Heat source reasons tied into other post
Yikes! So overcome by responses, I am all but speechless. I had originally asked for oil burner/hot water system recommendations and got NOWHERE.
This is the thing. I CANNOT get HO insurance w/o “central heating,” here in coastal Maine. I have excellent chimney, OK shallow FP and flues for furnace and wood stove in cellar. Oil is costly but propane and electricity are also and problems arise which I don’t need to go into.
I wondered if you terrific guys who readily discuss the pluses and minuses of toilet brands could do the same for oil fired baseboard heat sources.
If I could, I would use wood to heat almost exclusively.
Since $$ is an issue, am thinking of hot water baseboard heat for primary living space and auxillary electric for 2nd floor bedroom area. Addition has open plan and heat rises, so with wood stove in basement, baseboard on first, maybe I can get away with electric elsewhere. Anything to meet Codes and State Farm.
Thanks for input. Hope some of you are still available on this issue.
Replies
Have you considered space heaters? They're a Maine tradition. We heat our house (in Portland) with propane-fired Rennai heaters, with electric baseboard backup. One of these days I'll get around to hooking a woodstove up to the chimney in the garage.
My family's vacation/rental house in Western Maine has oil-fired Monitor heaters. They need more servicing than propane, and Rennai is a better brand than Monitor, but either is a relatively cheap way to get "central" heat. Around $1500 each, installed.
You are confusing energy sources with energy delivery.
The souces can be oil, gas, solar, electric (resistance), electric heatpump, wood, and probably a couple of others I can't think of off hand.
And deliver methods include forced air, hot water, and local (which could include electric, gas/oil stoves, wood stoves/fireplaces, etc.
Most deliver methods can accept energy from most energy sources. For example there are electric boilers and wood fired boilers, and wood fired furnaces (forced air).
And think that most hot water systems can be setup to get heat from more than one source. Some forced air also.
This is a way of comparing the cost of the different fuels.
http://hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/
Hot water systems can easily be zoned. Forced air can also be zone, but not that easy or always effective.
Local heat sources are the ultimate in zoning.
Then you need to look at the expense of installing any of the systems.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.