Hard to have heating in our area
For the longest time, I have struggled with locating efficient ways to keep our southern loft warm in our crazy winter season.
Sometimes it gets as cold as 45 degrees during the night hours and the low 50s in the days.
But, a week of cold weather can precede a week of nice warmer weather with highs in the mid to upper 80s. With this in your brain, it can seem simple enough to handle separate from indoor heat right before getting slammed with a big frosty snap. Generally saying, I have usually owned properties where an electric oil furnace was installed and essentially nothing else. Although these gas heaters might seem effective enough, one problem arises when the oil furnace is left off for most of the year. The microbial and dirt buildup inside is heated when the oil furnace is fired up again each Autumn season, creating a nasty and stinky smell. For people with dust sensitivities like myself, this can be a deal breaker when it takes satisfactory burn-in time to get the odor out of the oil furnace every subsequent year. Some people use geo heat pumps that harvest ambient heat in temperatures above 40 degrees, allowing for satisfactory ac and warming at a fraction of the cost. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to swap out to a geo heat pump yet, so I have resorted to using a little heater. Thankfully, our little heating system has an emergency shut off switch on the bottom of the unit that is engaged the moment it starts to tip over if you bump into it unknowingly.