Info on alternate home heating methods

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grumpyoldman

Senior Cook
Joined
Jan 13, 2025
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192
Location
Colorado
for years i heated our home with wood pellets but i'm getting older and with a bad back so i started looking for other ways to heat our house . i learned that our power company had something called an ETS ( electric thermal storage) the way it works is this , electric heating elements heat bricks that store the heat and with a fan motor releases the heat when you need it , the concept is simple enough but the other advantage is that you get a much lower rate for electricity during off peak hours . i did as much as i could to nail down the operating costs of it before i decided but i could never quite get a handle on what it would cost to operate but with winter getting close and with my bad back , i decided to go with it . i now have been using it since the 1st of Oct. i compared my old electric bills to the one since , (i no longer have the pellet heater ) my new electric bills are running about $50.00 above what they were for the same months using the pellet heater here is where the savings come in, the pellets were costing me $300.00 per month so its a $ 250.00 per month saving even though my electric bill went up $50.00 per month not to mention saving my poor old back
these are a bit more complicated than they seem due to them being computer controlled and communicating with my power company
but they might be worth your time looking into them
 
The most cost effective heating source is Natural Gas. Of course, you have to have access to it, which you may not.

Another option that is very efficient to use, but I think is pretty expensive up front to install is geothermal. All the newer schools and some of the other city buildings where I live are heated and cooled with geothermal.

CD
 
natural gas was the 1st thing i looked at and it would cost more than heating with pellets trust me i looked long and hard at natural gas , what makes this cheaper is the rate cut you get on your electricity, what i pay for peak hours is 14.7 cents per kwh but now during OFF PEAK hours it only costs me .62 cents per kwh and the beauty of this this is that it only charges the bricks during OFF PEAK hours but provides heat 24 hour a day
this coming Monday and Tuesday we are expecting a morning low of minus 15 with more snow this Saturday but i'm just going drink coffee and watch it snow haha
 

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i am surprised that this thread is getting so little attention , i thought most anyone would like to save money on their heating ...ooooooh well guess not
 
At this very moment, I'll pay just about anything for energy to heat, etc. So....this is timely. This morning, I woke early to take a bath. (Yes. BATH. I love baths.) Mance (our male kitten) loves water. He will generally hang out when I take a bath and, when the water cools a bit, he likes to slap at the water. This morning, he immediately slapped at the water. I hop in the tub and it is warm...but just warm. I tried to run more water, and the water coming from the tap is cool. I said a few words of *cough* hope and went in investigate. The water heater is kaput.

Long story short: The water heater gets replaced but the tech discovers that we do not have enough pressure coming into the house to ignite it. Now, we had noticed that the gas stove burners seemed a bit low, but chalked it up to road crews working on gas lines in the neighborhood. Our utility company arrives. Not enough gas pressure. They investigate and discover a blockage in our ancient pipes. They are able to clear the blockage enough to get all working well-enough but advised we will have to get the pipe to the house replaced.

So tonight, our alternative energy source has been a fire in the fireplace and 3ku's (3 kitten units) who are cold and cuddly.

I was once enamored with solar power...but...my friends who have it are not enchanted by it at all. :(
 
i am surprised that this thread is getting so little attention , i thought most anyone would like to save money on their heating ...ooooooh well guess not
Not sure why you are surprised. This is, after all, a food forum. Yes, we have a lot of subjects not related but most are focused on the food aspect. There have been 127 views of this thread so people are reading it.
You did not mention what the initial outlay was. For many that is a crucial point. Many are on a fixed income. Even if they were able to juggle monies around... how long before that outlay is paid off?
1 or 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? Will that be a good selling point when they have to move?
 
At this very moment, I'll pay just about anything for energy to heat, etc. So....this is timely. This morning, I woke early to take a bath. (Yes. BATH. I love baths.) Mance (our male kitten) loves water. He will generally hang out when I take a bath and, when the water cools a bit, he likes to slap at the water. This morning, he immediately slapped at the water. I hop in the tub and it is warm...but just warm. I tried to run more water, and the water coming from the tap is cool. I said a few words of *cough* hope and went in investigate. The water heater is kaput.

Long story short: The water heater gets replaced but the tech discovers that we do not have enough pressure coming into the house to ignite it. Now, we had noticed that the gas stove burners seemed a bit low, but chalked it up to road crews working on gas lines in the neighborhood. Our utility company arrives. Not enough gas pressure. They investigate and discover a blockage in our ancient pipes. They are able to clear the blockage enough to get all working well-enough but advised we will have to get the pipe to the house replaced.

So tonight, our alternative energy source has been a fire in the fireplace and 3ku's (3 kitten units) who are cold and cuddly.

I was once enamored with solar power...but...my friends who have it are not enchanted by it at all. :(

When my original "builder's grade" water heater died, I looked into a tankless system, but the price was too high (at least at the time). The ROI would have been something like 15 years.

Solar would be great for my house, because of the amount of sunshine we get. But, my HOA won't allow it. :mad:

Interesting fact, Texas -- the oil state -- actually leads the nation in wind power generation. In fact, we generate more wind power than most countries. If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world for wind power generation. And, we haven't killed a single whale. :rolleyes:

CD
 
@grumpyoldman
Some people are in other timezones and others don't check in on a daily base.
You'll get your responses :)
To me: I don't need heating. Cooling would be nice but I use USB powered fans for that.
I'm on solar and off grid
 
No eagles? or other birds?

