Natural Home Heating

Greg Pahl

Preface

I’ve been interested in renewable energy for almost 30 years. Back in the mid-1970s, I built my first off-the-electric-grid home in Monkton, Vermont. I pumped water by hand from a dug well, used kerosene lamps for lighting, and heated with wood. In 1979, I moved to a home in the middle of the woods at the end of a half-mile-long driveway in the remote and beautiful mountain town of Lincoln,Vermont. The commercial power lines were too far away, so after investigating my options, I finally decided to install a wind turbine atop an 80-foot guyed steel tower to provide for my modest electrical needs. This home had a wonderful spring-fed water system and was heated exclusively by wood. Subsequently, I have lived in homes that were grid connected, but generally used wood as a primary or secondary source of heat. And I’ve never lost my interest in renewable energy.

In November 2000, my wife, Joy, and I bought a house in Weybridge, Vermont. We chose this home primarily for its quiet, edge-of-town location on a dead-end street, and not for its heating systems. This modest Cape-style house has an attractive, but not very functional, fireplace. Although the fireplace works great as a smoke-alarm tester, trying to figure out how to use it as a heating appliance has been a challenge. But that’s not all. Our house also features its original 1956 American Standard oil-fired boiler still chugging away in the basement.The first time our local heating service technician came over to give the boiler its annual cleaning and inspection he said, “Is that thing still here?” I knew we had a problem. The technician suggested that a new high-efficiency boiler would be the best approach in the long run, but admitted that a few repairs would probably keep the unit going for a few more years. Actually, the old veteran was still working reasonably well, but needed a new oil burner, as well as some new electrical controls, in order to bring it up to code. Being a bit short of cash, we decided on the temporary fix to give ourselves more time to see what our other options might be. Thus began our search for a replacement heating system that would not be reliant on imported oil--or on any other fossil fuel. The following summer, our interest in sustainable energy led us to attend SolarFest 2001, an annual renewable energy fair held in Middletown Springs,Vermont. It was at SolarFest that I first learned about the possibility of burning biodiesel fuel in an oil-fired boiler or furnace for home heating. I was intrigued. It was also at SolarFest that I first met Stephen Morris, the publisher and president at Chelsea Green Publishing. For some time, I had been searching for a new publisher that specialized in environmental titles, and Chelsea Green looked like it might be a good match. It was. Our first brief conversation at SolarFest was followed by a series of e-mails and eventually a lengthy meeting in White River Junction, where the idea for this book was born. I combined my existing interest in finding a new renewable heating system for my home with Chelsea Green’s interest in a book on the same subject. Sometimes things just seem to fall into place.

As I researched this book, my knowledge of renewable home heating strategies expanded well beyond woodstoves to include a wide range of options, some of which I had been only dimly aware of. My research also confirmed what I already knew, which is that renewables are definitely available now. And renewable fuels work just fine, even for home heating. The main obstacles to their widespread use are no longer technical; they’re mainly political. In order to deal with that problem, there needs to be a major educational initiative to supply people with the information they need to make intelligent energy-related decisions. I hope that Natural Home Heating:The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Options will play a role in this important initiative. It’s been an exciting adventure for me, and I hope that after reading this book, you will share my enthusiasm for renewables--and for Chelsea Green.