Kind of new to cold weather. Grew up in Washington State and California. Never needed any other source of heat other than the central heating system using heating oil or natural gas. Floor heat and heat pump for a secondary source.

The New Hampshire 1700 sq foot house has propane fueled floor heat and it has a wood stove in the basement with a standard fireplace in the living room. Less than ideal I would assume. From what I remember a fireplace will make a house colder exhausting the heat out of the flue.

The previous owners must have relied on the floor heat exclusively. I'm open to upgrading the fireplace to a good quality insert but don't know if that is the right move. From what I understand coal is where the best heat is found but I don't think it is found locally. The local Tractor Supply has pallets of pellets for sale.

I'm sitting on 23 acres of mostly woods and would like to take advantage of the free fuel while clearing a 500 yard range. In the future I would like to host Appleseed classes on the property. Plenty of room and get to meet like minded folks.

Any ideas?

Woodstove primary with oil for the garage(baseboard) and basement(radiant floor).  Fireside out of Lisbon did the install on my new build.

If I leave the doors open, the woodstove will heat the garage and basement as well.

I get all the wood off my property and have about three years of processed wood stored up.  I need to fix my wood storage, but can't do that until the final dirtwork is completed.  They were scheduled to start a couple weeks ago, but got pulled to fix all of our roads which disappeared.  

*For this winter, it is too late for you to cut and process your own firewood as it won't season in time.  If you cut/process it now while stacking it off the ground it should be mostly ready for next year.


I'm not a huge fan of pellet stoves as you're beholden to purchasing pellets and having power to run them.  They do put out a clean and easy heat though.  They're great options for when you get older and can't deal with wood anymore.


I grew up with coal and my folks still heat with it from time to time.  Coal heat is best heat.   So deep and smooth and satisfying if that makes sense.  Plenty of places sell coal either by the bag or pallet.  Finding a coal stove may be a pain but I haven't looked.

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I'm not a fan of propane.  Unnatural fear of gas in the house turning it into splinters while I'm deep in a dream involving tipsy greased up supermodels turns me off.  I also don't like the big dumb tank, pricing schemes with the propane companies, and the lack of self sufficiency.  Propane is nice and clean though-no soot and less servicing.  I'll keep my oil burner.

Wood stove all the way here in NH.

https://www.firewoodinnh.com/

I get my wood from Bill it is always nice wood no dirt and mud and bone dry.


-P

Great info. Thanks guys

Do a pellet stove for the insert in the fireplace.

I love fireplaces and keep mine as a wood burning hearth. It would have paid for itself already to convert it to a pellet stove but I just like having fires. Usually do 1 or 2 a week during the late fall through winter, maybe 1-1.5 cords. Warms that room up but that's about it.

I had to upgrade my boiler this past winter after the old one needed a circuit board, but it was 20 years old and everything was obsolete so it would have been $3500 for the board or about $7k for a whole new system. Went with a 96% efficiency one. I should compare my Nest data to see how much less propane it actually uses.

I'm kind of in the sticks east of Concord. Propane warm air furnace and a fireplace insert as well as a wood stove. I also have propane hanging heaters for the upper and lower garages. My propane bill in the winter is fairly high, but I will have heat in the winter during power outages on a 7500w genny. AS stated, fireplaces look nice, but not really efficient. Inserts will mitigate the heat loss, and in my case heats the bricks up nicely. Find a local firewood guy for the first couple of years and let what you cut on your property dry a season or two.

Outdoor wood boiler tied into my baseboard heat and it also heats my hot water.

Backing up the outdoor boiler is an indoor propane boiler.  I also have a indoor fireplace that helps supplement on especially cold days

I'm in a little ski shack built in 68, when electricity was cheap, woodstove and electric, so primarily wood for us. Working on sealing and insulating as we work on this place. Sealed and foamed our crawlspace last year, this year we're padding out our  hearth wall with a few inches of foil back foam. Next year we're  wrapping the exterior with EIFS.  By the time I'm dead this place might actually be somewhat efficient.

Where in NH? I'll help clear land for access to a 500 yard range

Ditto I have several chainsaws and a Kioti tractor with a grapple.