Shutting down the central heating

I have two chimneys that will be hooked up to two good sized wood stoves. That means no chimney for our oil boiler. Hot water will be electric.

We won't be traveling far during the winter for a while.

Getting a lot of flack, especially from the in-laws. I'm guessing there may be others on this forum who don't have central heating. Really like to hear your thoughts guys and gals. Feel free to tell me if you think this is crazy.

 

I am hoping to be able to do that year after next-- we just have it on as a backup but it did get called on a bit with the King unable to keep up. Hope the Drolet can keep us warmer!

 

Yes. What if a personal or family emergency comes up that disables you or requires you to travel? I don't want to wish ill will upon anybody but things happen.

 

Will you destroy your option for the central heat? Ask yourself, if something happens, someone gets sick etc. who would have the time or ability to hook the system back up until life returns to normal. If you can't maintained heat, you may incur damage and cost that you just can't deal with. I think it is one thing when you don't have an independent system, but very much another go disconnect it. Another, is your home mortgaged? Do they have requirements. How about insurance? So since you asked, I would advise you keep your heating options up and able to run. Put in another chimney or venting system.

 

I'm 100% wood heat, have been most of my life. It hasn't been a problem yet but I could get by on a couple of electric space heaters in a pinch, barring an ice storm. When I built this house I plumbed it for propane. I have a propane space heater but no tank. I could borrow a 100 lb bottle and get by for quiet awhile.

 

I have the option for gas fired DV heater and a wall heater (that I hate).
I ran the DV last winter during the VERY cold temps (below about 5 deg), but that was the first time in several years.
If I had not turned on the DV, we would have been chilly and I would have had to get up in the middle of the night to reload the stove.
An extra 20-25 bucks a month seemed a better alternative.

 

In theory you could plumb your electric hot water heater into your baseboard hot water as an emergency method of providing heat to your house should you have to go away for a while.. This of course won't work in a power outage unless you have a generator. Right now the switch for my oil boiler is off. We use it for hot water with a boiler-mate but only turn it on when we need hot water. Saving us a ton of money by flipping the switch on when needed but the default position is off. I think you'd benefit from routing one of your stoves through an external Class A chimney and having the oil backup available to you in an emergency but that's just based on my limited knowledge of your situation.

 

My gas furnace quit working (it is repairable) 2 years ago so I just started burning 100%
After last winter and the fact that something could happen and I would be unable to burn I am having it repaired
My 2

 

I would not do away with it. If you decide to sell it would turn into a major factor. Plus age comes into play and injuries and illness. My in laws don't have any other option and as they age they seem to regret it more and more. I would at least keep the option there and easily functional. I don't use my electric baseboard much but would not tear it out even though I hate the way it looks.
@HDRock is it just me or does it bug you their is no cents sign to be found?

 

No not just you , I don't know what's up with that ,bugs me to

 

@HDRock and @jetjr, Why don't both of you just use $0.02? That's my 2¢

 

I did the same for a few years, the females in the house finally put up enough fuss that I bit the bullet and put in a heat pump hot water heater...was a good decision, sold the boilermate on craigslist.

 

What size flues are in your two chimneys?
I have central heat-A/C (now as a backup to the woodstoves) but It's direct vent, power vent. Natural gas not oil. How is yours fired?
I had to share a flue in the my houses main chimney here, I had to vent the woodstove and a gas water heater.
Each has it's own flue in the brick chimney. A 6" SS insulated liner for the stove and an aluminum 3" flue for the gas water heater. I'm not sure if you have an option for something like this (share the flue) or maybe converting your central heat to direct vent so you don't need a chimney flue at all.

 

I'm hoping to hold out for some kind of an indoor gasification boiler but will have to see what the economics are of getting that. I imagine I'd need a bunch of insulation to avoid overheating the house in the summer. Looked at the heat pump hot water heaters though and am intrigued. Problem is that with the boiler off, the basement can get down to the high 30's which, from the little I understand, would basically make that water heater ineffective.

 

@stuckinthemuck that's not the point. My phone has all kinds of symbols but it's like the cents symbol disappeared. Where'd you find it?

 

@jetjr on a Mac (which I'm on right now), you can go to Finder and look for special characters under the Edit menu. Couple of screen shots to show you. In a windows based computer you can search for character map under the accessories menu and copy and paste from there. Good place to find the "°" symbol too when talking temperatures or "¥" for buying pellets in Japan.. hope that helps. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.....

 

Just make sure you check with your insurance company. Mine said that if I disabled the central heat in the house and relied only on my wood stove, the policy would be void and I would have no coverage.

 

Lots of good advice here... definitely look into keeping some sort of back-up heat. When presented with the worst-case scenario (you and your family gone, power is out), any system will have its issues.
Even though I never plan on selling this house, everything I've done to it has improved the value and has been done with the "next owner" in mind.
We have back-up propane forced air for those really cold days and times that we are away for a weekend or more. I hate it (and where the propane comes from), but it's a nice thing to have.

 

Thanks for all the responses. Was told by the co. that will be doing the install of the class A pipe for the Ideal Steel that there isn't room for two flues in that chimney, but your post made me take another look. Doing the math on a chimney that is 24X16 on the exterior, with 4 inch wide brick, there is 16X8 on the inside with my back of the envelope math. That seems like it should be big enough for the wood stove and the oil boiler. Got only one quote from the co. that Woodstock recommended, but sounds like I should have someone else take a look too. If that doesn't work, I'll do direct vent propane as a backup. You guys raised some good points about health issues, etc.

Thank you all again for your 2 cents worth. I've said it before, but it doesn't hurt to say it again - you're a great bunch.