Home Improvement With Alternative Energy Heating
Alternative-Heating-Info.com
Improving your home with alternative energy heating will benefit you in 3 ways:
1. Save you thousands of dollars in heating and energy costs for years to come.
2. Improve the value of your home.
3. Give you peace of mind from more predictable fuel and energy costs.
The key to a successful transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources is determining
which alternative "fuel" is most abundant where you live, and therefore the cheapest.
The term alternative fuel describes renewable energy such as wood pellets, corn, wheat
and other biomass materials as well as solar energy, wind power, and water for
micro-hydro or geothermal systems.
Below is an overview of the most popular alternative heating/energy systems. All system
and installation costs given are out of pocket estimates and do not include the 30%
Energy Efficiency Tax Credit or state and local rebates. If you have difficulty locating
specific information among the 200+ articles on the site try the Site Search box above.
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Just like any other well designed major home improvement, an alternate heating or
energy system will add value to your home. The average is $10 in added home value for
every $1 in annual energy savings.
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Wood pellet and corn stoves caught fire as home heating
alternatives in 2004 when the price of oil crossed the $40 per
barrel threshold and didn't retreat until July of 2008.
During this time hundreds of thousands of pellet burning
stoves were sold displacing millions of gallons of fossil fuel.
Wood pellet stoves remain a popular heating alternative due to
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the relatively stable price of wood pellets and corn, the availability of stoves for as
little as $1,300, their simplicity of operation, and easy installation.
A typical system costs $3,500 - $4,000 including the stove, installation, and enough
pellet fuel for one heating season. Depending on the cost of fuel oil, a pellet stove
could pay for itself in only 2 to 3 years.
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What a pellet stove is to alternative heating, solar power is
to renewable energy - but even more so. The versatile solar
panel can be configured to harness solar energy for a
variety of purposes.
Photovoltaic (PV) panels and solar roof shingles are used to
convert the sun's rays into electricity, while an array of "flat
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panel" type solar panels or panels composed of evacuated tubes are capable of
providing hot water for a complete home heating solution, domestic hot water only, or
both.
The cost to install a solar PV system is $7- $8 per watt which translates to around
$25,000 for a system designed to replace 50% of the average home's power usage.
A domestic hot water system for laundry, bathing, etc., would cost around $10,000
and replace almost all of the demand from your current hot water heater.
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A well located wind turbine system can be 2-3 times more
efficient than most solar electric systems and cost half as
much.
Residential wind power is a wildly popular alternative but
faces two major obstacles to increased use. One is the lack
of wind in sufficient quantity and quality to generate a
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meaningful amount of electricity, the other is physical limitations regarding installation.
The lack of opportunity for many homeowners to implement a full fledged wind system
is probably responsible for the intense interest in small wind systems and wind power
kits.
These rooftop systems won't put a major dent in your home's electric bill, but they do
afford many consumers a low cost opportunity to satisfy their desire to contribute on
some level to the green movement.
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Probably the most mysterious and least understood of the
alternative heating and cooling options is geothermal.
Simply put, a geothermal system extracts stored heat from
beneath the earth's surface and transfers it to your home
for winter heating - then reverses the process for cooling by
removing the heat from your home and "sinking" it back into
the ground.
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At the heart of every geothermal system is the ground source heat pump. These heat
pumps have an average efficiency of 300% which is 3 to 4 times more fuel efficient
than a conventional home furnace
There is no such thing as a typical geothermal system, but the cost for a complete
installation ranges from $20,000 to $40,000.
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Radiant heat differs from forced hot air in that it heats
objects (flooring, furniture, etc.) instead of the air.
This method takes longer to bring a room up to
temperature but provides soothing, even, long lasting heat
that eliminates cold spots and keeps dust and allergens to
a minimum.
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(Click to enlarge)
Today's radiant heating systems use 95% efficient condensing boilers to heat the
water pumped through plastic tubing which heats the floors. Installation methods
include embedding the tubing in cement or pre-grooved modular panels; or
suspending the tubing under the sub-floor between the floor joists.
Since there are so many installation options available it's difficult to offer a cost
estimate, however, a very good modulating boiler can be purchased for around
$3,500.
Strictly speaking, radiant electric floor heat isn't alternative heating but it's an
excellent retrofit application for heating cold bathroom or kitchen floors and new
additions.
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Geothermal Heating & Cooling
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