With the consistently escalated price of fossil-fuels I believe America has been forced to wake up and read the writing on the wall. At least gasses such as Propane and Natural Gas are domestic products, but that does not mean we should be wasteful. They are still expensive and there is not an infinite supply of even these rich resources.

When you are heating your home with gas your focus should be on your source of consumption first. There are gas furnaces that guzzle up a gallon or more of gas per hour to heat the whole house no matter where you are in it. Furnaces are ok, but we should really rethink that whole scenario.

If you heat solely with your gas furnace, even if you turn down the thermostat to 68, you are heating the whole house to 68 degrees. You know where I’m going with this don’t you? ZONE HEATING is a relatively new concept to Americans but in countries like Japan and China, it has been a way of life for years. In Japan, homes will have a small gas heater mounted with a quick-connect gas line. The residents will move the heater from room to room based on where they are spending their time and warm that room. Now I know this does not mesh with our lifestyle but we can still zone heat to save huge amounts of fuel and money.

You can install a gas stove or fireplace in the living room, den, playroom, or wherever in the house you spend most of your time. Use the stove or fireplace to keep that area warm and cozy while the bedrooms and nether regions of the house stay cooler. You won’t be going to bed for several more hours anyway right?

When it gets time for the family to go to bed, you can turn off the stove or fireplace and then let the furnace warm those other rooms. Even the largest gas stove will only consume about 1/3 the gas your furnace will in an hour – often even less! Now to shut that big gas hog down for 2/3 of the day will have a major impact on your gas bill, wear and tear on the furnace, and your carbon footprint.

Gas stoves are not cheap and if they are, they are probably very inefficient. You want to go ahead and bite the bullet when buying your stove or fireplace and get the best you can afford at the time. It will immediately start paying for itself in the saving mentioned above so be glad you went with a better stove.

EFFICIENCY is important. There are a couple B-Vent appliances with good efficiency ratings but there are only a couple. Even those consume room air for combustion so they will create a draft. I always have customers asking if I recommend outside combustion air for a stove or fireplace. I always tell them, “All combustion air is outside air. The difference is how it is brought to the stove”. You see, when your stove burns up room air for combustion, fresh air is sucked into the house through cracks in windows and doors in an uncontrolled manner. Ideally, you want to deliver that air directly to the stove so it does not cool the room.

Direct-Vent gas appliances have this feature built into their chimney systems. They have a small exhaust pipe inside a much larger pipe. The space between acts as an air intake and a preheater to increase efficiency. This is the most advanced technology of the day and what I highly recommend. Since direct-vent appliances have a balanced pressure combustion system, they offer installation advantages as well. If you can locate the stove or fireplace on an outside wall, you can vent out the wall and stop with a special termination cap. That’s right, you don’t even have to cut a hole in the roof with a direct-vent stove or fireplace.

So, if you want to take a chunk out of your gas bill, zone heating is the way. Invest a little more now into a system that will pay for itself in savings. You will also help the environment by burning less fuel in your furnace.