other sources of heating

[ktm rider]

And you won't be giving some plumber $200 an hour to repair or thaw your pipes.

If your pipes are freezing from a power outage, you better check how insulated they are underground. I have had power outages for 5-6 days and no freezing. The pipes are also inside the house so that warms the water inside the pipes enough not to freeze.

 

[Al Smith]

I have a geo-thermal heat pump.Most likely the cheapest method of heating and cooling known today.Not everybody could benefit from this method though because of a lack of a water source.That plus the initial cost is pretty high unless you do as I and install it yourself.I also got the unit very cheaply to begin with.

It's less expensive but not free,thus the woodburner .

What just about everybody can do is increase the insulation in your homes.That will in time more than pay for itself,plus no maintainence.I have 18" in my attic,would have put more but also would have ran out of room to put it.The anticipated heat lose is 30,000 btu's per hour at zero degrees .So it takes that much just to maintain what heat is there.The geo is twice that big, so no prob.With the woodburner cooking ,it never or seldom comes on,even at zero.