Heating Your Off-the-Grid Home

I’ve dreamed of giving up everything and living “off the grid” since watching the PBS show “Alone in the Wilderness.” Remember Richard “Dick” Proenneke living alone in Alaska? Dick filmed his adventures to show his relatives in the lower 48 states what life was like in Alaska, building his cabin, hunting for food, and exploring the area. Dick plunked down in the icy wilds of Alaska and lived alone for 30 years. In doing so, he became an icon of survivalist grit and conservationism. The house he built for himself from scratch is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Have you ever thought of doing that? So many people today pursue the off-grid lifestyle for many reasons. Living off the grid is a lifestyle focused on self-reliance and independence from “the Matrix.” As well as offering freedom, a connection to nature, and a sense of community, off-grid life is a way of living much more sustainably. It means you rely on your land and resources to sustain your lifestyle. People who live off the grid survive by hunting, farming, and foraging. In addition, they utilize natural energy sources like the sun or wind to power their homes.

One of the first necessities one must consider, especially in cold climates, is your off-grid heating and cooling. Heating and cooling are essential to making a home livable but pose a unique challenge when living off-grid. Compared to grid power, with virtually unlimited wattage available, an off-grid system has limits and must be carefully planned.

Off-grid, heating starts with home efficiency.

Before considering your home heating system, improving your home’s efficiency is worthwhile. Weatherproofing (aka Draft-proofing) is the best way to prepare for off-grid heating and cooling. Drafts are cold air currents that can cause the considerable heat loss and cold pockets within a home. They regularly penetrate gaps around doors and windows, venting, and around pipework. 

The best part about this process is that it’s incredibly affordable and requires simple materials. The key points include the following:

• Inspecting your home for drafts.
• Making improvements to your home’s insulation.

Weatherproofing involves blocking and sealing gaps that let cold air into the home and warm air out while ensuring adequate ventilation and fresh air. These gaps can be present in many areas of the house, from cracks in skirting boards to windows and doors. Weatherproofing measures help to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy bills. As a result, the existing heating system can work less hard to retain a comfortable temperature. 

1. Hang thermal curtains & blinds.
2. Seal up chimneys.
3. Use fabric draught excluders.
4. Add weather strips to windows and doors.
5. Fill gaps in floorboards and skirting boards.
6. Use carpets.

7 Long-Term Heating Solutions

Without relying on an electric source for heat, you will need to rely on stored fuel of one form or another. Possibilities include:

1. Wood Stoves
2. Pellet Stove
3. Fireplace
4. Oil Boilers
5. Propane Heaters
6. Passive Heating
7. Geothermal Heat Pump

Other types of off-grid heating: Radiant Heat, Biomass Boilers, Aerobic Biodegradation of Biomass, Biogas Boilers, LPG Gas, and Solar Panels

The best off-grid heating methods

Once you have improved your home’s energy efficiency, you can begin thinking about the best off-grid heating systems.

There are various options available, each with different pros and cons. These include wood-burning stoves, active solar heating, passive solar heating, propane gas, and other carbon-based fuels such as gasoline, coal, oil, and diesel.

The type of heating solution that is right for you will depend on a wide variety of factors, including your local climate, heating requirements, access to fuel, and the size of your property.

Ideally, you should have more than one option available; that way, you will always have a backup heat source and won’t ever have to rely on a single fuel source.

With that in mind, here are some of the best types of heat sources for off-grid living:

1. Wood-burning Stove

Firewood is relatively easy to access throughout the country, and the cost per cord can be excellent in comparison to other types of fuel.
If you have enough land, you can harvest and re-plant your trees annually. Often a wooded property will have enough fallen trees already on it to avoid cutting down trees for years.
Wood is also great because you can harvest and store it yourself, potentially giving you access to a 12-month or longer fuel supply on your property. That’s certainly a lot of fuel security.

The best types of wood to burn for heating purposes are complex/dark woods, such as oak and elm. These dense woods will provide a longer and more consistent burn, whereas soft woods such as pine burn quickly and unevenly.

Common wood-burning appliances that are ideal for off-grid living include the likes of wood-burning stoves, furnaces, and fireplaces.
In particular, wood-burning stoves remain popular for off-grid living as they require no electricity, provide a homely aesthetic, and generate a good amount of heat. They are also relatively cheap to buy and install.

Unfortunately, stoves have some disadvantages, namely that they need to be cleaned and maintained as ash and creosote deposits gradually build up within them. They also require a specific clearance area, so they may only be suitable for some homes.

Unlike other heating appliances, wood stoves also need much supervision. For example, you can’t leave the house if your stove is burning, and you will need to feed it more wood to maintain the heat regularly. Still, stoves can provide a good amount of excellent, dry heat and are reliable.

2. Pellet Stove

An off-the-grid pellet stove can crank out nearly 65,000 BTUs per hour when running at full capacity—that’s double the output of a traditional propane heater. This is just one of the many ingenious aspects of a Clarry Pellet Stove’s design. One would typically observe these metrics in much larger and more expensive watt-hungry pellet stoves.

The Clarry Pellet Stove is a proper off-the-grid heating system. Unlike pellet stoves that use an auger, which requires a relatively large amount of electricity, Clarry’s off-the-grid pellet stove uses gravity. This single feature removes the necessity for electricity and dramatically reduces the frequency of mechanical failures, resulting in a perfect off-the-grid heating system. In addition, each off-the-grid pellet stove features convection heating for direct heat in a pinch. And when you have to leave the stove unattended for an extended period, each model features unique blast-gate technology that allows you to shut off the fuel feed for increased fuel economy and overall safety.

