I do have a wood stove in our living room I had Installed for a back up system awhile ago WV. But Since we have signed a oil and Gas lease for our property that allows us 20,000 Gallons of propane for free each month I left our propane furnace in place. I do have plans though of changing it from forced hot air to radiant baseboard heating. I do know the masonry heater your talking about their called "Russian" or "Siberian" furnaces, and they are super efficient. One big advantage with them is you can burn anything in them even pine.WV Hillbilly said:I've hunted & fished all my life . M D , there's been several times I've been concerned about something like that ending it for me . In many of the areas I've lived you can buy firewood a lot cheaper than you can heat with anything else if you can't cut your own . I have a friend that built a modern log house & tried numerous ways to be self sufficient . He installed solar panels , had his house facing south with a lot of large windows in the front for solar gain , installed a composting toilet & had a greenhouse across the front of his house that was Incorporated into the house design . He also ordered a masonry fireplace that has a really small fire box & also has an oven built into the side of it . I guess these type of fireplaces are fairly common in some foreign countries . The fireplace has a fairly large base & runs from the floor right on up through the center of the house & out the roof . It also has baffles built into it so the smoke & heat has to take a wavy path to get up & out of it .
The fireplace came with numbered masonry blocks that you assembled by the numbers . As I mentioned before it has a small fire box in which you build a small , hot fire , about twice a day . The masonry absorbs the heat , then radiates heat for hours . Since the firebox is small & the fires you build are hot , it doesn't use much wood & there is no creosote problems .
The composting toilet had a large tank in the basement that caught the waste & tumbled the waste ever so often to get thorough composting results . It had a hand crank that you used to turn the tumbler once a day or so . It also had a vent pipe that went up & out of the wall to remove any smell . The vent pipe had a small electric fan mounted inside it for positive venting .
He had problems with the system however & ended up replacing it with a conventional septic system . The problem had something to do with liquid waste overflowing or something like that . Don't know exactly what the problem was but it was probably something that he had done wrong while installing it or something he was doing wrong maintaining the system .
His power useage was really low as he used very expensive but extremely efficient appliances such as the fridge , dishwasher , ect . The solar panels didn't really generate much electricty although he had several installed . At times he had to run his generator to charge his batteries . He also had propane gas for the range & water heater which was a tankless water heater .
The waste water from the bathtub / shower & sinks drained through pipes buried in the greenhouse floor & helped heat the floor & the watewater also went through a filter & could then be used for greenhouse plants .
The roof on the house was about a 1 foot thick piece of solid fiberglass insulation sandwiched between sheets of plywood & covered with aluminum shingles recycled from beer & soda cans .
I found a lot of what he did very interesting but I have my doubts as to wheather it was cost effective . Could probably have paid an electric bill for less , especially when you consider the useful life & initial cost of the systems he used . Best Paul
OMG Gnewt I love garlic I so wanna include it into my garden But I wanna grow multiple types. I just haven't gotten around to that research yet. I know the white garlic I find at the local supermarket inported from who knows where is really lame, hardly any flavor at all. So If you've got some Garlic type suggestions let's have um Big Guy...gnewt said:MD Time for garlic, mine is already comming up, it has spread into the edge of the garden, makes a good border. Stinks so good when you mow around it.mmmmmm
Gnewt
nickel67 said:What about geothermal?? Just a thought. Nickel67
MD Dog said:I'd like to point out here that as time goes on, no matter where you live on this little blue marble, people need to be transitioning to self sufficiency. Whatever the future may hold with Armageddon, Global warming, Ice Ages, Terrorist attacks, earth quakes, tsunami's, hurricanes, super storms, volcanoes, super volcanoes, tornadoes. They are all what ifs, but not energy. We all know for a fact that energy will be in short supply, just like water and gold. When I was a kid, I n like most kids cared little for what ifs. As a teenager I joked about one day having to pay for air and water and trash. As an adult I see where we were and where were headed. Don't let these things sneak up on you or your likely to find out just how cruel this world can be.