radiant heat...

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A guy never thinks of something like this happening . Worst case scenario , other than losing all your fish , is the real possibility of frozen and broken plumbing in your house . A wood stove or pellet stove sure sounds smart . I might give that some thought .

 

[GaryE]

I have a pellet stove - one that was here with the house when we bought. It needs electricity.

This makes it relatively useless.

A wood stove would make more sense, and may one day replace it.

 

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I have a pellet stove - one that was here with the house when we bought. It needs electricity.

This makes it relatively useless.

A wood stove would make more sense, and may one day replace it.

What electricity does your pellet stove need ? Probably the auger that feeds it and a blower ? Could a guy have one solar panel and a storage battery to make it self contained ? Otherwise and if not then an old style Franklin wood stove makes better sense and you can burn coal in it too . Coal is economical .

 

[gimme30]

Coal is economical

Uh oh. The greenies see that and they'll be grabbing their pitchforks. But, but, climate change!

I have a wood burning stove that will roast me alive in a matter of hours. I've had to open the windows and the door to the garage which is a weird thing to do when it's freezing outside.
I've never tried coal but I did try charcoal briquettes once when I was out of wood. Worked fine. The chimney cleaner guy wasn't happy about it.

 

[GaryE]

Coal could be a problem, but you can't get it here anyway. I'm in a province fed by forestry, and trees? We have trees.

We're also close to defunct coal mines, but that industry died a very long time ago.

The pellet stoves main issue is the blower. Overall, it's an excellent device when you don't need it. It's cheap to run and throws heat. I suppose if I spent some money I could get a battery system for it, but at that point, I'd probably go for a generator anyway.

 

[Back in the fold]

Uh oh. The greenies see that and they'll be grabbing their pitchforks. But, but, climate change!

I have a wood burning stove that will roast me alive in a matter of hours. I've had to open the windows and the door to the garage which is a weird thing to do when it's freezing outside.
I've never tried coal but I did try charcoal briquettes once when I was out of wood. Worked fine. The chimney cleaner guy wasn't happy about it.

I don’t completely agree with the coal being a bad guy thing . Coal is wood that’s been sitting longer . Burn anything and you release carbon dioxide . Coals bad rep comes from the big coal fired electrical generators . People brag about how green their electric cars , lawn mowers , etc . are but a coal fired generator recharges them . What concerns me more is the water that solar panels use to cool themselves . Anyway , no real answers to any of it but coal heat in your home is the cheapest way to go and isn’t dependent on electricity .

 

[TNG]

I don’t completely agree with the coal being a bad guy thing . Coal is wood that’s been sitting longer . Burn anything and you release carbon dioxide . Coals bad rep comes from the big coal fired electrical generators . People brag about how green their electric cars , lawn mowers , etc . are but a coal fired generator recharges them . What concerns me more is the water that solar panels use to cool themselves . Anyway , no real answers to any of it but coal heat in your home is the cheapest way to go and isn’t dependent on electricity .

Solar panels these days use photovoltaic cells which do not require water for cooling. I salute anyone who still has decades-old technology solar panels, it’s proof that they look after their panels very well. I have a system with battery installed recently, so I no longer have to worry about bushfire or storm knocking out the distribution power poles and having dead fish as a result.

Living in a region where the sun shines (almost) year round, it makes sense to make use of solar energy. I no longer import electricity from the coal fired power plant but I can’t export excess electricity either as a large percentage of households here have panels on the roofs, electricity companies have problems dealing with excess electricity at midday. The plan is that from the middle of this year, (in some states) households without solar panels and need electricity can have free power for 3 hours at midday - I’m not making this up, it’s true. Free power for any household that wants it would be unthinkable if we only had coal fired power plants.

My old house had an indoor wood heater and I enjoyed chopping and splitting wood to feed it in winter, I also liked the smell of burning wood. But I’m now semi-retired and I leave wood splitting to the younger generation. I also found that using solar energy and not smelling burning wood is not a bad thing either.