For comfort and safety reasons, heating is very important for your household. That’s why this guide exists to help you and your family stay heated efficiently in the colder months. There are some general concepts to be aware of when it comes to types of heating, and here we’ll examine precisely that.

Heat from a Wood Stove (Wooden Cords)

Living room interior home design
Living room fireplace mantel

Certainly a more traditional method of heating a home, wood stoves in modern times are now far more effective than their previous models. Certain advances in technology have made heating much more efficient, and nowadays wood stoves burn more cleanly and effectively than ever before. A standard $700 stove can heat about a 1,800 square foot space, or a few small room’s worth. This is more than enough for the majority of small homes.

When using Heating Pellets in a Stove

Wood pellet furnaces are exactly what they sound like, metal stoves that burn tiny units of compressed pellets, mainly made up of wood or grass, which burn incredibly efficiently. This is the ideal option for homes with a great deal of storage space to house all that fuel. Although they can cost $450 to $2,000, current statistics indicate that a wood pellet furnace can pay for itself within fifteens years.

Natural Gas: Everything You Need to Know

Kitchn and dining room placement for a home interior
A dining room that is also a living room?

There’s a reason natural gas makes up twenty one percent of the world’s energy costs. It’s safer than propane, it burns cleaner than oil, and creates no waste byproduct. An average American home costs an annual fee of $1,000 to $1,500 to heat with natural gas. If it weren’t for the damage to the planet, ozone layer, and the fact that it will run out one day, it would be the perfect fuel.

The Efficiency of Propane Heating

It should be noted beforehand that propane is not the most efficient way to warm your home. It costs around the same ballpark as oil heating, but is more secure in price. The amount of energy required isn’t quite as efficient, however, although it does burn cleaner. It will cost a typical residential home around $2,000 to $3,000 annually to heat via propane.

Electrical Heating and its Popularity

In America, over sixty percent of homes use electric heating today. It is by far the most common and affordable type of heating available. The low pricing is the main draw, being a paltry $30 to $50 per month, depending on the size of your home and the weather. Although it has been noted that people complain it’s not as efficient as other types of heating.

Oil Heating in your Home

Fireplace mantel for a home interior
Family area fireplace mantel

Oil is certainly the most politically tied heating fuel, with prices changing daily. While a very efficient method by which to heat your home, it’s incredibly hard to keep track of what you’ve spent to warm your house. Coupled with the fact that oil tanks need refueling irregularly, most experts agree the average American home can cost an upwards of $910 to $1,100 to refill a typical 275 gallon tank.

The New Wave of Radiant Floor Heating

Radiant floor heating is the newest invention when it comes to warming your home. It actually heats the floorboards of your home for a very cost efficient method of temperature control. Although technically the practice was established when humans started to settle near naturally occurring hot springs, it has only recently through technology been made into mainstream heating tech.

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