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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.

When you choose to heat with wood, there are many things to consider and to know. This article deals with firewood.

Woodburning is a very environmentally friendly act. Did you know a tree decaying in the forest will give off more carbon that the same tree burned in your wood stove? People that say burning wood is irresponsible are simply uneducated on the facts.

Each and every year I hear the same questions from my new woodburning friends. “What kind of wood” is often asked. My answer may surprise you.

The species of wood, ironically is not as important as your stove or how long the wood has been split and stacked in the dry!

THE STOVE: You absolutely want to start with a modern stove; a stove that has been listed and tested to meet the strict EPA Phase II emissions limits. Older, uncertified stoves do not have any form of secondary combustion to reburn the emissions of the stove. What that means is there will be a lot more pollution from an older stove and those emissions are unburned fuel and lost heat. You will have to burn a lot more wood to get the same amount of heat you would from a certified stove.

THE FIREWOOD: As I stated a moment ago, the species of the wood is not as important as how long it has been split and stacked in the dry. Fresh split wood, even if it has been laying on the ground for years, is still wet. Only when wood is cut to length, split and stacked does is begin to lose its moisture. I can’t count how many people said the tree fell 2 years ago so it should be seasoned and ready to cut and split. Not the case.

For hardwoods, you typically want the wood to be stacked to air-dry for a minimum of 6 months before heating season. For medium to soft woods, a year or more is ideal. Even the best of wood will heat poorly when it is not properly seasoned. That is because so much of the energy from the fire is being used up by the firewood itself to dry up the moisture. Very little heat will be used to heat your home.

“But Jack, my Pappy told me never to burn pine in the stove because it will clog up the chimney”. If it is not dried properly, ANY wood will clog up the chimney. Other places in the US have nothing but evergreens and that is all they burn. Ever burned a bunch of old pine or a bundle of lumber scraps? That burned real nice and hot didn’t it? That is because it was dry.

Here’s a bit of knowledge that will set your mind at ease on firewood;

ALL WOOD, regardless of species, has the same amount of particulate matter. With the same moisture content, a pound of white pine will produce the same amount of emissions as a pound of red oak. Pine is less dense than oak therefore you may need more cubic feet of pine to make the same weight as oak but they will heat and pollute about the same. Since their emissions are the same, neither will gunk up the chimney more than the other.

“I can get pine for almost nothing! So, you’re saying I can just burn pine”? ABSOLUTELY! Like I said, there are places that have nothing else. In fact, you will love burning pine. It starts easy and heats great. The only, and I mean ONLY drawbacks are burntimes and seasoning time. Since BTU in wood is PER POUND, you just can’t get as much pine into your stove as you can hardwoods. The denser the wood, the more pounds per cubic foot of firewood, the more fuel you have in your stove, therefore the longer it will burn on a load. Personally I would like to have some of both so I could load up with hardwood at night and burn softwoods during the day when I am there to load the stove.

Have a friend in the tree cutting business? I bet you can get their softwood for next to nothing. They probably chip it up and make mulch out of it just to get rid of it. Call him up and get yourself free heat. Just stack it a year in advance or more and you will be happy as a tic on a dog.

REVIEW:

1. A good stove is the place to start.
2. Properly season your firewood.
3. Burn any wood you want as long as it is dry.