Just curious who else is living super frugal

[perchie.girl]

Well I've become super frugal at the gas bill. Our floor furnace died and no one can find the parts we need to fix it, and we don't have $7000 we were quoted for replacement costs for a new one. Electric space heaters just don't cut it.

I dont heat at all... Except for the room I am in. I have a potbellly for the living room that I fire up occasionally. But for the bedroom I use an oil filled heater. Its electric. And for a ten by fourteen room keeps it nice and toasty.

They look like this

Oil Heater LINK

They have oil inside and the heating element heats the oil... once the oil comes to temperature the heating element shuts off and the oil radiates heat for quite along time before having to turn the heating element on.

They have a tilt switch too. this one is a large one they make several sizes.

deb

 

[Outpost JWB]

I dont heat at all... Except for the room I am in. I have a potbellly for the living room that I fire up occasionally. But for the bedroom I use an oil filled heater. Its electric. And for a ten by fourteen room keeps it nice and toasty.

They look like this

Oil Heater LINK

They have oil inside and the heating element heats the oil... once the oil comes to temperature the heating element shuts off and the oil radiates heat for quite along time before having to turn the heating element on.

They have a tilt switch too. this one is a large one they make several sizes.

deb

Our pipes would freeze and bust again. Last year furnace went out overnight. It got down to 40F in the house, of course it was -15F outside. Pipes all busted, yard flooded and froze almost immediately. It was a train wreck! Took a little over a week to get everything fixed and to get running water again. Thankfully we have bottled saved up "Just in case".

 

[Outpost JWB]

Well I've become super frugal at the gas bill. Our floor furnace died and no one can find the parts we need to fix it, and we don't have $7000 we were quoted for replacement costs for a new one. Electric space heaters just don't cut it.

Check into getting it converted to an electric instead of gas. That is what we did. We also have a fireplace for back up heat. It helps, but will not heat the whole house.

 

[perchie.girl]

I forget the differences between our climates.... seems like you really need to get that furnace repaired or replaced.

So if you cant get it repaired or replaced what do you do.... Heat the rooms you can and hope the pipes dont burst? Or heat the room with the most pipes?

I hear a water circulating system works but have only seen it on tv....

 

[erinszoo]

My husband is trying to figure out how to bypass the thermostat regulator so we can turn the burner on manually. Not sure its possible but I'm going to let him try. So far we've only been down to 24° but that was cold enough. On sunny days we're good. Our little pvc lean to green house heats us up pretty well but so far we've only had 4 days that were sunny and not in a row.

I want to convert our fireplace from gas logs, which we don't have, to a regular fire place. The furnace flue goes through the chimney so it seems like we could convert pretty easy. Hubbys not so sure.

Id really like a pot belly stove but not sure where to find one we could afford.

 

[lazy gardener]

You can buy a fireplace insert to burn wood. With a fireplace, most of the heat goes up the chimney, but the inserts are much more efficient. would a pellet stove work in your situation?

 

[LindaB220]

You can buy a fireplace insert to burn wood. With a fireplace, most of the heat goes up the chimney, but the inserts are much more efficient. would a pellet stove work in your situation?

I checked out the inserts on Amazon and it might be a quick fix until you make a decision to put out the money for the other. I don't know about the pellet stove. Which would be warmer?

 

[Outpost JWB]

You can buy a fireplace insert to burn wood. With a fireplace, most of the heat goes up the chimney, but the inserts are much more efficient. would a pellet stove work in your situation?

x2 on this comment. Our fireplace is good for supplement heat, but we lose so much heat out the chimney and with an insert, you burn a lot more wood than with a wood stove. Just do your homework 1st, but hurry before you freeze!

 

[erinszoo]

 
You can buy a fireplace insert to burn wood.  With a fireplace, most of the heat goes up the chimney, but the inserts are much more efficient.  would a pellet stove work in your situation?

x2 on this comment.  Our fireplace is good for supplement heat, but we lose so much heat out the chimney and with an insert, you burn a lot more wood than with a wood stove.  Just do your homework 1st, but hurry before you freeze!:/

Yeah we could probably do a ppellet stove but we already have wood and can get tons more. We've built rocket mass stoves/heaters before and used them in our greenhouse but we don't have the four months to dry it out. Lol. It will be warm again by then. Will look into both suggestions. Thanks.

 

[Amberjem]

when we moved into our house it had an oil furnace neither of us wanted to spend thousands on oil to fill the tank so we removed the oil furnace, we will be removing the chimney to the furnace in spring to convert the furnace room into a laundry room. anyways we had a pellet stove installed and it warms up the house, and installed wall heaters as a backup heat source in the bedrooms and bathroom and kitchen if any rooms needed a spot heating, the pellet stove does heat the whole house though we plan on removing half the wall behind it to make it a half wall so it can circulate the heat better into the hallway and bedroom/bathrooms behind it. Before that one of the things I did to help heat and keep electric costs down was I would cook things that had some length of cooking in the oven it heated my apartment and cooked my meals and helped with cost reduction. I would also cook things that took awhile to cook and then could store extras in the freezer for meals in the summer when I didnt want to heat my house up but could warm it up fast and have a great delicious hearty meal without roasting us out of the home.