To Hendo, did you get your LPG heaters installed last year and how are they doing? are you happy?

To everyone else, How are you doing with non-vented or vented propane heaters to heat your whole house? Do you have wall units or fireplace models?

I am trying to decide which way to go,"vented or non-vented or a combination of both." Also, what do your monthly gas payments run?

-- TomK(mich) (tjk@cac.net), November 26, 2001

Answers

Tom we heated our house with a ventless propane wall mounted space heater before we got our furnace installed...worked great, but they add a lot of moisture to the air-lots! We had mold growing on baseboards-it was that bad! We also has a couple of carbon monoxide scares...I would go vented-less moisture, and not the CO2 worries!

-- Joe (threearrs@hotmail.com), November 26, 2001.

We heat with a fireplace style ventless propane heater. I never noticed any extra moisture and we don't have a mildew problem. Joe, could the moisture problem be caused by something else? I don't understand why the propane stove would cause that. We have to run a small humidifier to add moisture in the winter.

Our two story house is over 2000 square feet. Last winter was very cold here and our downstairs was nice and toasty, the upstairs was slightly cool (we like it that way) and we used less propane than the years before when we used our propane furnace (a four year old, energy efficent model). We think our stove is great and like the look of the flame.

We have a carbon monoxide monitor to be safe but have not had any problem.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 26, 2001.

Hi Tom..

I installed a Rinnai 'Silent Servant' ventless propane heater [21k BTU, if I remember correctly] on 11/02/01.

This was not really my first choice, but..could not afford boiler replacement now, didn't have a good wall to power vent through, vent through chimney would have placed heater in middle of hallway.

My house is a sieve, but there is still a slight odor from the unit. However, it will get me through the winter and I will get a new filter for my hepa filter which should help. Rinnai has a very good rep and it is 99.9 percent efficient. So I'll live with it for the season.

Hopefully, before next winter, I will have torn down some walls and enlarged my livingroom. Then I would like to get a power vented model. I have my eye on a really nice VT castings model. I'll watch for sales at the end of the season.

So, in sum, if your house is fairly tight I'd stay away from the ventless models, especially if you are going to run them often for heat as opposed to once in a while for ambience.

-- pc (jasper2@doglover.com), November 26, 2001.

I was going to install a non vented heater in the cellar to keep the floors warm since we switched from coal to oil but, was told it would collect moisture if the walls were four feet in the ground.

-- Mary (marwel@microserve.net), November 26, 2001.

I talked with 3 different contractors who install propane stoves and they all said to stay away from the non-vented stove. They essentially don't believe the 99.9% efficiency rating claimed by the companies who make them. According to one: "Those fumes have to go somewhere." Basically, if your house has a lot of air leaks, it's okay. If it's real air-tight, stay away from them.

-- bruce (rural@inebraska.com), November 26, 2001.

Hmmm...that's may be why we have had no problems, because we live in an old farhouse. We are extremely happy though with the propane savings and the nice warmth it puts out.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 26, 2001.

Whoa..please excuse the terrible spelling in the above post - I just get in too big of a hurry at times.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 26, 2001.

We built our new house ten years ago. Full, open basement (where we use a small vented gas heater - just because we had it.) Two story, four bedroom farmhouse.

We have an open floor plan (rooms all wrap around the staircase). No heat upstairs (floor grates into each room upstairs - open or close depending in individual warmth preferences)

We heat this house with ONE wall mount, non vented gas heater. They make two kinds - propane and natural gas (dif. is in the oriface).

Love that heater! (These two floors are 2200 sq ft.)

A propane heater should run cleaner than ours because the propane is cleaner and purer than the gas from our well - or any well.

Never had any moisture and never met anyone who has had moisture. (We are all used to the old gas heaters and having our glasses steam up when we came in the house from the moisture in the gas from our wells. Our glasses do not steam up when we come in to our home with our non vented heater.)

Two things we have learned over the past ten years: Once or twice a year, you have to blow the dust out of the pilot light area with the air compressor (vacume isn't powerful enough). Not a big deal, but if your pilot light isn't staying lit, try that. The repair men that we have spoken with, told us about this when we were trying to find out why it wouldn't stay lit. They explained that there really isn't much that can go wrong with them, - that it had to be dust. and it was.

