Posted: 7/7/2011 9:17:07 AM EDT
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Well after the last storm that ran through here and did some damage I was thinking I need a non electric heat power source. I have tons of propane to heat the house I just need to add something that is not electric to keep the basement warm during an outage. Basement is about 800 square feet. Anyone have a good option?
Thanks CSF |
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I am prepared to put a "home made" stove in my visitors cabin,
ti will be made with a 30 gal barrel and a kit I have from Vollrang?? that includes a cast iron Door, feet and stove pipe fitting. can be used on a 50 gal drum as well.. it is going to run about 120.00 to get heat in the cabin in the winter, here in Texas,not quite the issue in WI... be have about 60 to 90 days of teens to mid 40's and another 30 to 45 days or so of single diget mornings late Jan thru Early March. should maintain my 16 x 24 x 14 cabin enough to be liveable should kids/grandkids be living there.. |
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For large area heating, I use a Kerosene tower. Been using them for decades now and if done right can provide great heat and little to no smell.
For room heat, I have a couple propane Heater Buddy's which I can run both off the small bottles and large tanks. The combination works great. The Kerosene tower keeps my home comfortable enough and the little room heaters for heating up the bathroom etc. for showers etc. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kerosene tower. Kerosene just has more BTUs per gallon and easier to store fuel for longer periods. |
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Quoted:
For large area heating, I use a Kerosene tower. Been using them for decades now and if done right can provide great heat and little to no smell. For room heat, I have a couple propane Heater Buddy's which I can run both off the small bottles and large tanks. The combination works great. The Kerosene tower keeps my home comfortable enough and the little room heaters for heating up the bathroom etc. for showers etc. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kerosene tower. Kerosene just has more BTUs per gallon and easier to store fuel for longer periods. I thought kerosene smells bad? CSF |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
For large area heating, I use a Kerosene tower. Been using them for decades now and if done right can provide great heat and little to no smell. For room heat, I have a couple propane Heater Buddy's which I can run both off the small bottles and large tanks. The combination works great. The Kerosene tower keeps my home comfortable enough and the little room heaters for heating up the bathroom etc. for showers etc. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kerosene tower. Kerosene just has more BTUs per gallon and easier to store fuel for longer periods. I thought kerosene smells bad? CSF They sell additives to make it smell like apple pie.  I shit you not.  I used it in the ice storm a couple of years ago.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
For large area heating, I use a Kerosene tower. Been using them for decades now and if done right can provide great heat and little to no smell. For room heat, I have a couple propane Heater Buddy's which I can run both off the small bottles and large tanks. The combination works great. The Kerosene tower keeps my home comfortable enough and the little room heaters for heating up the bathroom etc. for showers etc. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kerosene tower. Kerosene just has more BTUs per gallon and easier to store fuel for longer periods. I thought kerosene smells bad? CSF Some folks are exquisitely sensitive to the odor of burning kerosene. Most folks aren't. What about getting some Buddy heaters since you've got a supply of LP anyway? |
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Propane could work but I don't like the idea of bringing a 20lb propane tank into the house. Propane heaters also run on either red flame or blue flame. Blue flame heats the air first, red flame heats objects first. I think a dedicated blue flame heater is nicer in a home. The red flame heaters work better for camping where you can point the heater at you to warm yourself up. I used kerosene heater for 2 years while I lived in a drafty rental. Maintaining the wick is important to keep odor down. A full tank would last around 12 hours. After 2 tanks I'd let the heater burn the crud off the wick outside. After that I'd start it outside so that the extra crud could burn off. After that I could start and shut down the heater without odor. Also, if you don't let the kerosene fully heat up before shutting it down you can notice an odor. Since I still have the kerosene heater that's my first back-up. I also have a little buddy heater that runs off the 1lb tanks but there's no way that heater is going to make my basement comfortable, it would keep the pipes from freezing though. |
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**SAFETY HIJACK**
The dangers of carbon monoxide! If you are unaware of this EXTREMELY dangerous gas (which is a result of an open flame of ANY sort), then PLEASE read this article! **Back to our original article.** Thanks, OP! |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
For large area heating, I use a Kerosene tower. Been using them for decades now and if done right can provide great heat and little to no smell. For room heat, I have a couple propane Heater Buddy's which I can run both off the small bottles and large tanks. The combination works great. The Kerosene tower keeps my home comfortable enough and the little room heaters for heating up the bathroom etc. for showers etc. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kerosene tower. Kerosene just has more BTUs per gallon and easier to store fuel for longer periods. I thought kerosene smells bad? CSF Not if its done right. The concept is a double burner cage. The flame is inside a big cage that works like a catalytic converter. If its hot enough, then it will re-burn the gases and there's no fumes. Now if you follow this then that means two things. First when you initially light one, that cage is not going to be hot so it will smell until it gets hot. The towers are really just big kerosene laterns with a wick so I light mine outside, wait till it gets hot, then carry it inside. Those handles on the safety cage aren't even hot by then. The second thing this means is that wick having a nice even flame is very important. Too much flicker and it will over-ride bypass the re-burner cage. Setting your wick height and wick maintenance are the keys to no smell. This is why I do not like or recommend the small radiant types. They depend on light so have way less wick control which means the emphasis shifts to prevent smell from flame height to more wick maintenance which is harder. Most homes I've gone into that used just radiant heaters as their primary heat, they all smelled of kerosene. The users just don't keep up with the wicks as well as those with towers. Wick maintenance is either replace the wick every year, or solvent clean them (mineral spirits is a good solvent to use but you can use about anything solvent really. Mineral spirits you don't have to worry as much about drying it out good to prevent a kaboom.) Removing the charred edges with scissors. As a wick fouls, you start losing control in order to have a nice even flame. The more control you have on that wick height, the longer between having to pull maintenance on that wick. The towers have more wick control. There's a bunch of threads on this. Just keep in mind when reading them, some of us have been at this for decades and others just learning. As you can tell from this short write-up, there is a learning curve, but once you get it down, its not that bad. Just last year, I replaced a tower I had had for 20 years and it was only on its second wick. Its actually harder to get use to a single point heat source if you are accustomed to whole house heat. Location of your heater is critical and using door opening distances to control the amount of heat that goes into each room. The biggest mistake people make is not knowing what walls their pipes are in. You don't heat that room, you have frozen pipes. Tj |