On Jan 29, 10:56 am, wrote:
On Jan 29, 9:20 am, jim wrote:



On Jan 29, 10:05 am, wrote:

On Jan 29, 7:46 am, jim wrote:

On Jan 29, 12:58 am, " wrote:

On Jan 28, 9:14�pm, jim wrote:

On Jan 27, 1:43�pm, neilsanner wrote:

Hi,

My house is heated by an oil boiler (furnace). The boiler heats water
and then a circulator pump circulates the water all over the house to
the baseboards.

Is there a way to / Do you know anyone who did something similar to
this befo
-Make a hole in the boiler
-Insert an electric element
-Connect the element to an aquastat
-The boiler would now be electricity heated!!!

Another way to do this I thought of:
-Buy a small (tank) water heater
-Put it next to the existing oil boiler
-Take the input and output pipes of the oil boiler and connect it to
the input and output of the water heater.

This system would work like that:
�-The water heater would keep the water hot
�-The circulator would start when the thermostat says so
�-The circulator would bring the hot water all over the house until
the heat goes up in the rooms and the thermostat shuts off the
circulator.

Any ideas?
NeilSanner

Cost of electric heat will eventually = oil cost to heat a home. Our
oil fired HWR system kicked the bucket and we installed an oil / wood
burning combo (http://www.kerrheating.com/products/K4C_SS.htm). It's
the cats ass. And with my summer cottage sitting on 21 acres of
harwood forest I'm laughing. The cherry / oak and ash deadfall gets me
enough to do a year. With an additional woodstove on the main floor I
bet I have oil in the tank from last year. If you have a cheap supply
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just for the record.............

with firewood you collect it, cut it, split it, stack it, then carry
it in the house burn it, and carry out the ashes.

Sigh

It's enjoyable excercise. Outdoors in the fresh air, on my own time.
Beats sitting in a gym peddling an excercise bike and going nowhere.

if you must haul by

truck add fuel costs for that.

At the cottage every weekend. Truck and trailer goes along whenever
I'm up there.

now whats the value of your time? plus any fuel used, like chainsaw
gas, oil, and hauling vehicle costs plus depreciation, like extra
miles.

3 people at it. We are able to "process" one cord a weekend. Truck
carries 1 cord. Use 5-6 cords a year - you do the math. By May month
it's all done.

I'd say you just verified hallerb's point. That labor comes to 30-36
man days of labor. Assuming you earned a mere $7 an hour, that's
$1700 - 2000.

I don't see it that way - the cost of labor. I have a growing
greenhouse and a vegetable garden which requires considerable labor to
maintain. Should I not do this?

No, If you enjoy it and get other benefits from it, of course you
should keep doing it. I stated that in my post. My point is some
people don't enjoy cutting, splitting, and hauling wood. And in that
case, I agree with hallerb, that if they looked at the labor spent
doing it, it can be more effective to just work some extra hours
somewhere at a paying job.



I heat my 3200 sq ft house here in NJ with gas for a

season for a lot less than that.

And it ignores another big problem, which is pollution.

On my property I only cut deadfall. One cord of wood rotting on the
ground produces the same CO2 as if it were burned in a wood stove.

CO2 isn't the only issue or even the main one. The typical woodstove
emits a lot more HC, CO, other noxious gases and particulates than a
natural gas or oil fired furnace. And a lot of it depends on what
kind of wood is burned, how well the fire is managed, which are not
issues with gas or oil. There are towns with people living in close
proximity that have had so much pollution from woodburning stoves that
they have put restrictions on new ones.

It can be swell it you enjoy doing it and if only a small percentage
of people do it. But if any significant percentage of homes started
doing it as their main source of heat, air quality would definitely
suffer.



Note, I'm

not saying someone shouldn't use wood if they want to and enjoy doing
it. Only that it's not necessarily the free ride or good solution
for everyone.

It is for me.

you might find out a part time job is more effective use of your time,

Nope. If I worked a part time job on weekends? I'd rather be boating
and trouting at the cottage from May to October as opposed to slinging
coffee or stocking shelves at Wal Mart. What would you rather do? As
well I make a tidy sum selling hardwood to the woodturners guild which
easily pays for any overhead.

than all that firewood handling........ might be less work too

Naw. I enjoy it. I don't have to do it so it's not work. Now - go turn
up your thermostat.

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I love the smell of woodsmoke in the morning. I wish more people
burned wood. (I don't.)