Heating & Cooling Your Home

Thinking of switching to alternative fuels?

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• Woodstoves

  To find an efficient woodstove, look for a model that heats secondary combustion air—which ensures more complete combustion of the flue gases—and has ceramic glass, which radiates heat well. To find a woodstove that has been certified to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards look for a label indicating the model's efficiency and particulate emissions.

  Make sure your woodstove is properly sized for the room where it is to be located. An oversized woodstove will operate on low burn more frequently, which is an inefficient way to burn wood. It also results in creosote build­up, which is a cause of chimney fires. A good retailer of woodstoves should be able to help you choose the proper size for your needs. In a well-insulated house, you can increase your stove's efficiency and improve its drafting ability by bringing in combustion air directly from the outdoors. Ask for a manufacturer's combustion air kit.

• Pellet Stoves

  Wood pellet stoves burn more efficiently than their cord wood counterparts. Pellet appliances include efficiency-boosting features such as an electric igniter, fan-induced air supply, and a pellet feeder, that work together, often by thermostatic control, to adjust the fuel-to-air ratio. These features allow the heat output to vary, resulting in a cleaner, more efficient wood-burning process. Most pellet stoves cannot provide heat during an electricity outage, but battery backups are available for many types of pellet stoves.

  
  

• Fireplaces

  An open-hearth masonry fireplace is not an efficient heat source. In fact, it can increase your energy costs by drawing your home's heated air up the chimney. However, there are a number of things you can do to increase the efficiency of your fireplace. Look for these features:

  • Sealed combustion that draws outside air to the firebox.
  • Ceramic glass doors that prevent house air from being lost up the chimney.
  • Heated secondary combustion air, to burn wood most efficiently. You also can turn your existing fireplace into an efficient heating appliance by installing a sealed fireplace insert. If you choose not to include any of the above features in your open fireplace, you can reduce the loss of house heat up the chimney by using the fireplace when your central heating system is turned off.

• Gas "Wood" Stoves

  Gas-burning stoves with glass doors and artificial logs are primarily decorative. However, a few manufacturers offer gas stoves that provide heat efficiently and have a high enough heat output for general heating. Some manufacturers list heating efficiency. However, because no standardized testing exists for gas-fired stoves, it is difficult to compare efficiency claims of different brands. The use of "vent-free" gas heaters and fireplaces is discouraged, because they can increase humidity in homes to levels where condensation on windows and other cool surfaces can increase.

• Gas & Kerosene Space Heaters

  Permanently mounted gas or kerosene space heaters that are vented to the outdoors can be a good heating option for modestly sized, well-insulated, air-sealed homes. These heaters can also be useful when you need to temporarily warm a room that is otherwise unused. The most energy-efficient models have ducted outside combustion air and a programmable thermostat that you can set to control the room temperature on a given schedule. Many space heaters have an Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) rating, established by the U.S. Department of Energy, that allows you to compare efficiency across brands. Look for a gas space heater with an AFUE of 80% or higher, or a kerosene space heater with an AFUE of 85% or higher. For safety reasons, an unvented portable gas or kerosene space heater should never be used indoors.