Options for heating and cooling

shanzone2001 · #1 05/16/11, 01:00 AM

We are in escrow for a bank owned house (built in the 70's) that has floorboard heaters and a swamp cooler. The home inspectors came out and none of it is functioning properly. The wall heater in the bathroom even started smoking!
We are going to use this information to get the bank to reduce the price of the house and/or credit us with the money for repairs. We have 2 estimates for a new HVAC system and it will be around $12,000 to remove the old system and install a new one.
My question is this...would you spend the money the bank credits on a new HVAC system?
What I want to do is remove all of the floorboard heaters and buy a wood stove for the downstairs (1400 sq ft) and a wood cookstove for the upstairs where the kitchen and family room are (1400 sq ft). I have wanted these for so long, but they are very expensive. If we have money to spend, I would prefer to have these for heating because they will work in a SHTF situation as well as every day living.
There are ceiling fans in almost every room, and the house stays cool because it is under a canopy of oak trees, so A/C is not really an issue.

People think I am crazy for even thinking about using the money on wood stoves and not HVAC, but I know that you folks here "get it".

What would you do?
Do you have any recommendations for wood stoves?

PS- The house does have a pellet stove, but it requires electricity to run.

longrider · #2 05/16/11, 01:08 AM

Shannon, do you have to remove the old hvac and floor heaters? cant you just disconnect the power supply. you could then remove the old stuff at your leisure.

just install the new wood stove and go!

Harry Chickpea · #3 05/16/11, 01:27 AM

<sigh> If you are going with a mortgage, you will have to have insurance. Good luck on getting ANY insurance company to approve wood as a PRIMARY heat source. Get a heat pump and basic installation, then use any left over money for your wood heat stuff.

shanzone2001 · #4 05/16/11, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

<sigh> If you are going with a mortgage, you will have to have insurance. Good luck on getting ANY insurance company to approve wood as a PRIMARY heat source. Get a heat pump and basic installation, then use any left over money for your wood heat stuff.

Thanks. Maybe I will leave the floor heaters in (I just found out that a few do work) for insurance purposes. That is really lame, if you ask me. Apparently the bank is required to have a primary source heat that works when they sell a house. That is where we could get some money. Maybe they will just fix the old outdated system and not give us a discount or credit. I don't want that, but we will see. I am hoping they just want to get the house off of their books and lower the price. We won't be able to do any work until we sell the house we are in now, though. Wish we had several thousand sitting around to dump into new stuff!

Longrider- I want the floor heaters out because they are baby poo yellow and really ugly!!!

Harry Chickpea · #5 05/16/11, 01:48 AM

Force the heat pump issue. You should be able to get an install and enough left over to do the other. Don't be afraid to buy the equipment online and contract a licensed individual to do the install, rather than go with a package deal from an HVAC company.

There will be times you will be glad to have the unit. Think vacation midwinter, family emergencies, a broken arm, stuff like that.

shanzone2001 · #6 05/16/11, 01:52 AM

What is a heat pump and how does it work? I have very little knowledge of heating and cooling.

westbrook · #7 05/16/11, 02:12 AM

bathroom wall heater one of those coil thingers? it will smoke at first, burning off all the dust that has accumulated in the heating element. Not to worry.

shanzone2001 · #8 05/16/11, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by westbrook

bathroom wall heater one of those coil thingers? it will smoke at first, burning off all the dust that has accumulated in the heating element. Not to worry.

I wasn't there, but the home inspector thought it was pretty dangerous. I guess it works in our favor if it is.

I just did some on-line research on a heat pump. That could be an option.

These are one of the reasons I should have married a contractor!!! (OK, just kidding, kind-of!)

ovsfarm · #9 05/16/11, 09:28 AM

In order to get homeowners insurance on our house, required by the mortgage lender, we had to install some floorboard type electric heaters in each of the upstairs rooms. The woodstove was deemed sufficient to heat the downstairs.

The floorboard units were fairly cheap, and having them does not mean you have to use them. I confess that we do use the one in the upstairs bathroom furthest from the stove during the freezing weather. I hate getting out of the shower into a cold bathroom! But running it for only 15 minutes a day, only during the colder weather, has not been a problem. We have never used the other units we had to install, only dust them periodically.

However, it has limited the number of insurance companies that would cover us, reducing our ability to comparison shop for insurance.

mommathea · #10 05/16/11, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

<sigh> If you are going with a mortgage, you will have to have insurance. Good luck on getting ANY insurance company to approve wood as a PRIMARY heat source. Get a heat pump and basic installation, then use any left over money for your wood heat stuff.

We're in a similar situation. We talked to our insurance agent about being insured with a primary wood heat. She said that there would be no problem at all as long as we followed the safety guidelines they supplied. They are pretty simple, tile flooring under the stove and our a certain #feet, certain #feet way from walls ect...that kind of stuff, pretty simple and basic.

bassmaster17327 · #11 05/16/11, 06:32 PM

I put in a Quadra Fire Isle Royale woodstove, It puts out a lot of heat and has a long burn time. It replaced a cheap tractor supply wood stove that I had put in befor, the qudra fire is expensive but well worth it

Harry Chickpea · #12 05/16/11, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mommathea

We're in a similar situation. We talked to our insurance agent about being insured with a primary wood heat. She said that there would be no problem at all as long as we followed the safety guidelines they supplied. They are pretty simple, tile flooring under the stove and our a certain #feet, certain #feet way from walls ect...that kind of stuff, pretty simple and basic.

I'm surprised. Did the company require a secondary heat source, and which company was it? The issue with manual heating systems is not just fire safety, but reliable prevention of plumbing freeze-ups and related issues.

shanzone2001 · #13 05/16/11, 06:41 PM

I just called an insurance agent to get a quote for then new house. He didn't ask about the primary heating source. Maybe that comes later. I suppose we could keep the old system in place and just add wood stoves....

ovsfarm · #14 05/16/11, 06:53 PM

Be sure to let them know that wood heat is the primary heating source. If it is a deal breaker, the time to know that is now, before you have paid out a lot of premiums and have a claim. The wood heat might be an exception in the fine print that would allow them to deny your claim even after you had been paying in good faith all along.