BTW, wind turbines do kill a lot of birds, but represent a tiny fraction of the birds killed annually in other ways, like flying into buildings or caught by prowling house cats, which past studies have estimated kill up to 988 million and 4 billion birds each year, respectively. Other studies have shown that many more birds—between 12 and 64 million each year—are killed in the U.S. by power lines, which connect wind and other types of energy facilities to people who use the electricity.

Source, MIT

CD
 
i am surprised that this thread is getting so little attention , i thought most anyone would like to save money on their heating ...ooooooh well guess not
wrong. the basic issue is that changing sources is not a simple decision/thing - as you have related. and for most people - doing a retro-fit is even more complicated than doing 'new construction'

friends did a geothermal new construction system. very effective/efficient. not even remotely possible on the typical urban+/- quarter/half acre lot.

the retail cost of wood pellets put that 'energy source' well outsider of 'most economic' unless it replaces/supplements some other mucho more expensive 'source.'

sorry - but back or no back, facts are facts.

heat pumps are cost effective - but only in the right climate and with the right electric costs - both are variables/issues which you cannot ignore with a 'nobody is interested.' when a heat pump system cannot meet the load, it switches to electric resistance - aka gigantic toaster - in most every situation the _most_ expensive energy source to get from here-to-there

had a heat pump system - got good rates as an 'all electric house.' did the engineering / cost benefit for installing solar water heating panels with a 1500 gallon super/ultra insulated (hot) water storage tank - and the heat pump piped to pick up the heat from the tank vs. the outside air. stunning economics - just a little problem finding _any_ vendors providing any heat pump system to accommodate the concept , , , ,

not every house has 300+ square feet to accommodate the heated water storage tank . . .
 
Heat pumps are cost effective - but only in the right climate and with the right electric costs. Both are variables/issues which you cannot ignore with a 'nobody is interested.'

Heat pumps where I live are rarely used, because of the climate. On the other hand, solar works with our climate. I'd like to add solar panels just to handle the load of my two central air-conditioning systems, which get some use as much as 9 months out of the year. But the HOA-nazis won't allow it.

We also have very windy plains (that actually start in Iowa, run through Kansas and Oklahoma, and into North Central Texas) that makes it Ideal for wind generation.

Electro Thermal Storage does not sound right for my climate. It was 64F degrees today, and will be the same tomorrow -- in mid January. The kind of weather during winter in Colorado, we measure in days, not months. The number of days over 100F we measure in weeks... or months. We only had about 30 days over 100 where I live in 2024, but we had 56 days of it in 2023.

CD
 
UPDATE: Still no hot water. For some reason the new water heater is not drawing exhaust up the flue. I'm thinking that I may be getting stressed. Perhaps I will get some PVC pipe, black paint, and attempt a diy hot water system. I have an area that faces south....perhaps a two-for-one and get a passive radiator system that works with it....I saw one of those in a survivalist tips and tricks website once-upon-a-time?

I cannot sleep....I think it is catching up with me. Apologies in advance for my rambling.
 
sorry to hear about your water heater problems .

i didn't mean to stir up anyone just thought it might be something some might want some 1st hand information about since i had never even heard about an ETS until about late last June. as to what it costs to operate one of these is just about impossible to figure out until you own one , just to many variables thats why i told you the difference in my old electric bills . who else do you know that lives in the climate that i do that heats their home for about $ 50.00 per month ? no matter if you heat with gas , wood or anything else ...$ 50.00 per month is cheap !! but where you live can make all the difference , i agree the Dallas area might not be a good fit for ETS units , but north Texas might be , another factor is how much of a reduced rate your power company will give you for off peak electricity (my power company gives me a special off peak rate just because i have an ETS unit) my local friends would kill for my power rate . but as to what it costs to operate all i can do is tell you how much my electric bill went up compared to the same months last year
as to the up front cost , the unit i have , the largest one they made cost me $2300.00 and the cost of the installation cost about the same
so i figure the break even point for us is about 1 1/2 to 2 years give or take a few months and how bad our winters are
you have to ask a lot of questions ,and many of the answers will be confusing , thats one reason i posted this.
ETS units are fairly new to this country but as i understand it have been used in Europe since some time in the 50s in some fashion or another , the one i have is just an updated version of what they have been using for years
 
@grumpyoldman Thanks for the update. Initial costs and break even points are important. No sense in putting something in that going to take 25 years to break even. LOL!

As to instant hot water - that is one that is very difficult to assess. My son looked into it when an element burnt out on the water heater. But the costs were astounding and pay back time was far from impressive.

And personally I feel it quite handy to have a tank of hot water, I had a 60 gallon tank on the farm, in a 3 day power outage, my generator at the time only did certain things and the water heater was not one of them. But by being frugal - I had hot, warm, lukewarm water for those 3 days. By day 4 it was cold but LOL the power came back! I was in the shower shortly thereafter. 😁
 
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