More expensive than a run-of-the-mill air-source heat pump, but cheaper than geothermal heat pumps.

Before we replaced our furnace, our cellar was very warm. My partner put his office there when he worked from home, and I did a lot of early-spring seed starting. Now we have an energy-efficient furnace that heats the upstairs instead, so we don’t use the space except for storage and laundry.

Although it wasn’t shown in the video, there is indeed a way to clean out the flue running through the bench. There are two access holes, one at the start of the flue, the second at the end of the bench, where one can get in with a vaccuum hose or brush to clean out the pipe. This needn’t be done very often because the creosote buildup is very low.

There may be some rocket stoves out there that have been operating for that long… The person to talk to is Ianto Evans of the Cob Cottage Company. Give him a call and he’ll tell you anything you want to know: http://www.cobcottage.com

My concern is that with credit drying up quite rapidly, home equity gone and few grants and straight out subsidies, millions of people are going to have to make one investment - and while insulation would be by far the better choice if we were talking about a long term heating energy reduction plan, insulation is a tough choice for those who may never be able to put money into the system again.

Now not everyone, maybe not even most people, fall into that category. But I do think it is important to sit down and figure out what’s most urgent - and IMHO, if you are poor and expect to get more so, and have to choose between a heating source that operates without fossil fuels and more insulation, I’d vote for the heating source. It really depends on how you come at this. Ideally, I’d vote for both. And if I thought there was a chance of secondary expenditure later on, definitely both. But not everyone may have that option.

Again, the commentary here has been *GREAT* - I really appreciate the clarifications, corrections and information. I’m going to do a longer series on winter heating in September, since I have to move on in the AIP class, and there are still so many things I haven’t covered. I’ll seperate out insulation and do seperate posts on fossil and non-fossil strategies, and one I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, on the long term issues of wood. Now I have to move on to cooling, cooking and laundry, though ;-).

Sharon

Sharon

Do you have any suggestions about getting the heat from a fireplace to circulate better?

Even though our house was only 7 years old at the time that we decided to get off the gas furnace, the first thing we did was insulate. Even in such a contemporary building, we found lots of places lacking for insulation. Our attic had a very poorly laid down 9 inches of fiberglass batts. We added 12 additional inches crosswise to the first layer (careful, don’t use vapor barriers on additional insulation) for a total of 22. That brought the attic up to R-70. Then we went after previously uninsulated “knee wall” areas of our dormer, 2nd floor. We even had to cut our way into one of these areas through the drywall as the builder hadn’t left an access door. We found heating ducts running through this unconditioned space and buried them under 2 feet of cellulose as well as putting more fiberglass batts on the underside of the roof in there (with “Raftermate” breather panels installed too.) Even though we weren’t going to use the heating system much anymore, we had to heavily insulate these ducts because otherwise they would have acted as heat exchangers, giving up heat to the unconditioned space as warm room air drifted into the ductwork (which I have found happens no matter how tightly one closes off ceiling registers.) Insulating these hidden areas had the additional benefit of stopping several previously troublesome cold drafts coming out of “can” lights in the kitchen ceiling too. It seemed that, even though said lights were on an interior ceiling with the 2nd floor above, cold air had been traveling a considerable distance horizontally between the floor joists after gaining entry in these knee wall, dormer areas. Problem solved.

Additionally, we got double cellular shades with tight-fitting side tracks for all the windows. I think interior window shutters would have been a bit cheaper, but my carpentry skills aren’t all that great and the rest of the family wouldn’t have allowed some crummy, home-cooked solution on the windows. For living areas on the north, the cellular shades allow some light transmission through them too, allowing us to keep them drawn during the day, something probably not possible with interior insulating shutters as I don’t think the rest of the family would have tolerated the cave-like darkness. Therefore, the shades get to insulate even during the day.

Storm doors on 2 exterior doors and insulating an unheated store room upstairs rounded out the insulation project. When we were done, I measured an approximate 45 to 50% reduction in heating load (done by carefully measuring furnace burner duty cycles, accounting for furnace BTU output, and accounting for outdoor, indoor temperature differentials at the time.) Basically we cut the heating load of a new house *in half*. The reason that this was important to do was that our masonry heater only had a design output of about 22k BTU per hour, averaged over 24 hours, and it simply wouldn’t have done the job during our coldest winter design temperature otherwise. The heater now should keep us about 50 degrees above outdoor ambient, which after some cooking, bathroom and human body heat, will keep our house okay even on the coldest days, which never last more than a day or so anyhow. (On the other hand, the furnace had been grossly oversized at 92K BTU/hr output even by the builder. After our insulation project, it became even more so. In theory, it should now be capable of so much of a temperature difference with the outside that is should keep the house at 65 degrees down to an outdoor air temperature of -102F!) Super insulation should also cut our firewood consumption. I’d like to save even more by cutting our indoor temperature, but some other family members are of the age that anything below 60 wouldn’t be allowed except when forced into it by emergency situations.

We’d have loved to increase the solar gain of the house, but sadly, our house is actually joined on one wall with our neighbor’s (we’re actually a condo development of houses joined in pairs) and their house sits to the south, blocking winter sun to all but 3 windows.

Nevertheless the lesson is clear. When preparing to live better “in place”, one starts changing the heating situation by insulating first.

You should also weatherstrip and caulk everywhere. If you can see daylight in your doorframe, you are losing heat (or air conditioning). We caulk every single place where two planes meet: ceiling to wall, walls to walls, walls to floor, door and window trim to walls and it all adds up. Weatherstripping doors is the easiest cheapest thing to do and it should be done first. Don’t forget to line your outlets with those foam gaskets too.

Window treatments should be layered as well. We use window quilts (which I made), room darkening shades (purchased), sheer lace curtains for privacy during the day (which I made) and lined drapes with a valance (which I made). They make a huge difference and were ever so much cheaper than replacing the windows.