Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

Senile_Texas_Aggie

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Do you have a use for all that wood?

At this point I think he NEEDS to put in a wood stove!

The only use I have for the wood at the moment would be to make wood chips. Mr. Bruce may be correct -- I may need to put in a wood stove. As I mentioned last year (after our propane heating was so high -- $900 in one month) that I wish we could put in a wood stove. Alas, the fireplace was designed for looks, not function, and to only accommodate a propane gas stove. It won't burn wood, either openly or in a wood stove. (It is ironic that most of the houses we considered buying before buying this place had fireplaces and/or wood burning stoves, but alas this place does not.) I think it was Miss @farmerjan who recommended that we consider installing an outside wood burning stove, and we may do that. But for now, the only use we have for all of this wood on our property is in making wood chips or burning in brush piles.

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Bruce

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Is there a space where you could put a woodstove with its own chimney?

$900 a month for propane is outrageous, what are you paying per gallon? I think I'm getting screwed at $4.25/gallon. I'm still trying to find someone to put in geothermal. Got a line on someone just recently, close enough to do the work (unlike one who actually did come look at the place) and hopefully not going to quote so high as to be a joke as I got from another.
 

farmerjan

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I really would look into the wood burning furnace. Whether you have hot water/baseboard heat or hot air heat, they can be made to accommodate it. Cut your heating bill way down and will pay for its self in about 2 years. They run about 5,000 installed here, for a pretty good investment. Less if you do some of the work yourself. Can also be set up to provide alot of your hot water in the process.
 

Senile_Texas_Aggie

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We have owned a house with a fireplace with a wood stove insert in it. We didn't save as much money as I had hoped -- we resided in a subdivision in Warner Robins, GA, and I had to buy the wood -- but the heat the stove put out was really nice. But every house which we have bought has not had a wood burning fireplace, just a natural gas fireplace insert. That has been fine.

Last year, when we got the $900 propane bill, I decided that was enough. We turned off our central heat and instead used several space heaters, along with the propane fireplace insert. That was A LOT cheaper! Still, not the pleasantness of a real fireplace or wood burning stove.

As for installing a wood burning stove with its own flue, we might could do something like that. I'll talk to my beautiful Gal to see what she says and let you folks know.

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AmberLops

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A woodstove would be great! Fireplaces just don't do much on their own.
When I lived in Maine, i was in an old farmhouse with 5+ bedrooms and the only source of heat in the entire house was a huge fireplace in the downstairs living room. It took so much wood to keep the house warm but I loved it. Chopping wood was NOT fun and that's what I spent the entire summer doing...if I didn't do it, I would have a freezing cold house! The upstairs and kitchen pipes froze almost every night. It was also infested with flying squirrels :lol:
 

Bruce

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How could you leave all that Amber???? Who doesn't love frozen pipes, especially when it is a nightly occurrence?

Even though the only physical difference between a propane heater and a natural gas heater is the nozzle, the cost of operation is quite different. Piped natural gas is generally substantially cheaper than propane brought to the house and pumped into your tank.

By "space heaters" do you mean electric? Must be you have some really cheap electricity, that is usually the most expensive way to heat a house. I wonder if you could replace the furnace with heat pumps. Though from what I've seen they are best in open floor plans since they generally have a single "emitter" (for lack of a better or proper word) per pump rather than a unit that provides heat through whole house ductwork.
 

AmberLops

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How could you leave all that Amber???? Who doesn't love frozen pipes, especially when it is a nightly occurrence?

I can honestly say i don't miss it :gig It was beautiful out there though.
When i asked the owner of the house what i could do to keep the pipes from freezing,
he said 'you can stand there and thaw them out with a hair dryer'...and that's what i did...for hours every day :th
 
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