We heat with propane gas.  With propane cost being so high, we invested in a corn/wood pellet stove to heat our house.  We haven't fired it up yet, maybe tonight!

Last year was terrible.  We turned the thermostat way down, shut the registers in the bedrooms and used space heaters.  We still used over $1200 dollars in propane.  That doesn't include the extra electricity used to power the space heaters.  And we were always cold!

What do you heat with?

I think we use Central Heat. I am so dumb about that stuff. We have a fireplace, but don't use it.

Me too Belladonna, we have a central unit too. But a wood burning fireplace has always been my dream.  So last year I had hubby move the old two burner wood stove into the living room.  He got it all set up and the pipes run and everything.  I am not up on all the new stuff needed, we just used the old regular stove pipe we had.  Worked beautifully all winter, saved some money too!  Then one day it “came apart” in the part that goes through the wall to the outside, starting a fire between my walls. Yikes! No damage done, son caught it quickly.  Lesson learned, we will buy the new pipe before winter!

We have a gas furnace but heat mostly with a big wood stove w/blower in the basement/with a triple insuslated pipe running thru the wall ,attic and out.  Keep in mind that we have a smaller house, well insulated with all new energy windows. and we do have to gather our wood.chop it and stack it. Free wood but manual labor required…lol. Anyways my gas & electric combined is never over $200 in the winter months and it does get very cold here in Iowa. We have a wood/corn pellet stove in the garage but have a problem with corn moisture content …  getting it to burn really good using corn.

You’ll probably want to hit me when I tell you that we heat our house (a 2,000 square foot, 2 story farmhouse)FREE! Our heaters run on natural gas that flows from a gas well on our farm. We spent $0.00 on heating last winter. When we looked for a place to buy we factored in the amount we would save if we had a farm with free gas. The amount we save is about a third of the housepayment on the 7 acre farm, and I’ll be as warm as I want for the rest of my life. At 95 years old, in my rocking chair, I’ll be WARM! (If I live that long…I’m only in my 50’s now.)

We use wall-mounted heaters that burn natural gas with an open flame, but don’t require venting to the outside air. We have one in the living room, one in the bathroom, and one in the entry room by the front door. Downstairs was a toasty 70 degrees (less at night when we turn the heat down to sleep under the comforter) and the upstairs was even warmer because the heat from the downstairs rises.

You can cry now…

WV_Hills said:

You’ll probably want to hit me when I tell you that we heat our house (a 2,000 square foot, 2 story farmhouse)FREE! Our heaters run on natural gas that flows from a gas well on our farm. We spent $0.00 on heating last winter.

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That's amazing! Now you need some vehicles that use natural gas saving you even more.

Belladonna said:

Wow, how interesting all those are….in our horrible climate, it is like freezing one day, 90 the next day…we have no true seasons and not a long winter. Our home is energy efficient too. But, they did raise our gas bill a big jump - they did to everyone. They just found out we are sitting on the largest natural gas shale in the country. So, now, we’ll get TINY royalty checks…but I am not sure about getting it free. I just know they’ll be drilling it WAY DOWN in the ground now…the people with alot of land, got BIG BIG BIG checks, like Millions - if you don’t have acreage and we do not…you get coffee change. LOL We know one couple that have land and thier first check cut was just under a million - that was AFTER they took everything out…Now, you prob. cannot GET land, because no one is going to sell thier mineral rights. Even though we only have a quarter of an acre…we are so glad we kept the mineral rights when we bought the home - they asked us if we wanted to. The BIG builder around us kept ALL the mineral rights to all the homes - they didn’t have a choice.

I inherited the mineral rights, but only tiny portion of the original since the original agreement has been handed down through at least three generations by now and split among the heirs each time. My great-grandmother had a portion of the mineral rights to two gas wells drilled on her property. My grandmother tells me that in the 50’s the checks were several hundred dollars a month from the lease. By the late 60’s they had dwindled to $12 a year - the minimum of $1 per month. In the 90’s the price of gas made it profitable for the company to use those wells again. I get about $35 per month as my share.

Although we have the right to free gas for our farmhouse,which was part of the original agreement when the whole parcel of land was owned together (we have only 7 acres of the original 250) we don’t own the mineral rights. The original agreement included the right of the mineral rights owner to supply three houses with gas. We do not actually own the mineral rights, but our house is the original farmhouse, and when the farmhouse and the 7 acres around it were sold, the right to be one of those three houses went with the deed. It actually reads something like ‘the deed includes all the rights of the original owner’ and that agreement was part of the rights.

IowaDeb depending on how you store the pellets, one hint I heard on a BB was that they took nylons and filled it with kitty litter, shake dust out of it if that brand has it and keep it in the storage bin. Since kitty litter is made to absorb moisture it will help keeping the pellets dry.

hawkswench said:

IowaDeb depending on how you store the pellets, one hint I heard on a BB was that they took nylons and filled it with kitty litter, shake dust out of it if that brand has it and keep it in the storage bin. Since kitty litter is made to absorb moisture it will help keeping the pellets dry.

Hey ..that sounds like a great idea, I'll give it a try I'm never short of kitty litter around here….. Thanks for the hint!

Hey Jaymi! How long have you been in San Diego?  My hubby went to school there for the Navy years ago.  Is your husband on sea or shore?  It's great to have another Navy wife here, even if mine's retired.

:J