For these reasons and more, the Clarry Pellet Stove represents a new caliber of off-the-grid heating. Offering higher long-term cost and energy efficiency when compared to propane and wood-fired heaters, the Clarry Pellet Stove rests comfortably above the crowd.

3. Fireplace

Fireplaces produce less heat than wood stoves. But you can source your wood from various places, and a fireplace will hold more significant pieces. Larger pieces of wood create less work to chop wood, and the larger the wood, the longer it burns. As a result, you may not need to wake up in the middle of the night to refuel your fire.

Some fireplaces heat the brick or masonry, creating lasting warmth in the house, which you feel in rooms connected to the chimney stack.

This should be an excellent option if you enjoy the wood crackling in a fireplace and desire an off-grid heating source

4. Propane Heater

However, this could be a great place to start if you’re working on a budget and need more money to purchase a wood stove. Though they do cost more to run, you can buy small propane heaters in the camping department of any local big box store. You can also purchase larger propane heaters that have an electric fan. Hook the propane heater to your generator, and you can have heat blowing around your home in no time.

It’s also a great option if you must run into town and want to avoid leaving a fire burning in your wood stove. It’ll keep your home warm enough until you return.

Propane is a gas fuel obtained through processing crude oil and kerosene, gasoline, and diesel oil. It’s beneficial as an off-grid fuel since it is versatile and useful for various appliances, including propane space heaters, generators, and cookers.

Most propane heating appliances also have thermostats, which are helpful as they allow you to control the amount of energy you use and when.

Another significant advantage of propane is that it is extremely energy efficient, meaning you generate a lot of energy for the amount of gas burned. In addition, propane is considered a “clean fuel” in the Energy Policy Act of 1992

5. Oil Boiler

Oil boilers have been the most popular choice for heating off-grid homes for a long time. However, you must have a large oil storage tank on your property, and your oil gets delivered by a truck and pumped into your tank. Tanks can be bought outright or rented from your oil supplier.

Because you have to schedule oil deliveries, there is the possibility that you could run out of oil, although automatic heating oil deliveries can ensure you always stay supplied.

Oil produces a large amount of heat by volume classifying it as an efficient way to heat your home. So, if you want to heat your off-grid home traditionally, and don’t mind human interaction, go for an oil boiler.

6. Passive Solar Heating

Passive Solar Heating is not something you can purchase and install like a woodstove or a solar panel. Instead, it requires you to have large windows and skylights on the south side of your home–allowing natural sunlight to light up and warm up your home. The sun’s energy then warms up a large mass — such as stone or tile — that absorbs the sun’s warmth throughout the short winter days and allows them to release it during the night slowly. Finally, your floor should be of dark concrete or put a stonewall inside near the window. This heating option works as supplemental heat, or if you live in a warmer climate, that typically only deals with cooler nights.

7. Geothermal Heating and Cooling

With a big budget, you can harness the earth’s stable temperature to moderate the climate inside. The earth’s temperature is steady year-round, bringing the temperature up to a structure on the surface; it can cool a building in the summer and warm it in the winter. Geothermal technology harnesses the Earth’s heat. Just a few feet below the surface, the Earth maintains a near-constant temperature, in contrast to the summer and winter extremes of the ambient air above ground. Further below the surface, the temperature increases at an average rate of approximately 1°F for every 70 feet in depth. In some regions, tectonic and volcanic activity can bring higher temperatures and pockets of superheated water and steam closer to the surface.

Three main types of technologies take advantage of Earth as a heat source:

• Ground source heat pumps
• Direct use geothermal
• Deep and enhanced geothermal systems

Geothermal energy is considered a renewable resource. Ground source heat pumps and direct-use geothermal technologies serve heating and cooling applications. In contrast, deep and enhanced geothermal technologies generally use a much deeper, higher-temperature geothermal resource to generate electricity.

There are two main types of geothermal systems – vertical loop and horizontal loop. You can also have an open loop or closed loop system. All systems use underground tubes that circulate water or a water/antifreeze mix through the loop. As this liquid moves underground, the earth’s constant temperature warms it up during winter or cools it down in summer.

All of these systems then connect to a unit inside the house (which replaces your old furnace) that converts the liquid from the underground tubes into the heated air that travels through your home’s ductwork.

HOW WE CAN KEEP WARM  ALL WINTER LONG.

Automatic Oil Delivery!

Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling offers automatic home heating oil delivery services in New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD, and Southern Chester County, PA. Enjoy peace of mind with our worry-free service that keeps you warm all winter. You’ll be fueled during the coldest days and nights. You can stop monitoring your heating oil tank and permanently avoid emergency deliveries when extreme weather hits and the world scrambles for heating fuel.

How We Know When It’s Time Deliver Your Oil.

Automatic delivery: Never again worry about your fuel level! Hillside’s automatic delivery is available for all of our customers*. We use a computational-intense mathematical formula that notifies our team when a customer requires an oil delivery. This formula calculates your past deliveries and local weather to forecast when deliveries are needed. Don’t worry if you are a new customer. New accounts are based on the average of similar size homes in your area. The customer should schedule the first delivery, and we’ll take over from there. *Heating oil deliveries may not be made if the account has an outstanding balance or if an unsafe condition is due to filling, vent, or tank issues.  

We schedule automatic delivery of your home heating by the use of degree days. Our powerful computer algorithms calculate delivery dates based on:

• Previous weather conditions
• Past usage history of your home