Second thing: they are VERY sensitive to fumes of ANY kind. If you varnish anything, or use oil based paint, WD 40, or anything that has strong fumes - while your stove is burning, - it will set the stove off CRAZY. The stove emits STRONG petroleum smelling fumes. It took us a couple of times to figure it out and have had several friends who have discovered this also.

Our county has many gas wells and we have many of these non vented gas heaters used in our area. We have even bought a couple and put them away in case they quit making them.

-- homestead2 (homestead@localnetplus.com), November 26, 2001.

The house I am thinking of using ventless in is very well insulated and will be even more so after I am through remodeling it,the problem is it has a oil space heater that sits in the family room and i mean SITS, it must be 5ft by 5ft, plus me and my wife do not like oil heat,it just seems to get everything oil smelling. Thats why the thinking to switch to propane.

-- TomK(mich) (tjk@cac.net), November 26, 2001.

Bruce.. The people I spoke with [2 propane companies and one independent propane boiler installer] said the same thing.

They don't normally like them. Especially in an area like here, northern New England, where people tend to tighten up their houses a lot.

But, the installer came and checked out my plans and he was comfortable with my choice and discussed it with my propane company. So, as I said, it'll suffice for this heating season.

-- pc (jasper2@doglover.com), November 26, 2001.

Tom.. If you have an oil unit in the livingroom then you must have a chimney there as well. I'd check out a regular vented model. You might have to put a liner in the chimney. Propane needs a narrower flue than oil. In your case I wouldn't mess with the non vent.

-- pc (jasper2@doglover.com), November 26, 2001.

Tom, I use a ventless propane as a supplemental to the furnace.I use a standard furnace snap switch to run a small squirl cage blower--maybe 20 watts electric verses 550 watts for the furnace fan!! Big electric energy saver ....and it keeps my "living room" nice and comfy.

vent / ventless .....not sure! [CO2 alarm 10' away from heater]

-- Jim-mi (hartalteng@voyager.net), November 27, 2001.

Isn't it funny how people are scared of the things they don't know about. I run a ventless propane heater in my GH and it doesn't hurt the tomatoes one bit (VERY sensitive) and a friend of mine grows orchids in his GH with an unvented propane heater and he has no problems. I would make sure the one I bought had an oxygen sensor though. They cut off automatically if the O2 levels get too low.

-- Laura (lauramleek@yahoo.com), November 27, 2001.

PC, the odor from your heater may actually be paint fumes! I had a ventless wall mounted unit in the living room until the wood stove went in. Anyway, the 1st year we were here, we painted some rooms, and a few days later fired up the propane heater. What a smell! I would have sworn there was an open gas line coming into the house. Called the propane company up, the asked me if I had just done any painting and I said yes, and they told me it would do that until the paint was COMPLETELY cured. I'm not sure why or what causes it, but I've spoken to several other people who have all had the same thing happen to them as well. Anybody out there know the reasoning behind this?

-- Eric in TN (eric_m_stone@yahoo.com), November 27, 2001.

Eric..

Actually the fumes were VERY bad the fist week. So bad, in fact, that I lost my voice. I took off for a few days to stay with a friend and ponder the problem.

After talking with a few people, including the installer, I've learned this is common upon first fire up. The appliance has paints and oils from the manufacturing process that need to burn off.

The fumes now are not nearly as noticable as before. And the heater has electronic ignition, thermostatic controls, and an O2 sensor. But, there is still a slight odor and I've been running it constantly since the beginning of the month. I haven't been doing anything to increase the odors..ie: painting, spraying things, etc..

I don't think it will improve any more. So, I'm going to fire up my hepa filter and see if that helps the problem.

-- pc (jasper@2doglover.com), November 27, 2001.

We have a older model vented propane heater. 70,000 btu I think. It sits in front of a bricked up fireplace that must be almost 200 years old, no kidding, on a brick hearth and is vented through the chimney. We couldn't get good enough flame and were told that we might need to buy a new heater. I talked with someone from Empire heaters and was told that we have a cast iron burner that is better than the newer stainless steel kind. The nice man explained how to clean it better and I called the gas company technician to come back out and clean it some more. It worked! Moral: don't take one person's word for it, check around, get a second opinion.

