Back up heat source?

I have a total electric home. Looking for ideas of back up heat source. I can't stand torpedo k 1 heaters, they give me a headache. Tried using a IR propane heater, headache.

Is there a portable heater that I could send the exhaust out the window? My concern is to keep things warm enough to keep pipes from freezing.

I estimate the cost to generate electricity is about a dime to a dollar. It would cost about a dollar in gas to produce a dime's worth of electricity. It may not be that bad, but generating electricity with gas is expensive. Not to mention, if I lost electricity, I would have to have many gallons of gas to run generator for a day. However, electric heat doesn't give me a headache, unless I try to run the generator inside the house. Joke intended, OK. Wish someone made a generator that safely extracted the heat from the exhaust. I remember the old air cooled VW's sent the exhaust through a heat exchanger. It took 10 miles to warm up the car. Defroster was an ice scraper and a rag.

I was reading that k-1 fuel has a 6 month shelf life. Is this true? Gas has a shelf life too. Propane doesn't have a shelf life, but the cost per pound for the small tanks makes propane expensive too.

Just exploring ideas. What's your idea of back up heat. Don't have a fire place, don't want wood heat, don't want a headache.

George

Check with your local propane supply they should have some recomendations for a small wall mount direct vent space heater that would meet your needs. That will give you some ideas. Also google Cozy, I think thats the name of one brand out there.
Angle Iron

Angle Iron
I checked out their window vented model, 20,000 BTU and $800, WOW. Does anyone use this model? Is there something like this and cheaper?
George

I didn't think they were that high. Guess its been a long time since I checked.

I use a wood burning semi-sealed free standing stove and propane non-vented radiant heaters. The wood stove has a thermostatically controlled inlet air vent and an 8" triple wall vertical stack. Otherwise it is sealed and is an extremely efficient radiant heater. It weighs about 500# made of plate steel and firebrick lined. When you get that baby up to temp it's really cozy. The door comes off and has a grate for when you want to snuggle in front of an open fire. I cook with propane and heat my water with it too. Been living like this in the same house over 30 years.

I don't vent the heaters and never have. I have an oxygen sensor in the house and it blinks a green led every 30 seconds telling me it's working, but never have I read anything above 0 on it.

HTH,
Mark

Why would you not just buy a generator and have it hooked up to the electrical system? It doesn't take much gas for a good one and you can use other appliances. Do you have a lot of outages where you live? It doesn't take a very big one to just use the furnace if that's all you want to do but remember that frig and freezer need to run also.

The last time we had a long power outage we had a small one and just used the furnace and frig, they worked good. We have a bigger one now that would run the whole system.

Jim

LP powered Gem set and a hundred lb. propane tank.

they now make propane powered generators. i'd get one of those and hook it up into your system. prolly cost the same money as an alt. heater plus it allows you to power all appliances. 99% less problems then a gas powered generator!

Get a small "all cast iron" pot belly stove, with shaker grates. Burn chestnut sized anthracite coal. You can buy it in bags, and store the bags out of the way. It will burn for many hours on one bag of coal. You could set one of those heat activated fans on top. Or Generator. Or propane space heater. Have you looked into solar/wind? What ever you do, it's not going to be cheap. Most likely, a vented propane space heater would be your cheapest, cleanest, and quiet.

Do what tomNE suggested and get a standby generator. That's what we did. We bought a Kohler 14K that will run on NG or LP. Take a look at norwallpowersystems.com and they will ship anywhere in the US free and no sales tax. Hal

I use a outdoor wood burner right now, but I am in the process of building a solar heater that I can hook into my exsisting system. You can find all kinds of solar ideas at www.builditsolar.com

the best backup heat source is wood, all others depend, on an outside element of some source, during a prolonged power outage or heavy snow, [ several feet overnight] gasoline, propane ect will not be a sustainable heat source as you cant get more if you need it, with wood and a wood stove, as long as you have a good supply of wood layed in you can heat the house,and cook food, no mater what thats what we have here on the farm our power gird was probably the one designed by Edison himself, its not real reliable, the next town, if the power is out its shut down as nobody under 30 can count out change if they sell something the computer has to tell them what to give the customer, im just old i guess when i worked in a store we had a cash drawer we made change on every sale every day its simple to do, but nobody today can do it

I have always wanted to figure out a way to use the radiator from the generator I have so heat the house. That way you get both electric power and heat but the main problem there is the water pump on the engine might not be able to move the coolant far enough for that to work

There are some large generator rigs that also act as heaters with expanded coolant system, heat exchangers. Fiat makes a couple used for apartment heat and electricity- and a 4 flat apartment built without building permit is a good part of customer base in Italy. Water well and digesting cess pool system and the tax man doesn't have a simple indication that building exists since no utility records generated. Generac has some similar systems, Fairbanks -Morse some bigger ones for a small hospital that will provide power and very hot water for cleaning patients and tools, dish's. Generac has a 'home/farm/utility' size diesel rig with a LP/CNG alternate engine modeled after the Fiat- might even be the Fiat since engineer noted they'd paid some license fees to Fiat for the exhaust pipe hot air heat exchanger. FEMA and National Gaurd engineer outfits supposed to have a couple 20 foot truck size units that can provide hot water and warm air beside electricity- park next to large first aid tent and about everything needed to keep evacuees warm, clean,patched up, fed and dry if water and fuel available. RN.

Have got K-1 setting here since jan 05 ice storm and it is still as good as the day I got it.

Pellet stove are taking over here.Pellets have been dropping in price.

The generator backing up our courthouse (Onan with a 300 Ford 6) has a heat exchanger that can hook into the hydronic loop, The Kohler ot Detroit Diesel in either Sheriff's building don't.

I just bought one of these. Mine is natural gas but they have a propane model.
Vented Heater

Electrical Co-generation is the name of the concept where waste hear is collected from the generator engine. Popular science has had articles about such now and then. The hard part about setting up your own system would be to find a small watercooled engine to connect to a generator head. I guess a Kawasak from a Deere Mower would do. I didn't look very long to try to find a company that makes them. It would probably be a pricey way to go. Easily more expensive than a generator and a vented propane heater. Link to one below, very large I suspect.
http://intelligenpower.com/whatiscogen.htm

Coal is worth considering. I have burned coal for about 33 years. I am on my second Surdiac which is made in Belgium. It burns pea coal which you pour into a hopper on top out of the fifty pound bags. It is the lowest cost fuel except for wood if you make it up yourself, and all it needs is once a day loading and 3x a day knifing to get the ash down.