General questions

[StephiLou]

OK. We are looking into our options with regard to alternative heating and power. I have a couple of general questions to pick your brains over.


1. What type of heating would you all reccommend? We currently heat w/ natural gas, but I want to avoid that in the future. One thing to note....wood is hard to get in our neck of the woods (no pun intended ::) ) w/out buying at high prices....AND DS is on oxygen. Probably not a good idea to have MAIN source of heat as woodburner or fireplace.

2. Considering the alternative sources of power, how much does each type surge? DS's medical equipment is VERY sensitive. Even updating the wiring up to code, meat putting in circuit interrupters (?)(I am probably not using the correct terminology here) in each outlet. Just the electricity cycling through these causes the medical equipment to trip all of the time.

Any ideas would help us out greatly. Thanks in advance for your time. :)

Steph

[Rama_das]

don't take this as a professional advice. . .

with the wood stove you get a little smoke, and dry air. but if you are using a portable gas heater, you could have gas fumes too. what's going to be worse for him?

do you humidify the O2 he's on?
i'm not gas expert, but what would mixing high concentrations of 02 with other gases?

smoke could be kept in one room and crack a window, and still have the stove heat the house, you can't do that with a lilttle heater can you?

[StephiLou]

Rama,

I was kind -of leaning towards corn for heat. We are in Central Illinois, so corn is going to be cheap for us. I probably would not use gas/kerosene heaters unless it was a huge emergency.

It really depends how high his O2 is turned, whether we humidify it or not. Right now he is only on 1/8 or 1/4 litre....just a whiff really. He has been up to 2 1/2 - 3 litres before.

I am leary of having open flames anywhere around the O2 tanks. Not like we are going to set them right in front of open flames or anything, but now that I have slept on it, corn or a woodburing FURNACE would not be that much different than the natural gas we are buring now.

As I stated above, wood might be too cost prohibitive for around here. My sister and BIL heat with one wood burner all winter, and every year they have to scramble for wood. Not that we don't have trees around here....everything is just so "picked over".

I would still welcome any ideas you all can throw out. I just found out last night that we MIGHT qualify for a grant for alternative power/heat because of DS health issues. It would probably pay about 1/2 of what we need to do, but we have to find all of the information and present it. I have been researching the alternative power sights, but nothing beats actual experience. :)

Thanks guys!

Steph

[mohillbilly]

Just wanted to mention one thing about your o2 tanks, no you dont want them right nest to a heat source, BUT, Oxygen is NOT flammable by itself, it is merely an oxidzer, or an accelerant to make a fire burn hotter. As long as the O2 equipment is 20 foot away when in operation, I am pretty sure you wont have any problem!! Or if your uncomfortable with that, just put it in another room......

[ffd430]

have you researched vented monitor heaters???
I know they produce a lot of heat, and can be quite efficient. I'm not sure how much electricity they use, or if they make one that dosn't use electricity.

[ffd430]

Did I mention that I heated my trailer with one for a whole winter on a single tank of K1, I put on an oil furnace and go through 3 tanks a year now.