Lately I have devoted a great deal of my time to being with our littlest daughter, and less time to hobbies and personal interests. As much as I love the farm, I don’t yet feel settled in here! This is because of the inability to really focus on getting things done around here that I would like to do! But what could be better than spending my time with our daughter during her early childhood? She’s crawling now, so it won’t be too long before she will be up and around so that I can break free to do things with greater ease, anyhow.
We have got a start on our firewood for the year, but I think we would be best to get a woodstove to put in the dining room, which is more or less at the center of the house. A good source of heat in there would spill warmth into the kitchen on one side, the bathroom on another, the downstairs bedroom on the other, and of course, hopefully up the stairs too. The living room has a fireplace which is not as efficient as I would like, but it is enough to keep that room, which is also adjacent to the dining room, so would keep warm from a woodstove in there too.
I have seen woodstoves for as little as $650 that would adequately warm the house, but my ideal stove includes a small cook surface and an oven that I could broil meat in, or bake bread in. What could be better than baking biscuits in the dining room while preparing supper in the kitchen?
Our most ideal option, especially for later when we are retired, would be geothermal, but it would run around, or even more than $15,000 to have installed.
The option of remaining on propane has cost $1,000 per month, or more, over the five cold months of the year. So yea, there would be a budget available to cover the costs of even geothermal. It’s getting the money rounded up for the upfront costs that is difficult. I especially favor staying out of debt to do it!
There are of course tax credits for geothermal, and for woodstoves. I have to look deeper into those.
No matter the option, just about anything would be better than staying on propane. But of course there is nothing like the atmosphere of a fire. In the end, maybe a bit of both will be the ideal option.