We heat mostly with our living room wood stove. It's cozy and really takes the chill off, just looking at it warms me!
A friend of ours has 40 acres in the mountains not far from here and the pine beetles have gotten so out of hand that he has been more than happy for us to take truckloads of beetle kill trees off his property. However, last summer his acreage was mostly burned by the High Park fire and next Winter we may have to find a new source of firewood. My husband splits it all by hand, ( he says it warms him twice!) we use about 4-5 cords per season. Being the end of the heating season we are getting down to the end of the wood stack.
The 104 year old house we live in had electric baseboards installed in the 1960s, one in each room. Occasionally we turn some of those on low to keep the pipes from freezing while we are gone . In the mornings we turn the bathroom heater on for a bit. My husband made this wonderful clothes rack, I hang my clothes there and pretend I'm staying in a five star hotel! There is nothing like putting on warm clothes in winter.
This house is rather small compared to your average single family home these days, there was a very good reason they built them small way back then-it's easier to heat! Our brick chimney runs up through the middle of the house and takes the chill off the upstairs.
Nowadays people spend an awful lot of money heating their whole house even though they rarely use their whole house all the time. I like the idea of heating the rooms you use, when you use them. Give me a small cozy house on a cold winter's day anytime...
