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I like the idea of heat pumps, especially using geothermal. But other than the initial expense, those pumps require power.
One of the benefits of wood stove heat is that it takes no power (other than lots of human - no ‘lectrics needed). In our area we have, usually in winter, power failures lasting from 1+ hours to days. Our longest was 8 days in 1998. This year, a piddlin’ 4 day stretch. So far. With the wood stove we had heat and used the stove top for cooking. No water, other than melted snow, of which there was plenty.
Then we got a 5kW generator, and propane stove/oven. No more melting snow for water! Oh, frablous day!
The major problem with pellét stoves is they require power. Ours, a Harman XXV, needs about 2.5 amps at 120vac. When outside temps are below 10ºF, current goes up to about 3.6 amps as the distribution blower ramps up. This powers the auger (intermittent), the combustion blower (full time, constant speed), and the room fan “distribution” blower (variable speed drive). When we got the pellét stove, we wanted to have backup power so we wouldn’t have to run a noisy generator all day, and especially all night. We added two 105Ah AGM batteries in parallel in the basement, powering a 600W 120vac inverter. The batteries are kept charged with a 50 amp 3 stage battery charger off one of the generator panel’s 120v circuits. With a conservative battery capacity of 120Ah before recharging using the generator, this gives us about 30-50 hours to power the pellet stove.
I like the idea of heat pumps, especially using geothermal. But other than the initial expense, those pumps require power.
One of the benefits of wood stove heat is that it takes no power (other than lots of human - no ‘lectrics needed). In our area we have, usually in winter, power failures lasting from 1+ hours to days. Our longest was 8 days in 1998. This year, a piddlin’ 4 day stretch. So far. With the wood stove we had heat and used the stove top for cooking. No water, other than melted snow, of which there was plenty.
Then we got a 5kW generator, and propane stove/oven. No more melting snow for water! Oh, frablous day!
The major problem with pellét stoves is they require power. Ours, a Harman XXV, needs about 2.5 amps at 120vac. When outside temps are below 10ºF, current goes up to about 3.6 amps as the distribution blower ramps up. This powers the auger (intermittent), the combustion blower (full time, constant speed), and the room fan “distribution” blower (variable speed drive). When we got the pellét stove, we wanted to have backup power so we wouldn’t have to run a noisy generator all day, and especially all night. We added two 105Ah AGM batteries in parallel in the basement, powering a 600W 120vac inverter. The batteries are kept charged with a 50 amp 3 stage battery charger off one of the generator panel’s 120v circuits. With a conservative battery capacity of 120Ah before recharging using the generator, this gives us about 30-50 hours to power the pellet stove.
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