We do get some moisture at times but that is mostly when I've been trying to dry too many clothes at once in the house. One of those collapsable wooden racks fits very nicely on top of the heater and the clothes are dry sooner than the electric dryer and we get the benefit of the moisture in the air too.

If anyone does anything with WD 40, or any spray of any kind, the fumes are awful. My son decided to waterproof spray his shoes up in the walkin closet and I could taste the fumes the rest of the day. He was informed to never do that again.

Our pilot lights on the stove will burn off stuff too.

We are planning to buy our tanks from the company this Thursday. That way instead of paying 2.10/gal this coming Feb. like we did last Feb, we will be able to pay maybe 1.09/gal or whoever has the cheapest price. I should add up our gas costs for the last 5-6 years and see what our average monthly cost is.

-- LBD (lavenderbluedilly@hotmail.com), November 27, 2001.

Yes, we installed 2 Vermont Castings Ventless heaters in our place and loved them. The house was built in 1889 and much of it was not insulated, tho we had installed 16 double glazed window the year before to help keep some of the heat. We finally were able to have heat at both ends of the hoouse and would shut them down completely at night, run both in the mroning then just one during the day. Our winters are not tha tocld here in southern Oregon, still winter is winter. Propane has water in it, that is the source of the moisture and some is wetter that others. when I lived in western NY the propane I got there was sodden and the vent on my bolier would ice up in the winter. We did experience some fogging of the windows more of a film. But we sold the place 4 months ago and moved to a newer tighter house that heats with a heat pump and/or a "Blaze King" wood heater. The pepople who bought our ranch like the LPG ventless heaters. I would not use them in a tight house either. As for heating costs? well, we were paying $2.50 per gallon all winter and took aboout 100-125 gallons every 3 weeks. Our total consumption for the year was 750 gallons, that included our kitchen range, (Okeefe & Merrit).

-- hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), November 28, 2001.

Just installed a "Warm Morning" vented heater on Oct 24th. At that time we had 75% in our LP tank. They filled today, and we took 297.9 gallons. Thankfully we pay 85 cents a gallon (that's 5 weeks of heat). Our house is a "topsy" house. It just growed. We have a number of replacement windows, wall and ceiling insulation, but still have to replace some doors so there is air leakage. We close the doors to the upstairs and our bedroom during the day, and at night close the doors to our laundry/sewing/computer/work room (12x30). Wood/coal stove was definetly cheaper to operate, but needed cash up front when they delivered the coal $400 and up, scrambling for something to burn when we would run out towards the end of winter, plus a husband that would sometimes get too busy to have wood or coal ready for me when he would leave for work.... We are also going to be putting our house on the market, and felt we would get a better price if there was an existing heat system installed rather than as a house with no source of heat.

-- Joyce Dingman (FriendsPatterns@juno.com), November 29, 2001.

Last year our ventless (fireplace style) propane heater was our only source of heat for our two story house of over 2000 square feet. Our dining room is the central room downstairs with the stairway door leading from there also. We placed the heater in there and it heated our whole house very nicely (warm air just naturally went up the stairway) and we used 600 gallons of propane. Last year we also had very cold weather the whole Fall and winter season.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), November 29, 2001.

Tom, we live in an old farm house so therefore don't have a "tight" house. We have a not so old natural gas monster in the basement that every year we seemed to spend $200.00 - $500.00 for misc. things going wrong with it. The clincher is that even though it's a not so old furnace, it is hard to find the parts for it. (Must not have been a popular model.) So we now have 3 non-vented heaters in our house. 1 in the basement, 1 on 1st floor, & 1 upstairs. We don't use the monster anymore (electricity outages were a problem anyway). They work great. The house is alot warmer than with the furnace. The only problem that we have had is that at the end of the heating season, there is a film on the windows, etc. We have not had a moisture problem even though our basement is down in the ground. In fact, the basement is drier since we have them. As for cost, we have all the free natural gas we could ever want (we have 5 gas wells on our property). But you have to figure that being unvented, all the heat is staying in the house, not going up the chimney. Just me 2 cents worth.

-- Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania (kirklbb@penn.com), December 02, 2001.