kerosene heater?

The heart of this is that you want to save and yet be warm.

Insulation, Insulation, Insulation.

Is there any in the walls? Is there any under the floor? How well sealed is your house?

Most houses that are older than 20 years or so are woefully inadequate. Just having insulation in the attic is not enough, far from it.

I noticed a huge difference after I blew cellulose in the walls, and again after adding underfloor insulation. My friends who didn't, all have high heat and cooling bills, and are not as comfortable.

My neighbor across the street with a similarly constructed house, heats with a kero and added no insulation. My bills are a third of his and my house is warm as opposed to his which is downright chilly. Well it isn't always chilly, in the summer it is a sweat farm. Two different strategies.

Another note. Even though no heat goes up the chimney with a kero heater, it consumes air. That air must be drawn into the house from the cold outside air. It really is beter if not only for the combustion products are vented outdoors but if the heater gets it's air not from your living space which must by necessity be drawn from outdoors.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Thies
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Trouble is they stink when you light them and stink when you shut them off.

Reply to
LSMFT

Tom,

You only save fuel when your furnace is actually running at the lower setback temperature. You lose less heat when the temperature difference between the outdoors and indoors is less, so you don't have to use as much fuel to replace the lost BTU's.

However, if your house never reaches the setback temperature and runs the furnace, there is no savings. In my case I keep the house at 68F when it is occupied and we're awake. If I set the temperature to 50F during the night, and the house never reaches that temperature, it takes the same amount of fuel to return to 68F in the morning as it does to maintain it at 68F all night. So if your setback is too deep, you won't save anything. When it does hit 50F and the furnace starts running again, that's when you start saving. Took me a long time to understand that and I live in Minnesota.

In your case you are the poster child for low cost heating. Keeping it at 55F most of the time saves you a ton of money. Dropping it to 50F only makes sense when it actually reaches that temperature in your house and the furnace runs. For maximum savings and comfort you would adjust the setback according to the outside temperature. Even if you don't save anything during the night, it won't cost you any more to bring the temperature back to 55F. The long run on the boiler is probably better for it and more efficient than frequent on and off cycles.

The only problem with your heating scheme is that it makes it difficult to cost-justify any improvements because your heating bill is so low. However, adding insulation and plugging leaks may give you a payback if you can do it cheaply enough. I admire your pioneer spirit, my wife would leave me if I tried to keep the house at 55F and then I'd lose my "night heater".

Keep up the good work. I agree with most of the others about not using kerosene.

dss

Reply to
dss

Incorrect.

If your temperature AVERAGE is lower over time, you will save fuel.

On-off cycles mean essentially nothing in the calculation.

All that matters is the average temp. Lower the average and you save.

Reply to
salty

Be grateful that he wasn't selling you "horse hung, add three inches". You'd have had to get someone three towns away to hold your urethra so you could hang a leak.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Oh ha ha.

There is no need to over insulate, but most old houses have major holes in the thermal envelope. Often it is no insulation in the walls. Adding storm windows or added insulation in the attic will have little impact if you have a big heat leak elsewhere. Most people think only attic and windows, so it is important that the point is made that they may very well be pouring money down the drain by missing insulation where it really is needed.

I'm not in the trade, but I've seen enough old houses to know that any wall insulation was rare before the 60's and decent insulation wasn't common until 20 years later.

I can tell you for an absolute fact that if you have nothing in the walls your house depends on having cheap energy, and those days are long gone.

Jeff

I turned off all lights and used smaller

Reply to
Jeff Thies

On 10/28/2010 5:13 AM LSMFT spake thus:

True; yet another reason you don't want to use them in a well-sealed space.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

I'd expect you'd stress the unit more by cycling it on and off, particularly the ignition components.

Jeff

Reply to
jeff_wisnia

That's my view. I like a wide lag in the t-stat, maybe 4 degrees. The last couple I put in only adjusted to 2-3 degrees lag. Which is okay, because the wife likes 1 degree, which is the default. Somehow the furnace cycling is more tolerable to me than her complaining. Besides that, what happens with a wider lag is she'll ultimately jack up the temp to a higher average. Some kind of skinny person "conditioning" reflex. With a 1 degree lag she'll settle in at 71. Funny how what you think is a disadvantage works out in the end. There's something to the 1 degree default I guess.

--Vic

Reply to
Vic Smith

It's 45F outside. Been under 50F all day and windy 10 - 20 mph west. I have three regular size oil lamps in the living room where the thermostat is. Thermostat is set to 70F. Furnace has not come on all day :)

Reply to
A. Baum

Like their hardwood, HD's price on Kerosene is obscene. Ditto a lot of hardware stores. I heated my garage shop with kerosene until this past year when I changed to a radiant natural gas heater. I could buy kerosene from a few local co-ops or oil companies for slightly more than diesel fuel.

While the heater did a good job in the garage, I would not use one in the house. My shop had garage doors that allowed some air exchange. Even at that it did begin to smell when the fuel ran low; and during the startup and shut down process. Besides that, it is an un-vented device and running it full time could be dangerous.

RonB

Reply to
RonB

On 10/29/2010 8:13 PM RonB spake thus:

I used to get my kerosene at a Rotten Robbie station in Hayward (San Francisco Bay Area East Bay), from a self-serve pump relatively cheap.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Thanks for saying that, dss -- plus thanks for the valuable practical advice from you and others.

I've thought of the word "pioneer" many times through the years, especially these last two. Heck, I don't even throw the chicken out just because it's been in the refrigerator for 5 days. Sometimes, when walking with a girl on a trail in winter, I lay in the snow for a half-minute or so with no shirt on -- just because.

For now, I let it get as low as it goes without the boiler running -- 48 or so in the mornings. In winter, I'll set things to 55F, except on really frigid nights when the heat loss to the outside is at a greater rate... I can stand a little lower. It's all about 50% warm clothing, 50% use of an electric pad at times, and the other 90% is mental :) (to paraphrase a philosopher).

Greetings to Minnesota.

Reply to
Tom

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