Anyone use renewable fuels to heat their home?

[turboblue]

Installed a corn/pellet fuel furnace about mid winter last year.
Propane was near $2.60 a gallon then.
We were tired of being cold and having a huge fuel bill to boot.
Winter of 07-08 I spent nearly $1500 in propane.
That's with a 94% efficient furnace set on about 62° and an insulated house.

Installed this unit and tied it into my existing ductwork.

http://www.americanenergysystems.com/magnum-6500.cfm

Best move I ever made.
Cost me about $3 a day to heat my house with corn and it's warm.
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Gary

Turbo VW Sand Drag Buggy

"If you don't run into the Devil every once in awhile, you must be going in the same direction!"

[Russ Wolfe]

I have a fireplace that burns wood if the power goes out.
Propane cost me $1.24 gal this year. 900 gal to fill both the shop and the house.

My brother heats his shop with waste oil. The local farmers and shops save it for him, so his only cost is for the electric to run the pump on the furnace, and his gas to go around and pick up the oil.
He is thinking about putting a waste oil burner to heat his house, but he would need to duct the oil burner heat into the house from outside. They do tend to smell near the burner assembly.
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Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!--Edward Abbey

Gary: OK. Ima poop.

[Gary]

Same here with the propane situation. I wanted to get a pellet insert for my fireplace as my living room is 19'x22' with a 15' vaulted ceiling. Talk about a heating and cooling nightmare. When I replaced the furnace in my house I had the installers put an additional return air high up the wall in the living room to recapture the lingering hot air. I would be curious to hear how well your burner performs this winter. Are you burning corn or pellets?
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West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

[Mike Fisher]

We used to heat for free with salvage pallets in a parlor stove at our old place, but PG&E in CA was .12 kwh. $120 with No heat. My wife won't let me replace the "beautiful" pellet stove we have here in OR that never gets used since our BPA electricity is only .074 kwh. $120-150/month with cooling/heating. I think our propane is about $2.50.
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https://imgur.com/user/FisherSquareback/posts
69 FI/AT square Daily Driver
66 sunroof,67,70,71,71,71AT,72,72AT,73 Parts
two 57 oval ragtops sold
'68 Karmann Ghia sold

Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you end up with a lot of scum on the top! - Russ_Wolfe/Edward Abbey

[kevtherev]

We use coal
Made of dead trees, it was recycled years ago though.

[turboblue]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

outdoor wood boiler FTW and burns about anything you can toss into it. a nice big stump will go for a day and a half

http://www.centralboiler.com/
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[oorwullie]

yeh, we burn rabbits.

[Jimmy111]

I have a pellet stove in my house in Wyoming. The only problem is that they require electricity to operate and when te power goes out so does the heat and corn leaves a lot of clinker.
I grew up in a house that had a gassifier that supplied gas for heating and for the lights. This house had no electricity. You could thow anything into that gassifier and it would decompose it into CO and H2.
Great thing. Im sure that the greenies would hate it.

[ScottK]

[notchback]

We burn the annual trimmings from the fruit orchards in the area we live in. Cherry, peach, apple, pear, plum, apricot. It costs me $60 for as much as I can put into my pickup. I burn about 3 loads a year.
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[Vanhag]

We've used out Pellet stove the last 3 years and love it. It keeps the house nice and warm, even on low. I shop around for the best price on the best quality wood pellets every year. I too was afraid about being cold when the power was out. So I did the calculations and bought a good sized inverter and can run our pellet stove off of a car battery. I've got a couple of deep cycles out of the camp trailer that I maintain in the winter. I've run the pellet stove for a day on a regular car battery.

Mine won't burn corn I wish it would. Pellet prices are going up even thought they are made local to me. Still a heck of a lot cheaper than my propane bill. And if the cap and trade stuff goes through my electricity is going through the roof so I'll do away with my supplimental electric heat too.

I did spend 5K upgrading the insulation, windows, and doors in our home. It made a huge difference. The house is at least 30% more efficient than it was 4 years ago when we bought it.
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CU05 w/HBB
HOODRIDANCE

[BSQUARE]

I heated my first house with an old wood stove that someone put in the alley to give away,
I fueled it with scrap wood from renovations and pallets from behind K-Mart.

It only cost the price of gasoline to drive 8 blocks in the Bus to pick up the pallets and bring them home.
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1988 Ford Festiva L
1965 Honda 50 "Super Cub"
2016 Miami Sun Trike

[BugMan114]

I just throw a bunch of VW cases in the fire place. with 22 million VW's running around, i'd say to me its pretty renewable............



jk
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1974 Super Beetle: Custom resto in progress
1972 Super Beetle: Daily Driver
1971 Std. Beetle w/ 1929 Mercedes Benz Gazelle kit
1960 Baja Bug
1969 Baja Bug
Sand Rail- Homemade
Sand Rail- FUBAR

Aircooled Airheads

Why the hell do they call it a gland nut. its obviously a big fat bolt!!!

[busfreak_71]

I use a wood stove. That, and the waste heat off of our low RPM diesel generator which burns anything from diesel, to veggie oil, to waste motor oil.
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'71 Tin Top Westfalia
'99.5 Bora TDI
'85 Jetta Coupe
'85 Mercedes 300SD

Resident Off-Grid hippie and diesel advocate.

[Iowa Mark]

Up until a couple of hours ago we were using no fuels, either renewable or otherwise. Snowstorm killed all power for the last two days. We are back to using a combination of coal and wind at the moment.

[Gary]

[Tram]

[Jes67]

[Bart]