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Cokato MN | I would also take a look at ground coupled geothermal.
I grew up cutting and burning wood, it works great for a leaky old farm house. We always said it heats twice, once when you cut it and again when you burn it.
My last house had a big woodstove in the basement, we could heat it with nothing more than our sweat and a little extra propane when the stove wasn't burning.
We built a new house and had a ground coupled geothermal system put in. The total cost for it 8 years ago was about $25,000.00. It included the tubing in the floor, 300' of 12'+ deep trench with 900' of tubing in the trench, and 3 units in the house. We have a heat pump for the floor heat, a heat pump for heat and air conditioning forced air, and a small propane furnace that contains the blower for the forced air.
Obama gave us 1/3 of the cost back in tax rebate. If we had been retrofitting the system in an existing house, we could have gotten 1/3 of the cost from our state, but since it was new construction we did not qualify.
Having the propane backup unit also qualified us for cheap off peak electricity rates, and it provides the blower for the forced air needed for the AC unit.
The cost to heat and AC for a 2,400 SQFT well insulated house in central MN is less than $400.00 per year. The highest bill for electricity we have ever had was about $50.00 in the middle of winter.
I miss cutting and hauling firewood and planning to have enough hoarded up to make it thru our un-predictable winter. The tubing in the floor would work for an outside wood burner, if we decided to convert it.
However, I just can't fathom going outside in a blizzard to put a bucket load of wood into an outside wood burner in exchange for the fraction of $400.00 that I would save from doing it. In addition to that, the AC is also very cheap. Without the geothermal, we would still need to pay for AC at a higher cost. Our house is always 75° summer and winter, it takes heating and AC off the chore list.
To help with the woodstove option, we did finance the system as part of our home loan, so we have the 3.5% mortgage interest on the $16,000.00 If you pay cash for the wood burner you could avoid that.
What would the burner cost, installed? Does it use electricity? Would you consider your labor cost to cut wood? Would you figure in the cost of a chainsaw and maintenance, and the machinery to move the wood? Would it increase the resale value of the home? We all build to own forever, but if it sold would the perspective buyer rather have geothermal or a burner? | |
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Outdoor wood stove ?
