservoir.

Bad part is you will always need wood or something to burn, and electricity for the circulating pump(s). You could certainly use a stirling engine for pumping (driven by the heat of the oven), but i would have to build one myself, nothing on the market.


2. Get a combined heat and power unit (called Block-Heiz-Kraftwerk, or BHKW in Germany), this is being supported in Germany financially, basically an engine which heats water via exhaust (heat exchanger) and produces electricity as a side effect, which is sold and paid for.

The engine is noisy, will have to be maintained, and you also need stuff to run it, but at least you can choose from Diesel, petrol, plant oil, natural or compressed gas, or whatever. You will also need a buffer reservoir for hot water.

If the house is too small, or well insulated, the engine will not run long enough to produce enough electricity to pay off its existence and maintenance costs - but would have been a good idea (house too small and too well insulated - get a warmed swimming pool and heated plastered car entrance against snow in winter, and it will work all the time lol.)


3. Oil or gas furnaces - you are completely dependent on the companies providing it, but it is the cheapest solution to get any furnace.
Oil: You will need stinking storage tanks which take room.
Gas: If anyone decides to cut you off the supply for whatever reason that's it.

4. Geothermal energy - but ... even a hundred meter borehole for a snall one-family house is expensive, and you need circulation pumps (electricity) and a compressor (electricity) to bring the water temperature up to the desired level.


We ended up with a cheap gas furnace (combined hot water and heating system), but big hot-water reservoir supported by solar collectors. The whole thing costed about 5000 Euros, installation of radiators etc. included, but it is quite efficient and we have very low gas costs. We also plan to get a wood-fired oven with water pipes to support or replace the furnace, but we only built the chimney for this as yet.


I would go for a combined system in the long run, maybe with some solar collector support for warming up service water, and a burner that eats everything, combined with a heated water pipe system, and a well-insulated big buffer reservoir for hot water.


I know it does not help you now, but repairing old technology is mostly more expensive than thinking about a new solution that will work for 20+ years

Greetings,
Catfish

[jimbob]

Long term plan:
Insulation of the house is the key.
Then a little bit extra heating if needed.

But, that won't help you right now so here's my short term plan:
Get cozy with teh GF.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by longam

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

Yep, that is what I have in my basement. Works great, it is safe and efficient.

[antikristuseke]

get a decent sleeping bag, problem solved

[Letum]

Originally Posted by longam

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

I have the same model sat next to me.
Heats the room great, but is very expensive to run.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Letum

I have the same model sat next to me.
Heats the room great, but is very expensive to run.

They dont really draw all that much power and most have a dual setting of 1,000 or 2,000 watts.

But yea leaving one on day/night is going to rack up a bill.

Here we have been cutting off the heat pump once the temprature reaches the freezing point as it is pointless to run in below that.

So we try to warm the house up as much as we can during the day and try to ride out the night. Though it is quite chilly in the morning it was about 45F inside my house yesterday morning.

[Catfish]

Hi,
just reread your post - is the furnace already dismantled, or does it still work ?
Because it may well be possible that there is something (heat exchanger) cracked, but the big "boom" when igniting usually points to a too late ignition - fuel build up, not sufficient spark/delayed iginition and ... boom - you get the idea.
But this has nothing to do with the heat exchanger itself - the latter one will only lead to losing a bit of water/pressure in a few days.
And there is no imminent danger of a CO2 build-up.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Letum

I have the same model sat next to me.
Heats the room great, but is very expensive to run.

I run a convector with thermostat and timer in the conservatory and find it much cheaper to run than the 'oilers'

[SteamWake]

Whats a convector?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Whats a convector?

Basically, instead of heating oil, it heats air from an electrical element and distributes it around the room.

"A convection heater is a heater which operates by air convection currents circulating through the body of the appliance, and across its heating element. This heats up the air, causing it to increase in area.
A convection heater may have either an electrical heater element, hot water coil, or steam coil. Because of the natural ventilation, they are quieter in operation than fan heaters".

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Basically, instead of heating oil, it heats air from an electrical element and distributes it around the room.

"A convection heater is a heater which operates by air convection currents circulating through the body of the appliance, and across its heating element. This heats up the air, causing it to increase in area.
A convection heater may have either an electrical heater element, hot water coil, or steam coil. Because of the natural ventilation, they are quieter in operation than fan heaters".

That is very dry heat. Effective but dry.

[Jimbuna]

Can't honestly say I've ever noticed

Probably because I'm generally always upstairs in the pooter den