I've been searching but can't seem to find an answer that says "yes, do this." I have some ideas from various places; however, I think our situation is slightly unique.
We're in Vermont so we're dealing with cold winters and we have a 18.2 kilowatt solar system pushing most of our appliances plus 2 9,000 btu heat pumps and 1 18,000 btu heat pump. We also have a full central air propane heating system over 4 zones that ran over 1,400 gallons per year with the previous owner. The prior owner burned 134.2 million btu in propane heat during the 2013/14 season.
We moved in last May and installed the solar and heat pump systems mostly for the badly needed tax deductions. In time we are looking to live luxuriously off grid, but are waiting for solar battery systems to last longer than a few days. In the meantime we have roughly 1,200 square feet of space that isn't heated by anything but propane.
I love cutting cords of wood and predict we'll burn around 1-2 cords in the fireplace. Since May I've cut and split around 12 cords with another 6 cords ready for splitting tomorrow. I've been donating the excess wood to charity, but those charities are claiming they have enough now and I'm pissed as hell at Suburban Propane's amazingly terrible customer service. I wanted to cut all utilities in a few years, but I'm on a mission to do it sooner due to the wonderful folks at Suburban Propane.
Our house is rather large (over 4,000 Sq Ft), but I am thinking some sort of wood burning connection to the central heating system will negate the use of propane and make us less electricity-needy better than installing another 2-3 heat pump systems at around $15,000.
Does anyone have suggestions of products or companies who I can begin to contact for wood-buring heat tied to 3 different heating sources?
Sure, we don't NEED to do a thing. We've already at overkill, but I want a good reason to keep chopping wood!
We're in Vermont so we're dealing with cold winters and we have a 18.2 kilowatt solar system pushing most of our appliances plus 2 9,000 btu heat pumps and 1 18,000 btu heat pump. We also have a full central air propane heating system over 4 zones that ran over 1,400 gallons per year with the previous owner. The prior owner burned 134.2 million btu in propane heat during the 2013/14 season.
We moved in last May and installed the solar and heat pump systems mostly for the badly needed tax deductions. In time we are looking to live luxuriously off grid, but are waiting for solar battery systems to last longer than a few days. In the meantime we have roughly 1,200 square feet of space that isn't heated by anything but propane.
I love cutting cords of wood and predict we'll burn around 1-2 cords in the fireplace. Since May I've cut and split around 12 cords with another 6 cords ready for splitting tomorrow. I've been donating the excess wood to charity, but those charities are claiming they have enough now and I'm pissed as hell at Suburban Propane's amazingly terrible customer service. I wanted to cut all utilities in a few years, but I'm on a mission to do it sooner due to the wonderful folks at Suburban Propane.
Our house is rather large (over 4,000 Sq Ft), but I am thinking some sort of wood burning connection to the central heating system will negate the use of propane and make us less electricity-needy better than installing another 2-3 heat pump systems at around $15,000.
Does anyone have suggestions of products or companies who I can begin to contact for wood-buring heat tied to 3 different heating sources?
Sure, we don't NEED to do a thing. We've already at overkill, but I want a good reason to keep chopping wood!