RE: [GBlist] Heating backup and radiant floor heating

[Gilbert Midonnet <gilbert.midonnet@btec.com>]

Title: RE: [GBlist] Heating backup and radiant floor heating

>I appreciate your desire and efforts to reduce the need to burn fossil fuels
>to heat your house but I question whether using a wood stove to provide a
>significant quantity of heat is the right one.

>I do not remember
>how efficient burning wood for heat is or how polluting it is compared to
>receiving heat from power provided from a coal fired power plant or from
>burning natural or propane gas.

This is an interesting issue that I'm confronting now. I am looking into putting a radiant system powered by both wood and oil, with oil providing the back-up and supplementing the radiant system with wood stoves for immediate heat.

A wood stove, as I understand it, gets 65-70% efficiency. Oil, natural gas and LP reaches 85-90%. But both percentages reflect the efficiency of the home system. What energy/pollution is created before the wood/oil was brought to the home? As I see it we are interested in how much pollution is created, and how much energy is spent, to bring the BTUs into our homes.

I have no idea what the answer is but since wood is usually harvested locally it may actually contribute less pollution and have a greater total efficiency than oil.

-- glm

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