Ways to heat a wooden house: which is more efficient and cheaper?

Wooden houses are actually the first man-made artificial housing. Between the first huts of tree trunks and stone structures lies an abyss of thousands of years. In wooden houses there is something primitive, real and native: perhaps this is why their popularity is not just not fading away, but growing steadily. Naturalness, environmental friendliness, good heat-insulating properties and unsurpassed esthetics are the main advantages of such buildings. Are there enough of them to call such housing ideal? It is - if the installed heating of a wooden house is effective and safe.

Options for choosing the right system

The primary task when choosing the best option for heating a wooden house is to determine the optimal energy source for you. Among the possible solutions:

• gas;
• liquid fuel;
• electricity;
• firewood, coal, briquettes.

The choice of fuel should be made taking into account such aspects:

• uninterrupted and trouble-free possibility of its receipt / acquisition;
• its compatibility with a particular type of system;
• required storage conditions;
• ease of maintenance of relevant equipment;
• reliability of the resulting system;
• the ability to "implement" automatic control.

As for the cost of heat sources, gas is the cheapest. Electricity and diesel fuel will be much more expensive. DT and solid fuel require delivery, therefore, evaluating their “profitability”, transportation costs plus labor costs for their unloading should be taken into account.

You can use our online calculator to roughly figure out which is more expensive:

Next, you need to figure out what equipment for generating heat will be installed: a boiler or convectors, a stove or fireplace, etc.

Read about choosing gas convectors in our article:https://aquatech.tomathouse.com/en/otoplenie/radiatory/konvektornyj-obogrevatel.html.

There are various ways to organize heating in a wooden house, and each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.

A wide range of heating equipment on the market allows the buyer to choose high-quality units that are most suitable for the needs of a particular house

Particular attention should be paid to the competent development of the arrangement of devices for heating - the quality of the distribution of thermal energy directly depends on this. You can choose a complex system consisting of a boiler, radiators and pipelines, or you can stop on equipment for local heating (for example, infrared heaters).

You definitely need to find out how much all the necessary devices will cost, how much their installation will “pull”. Calculations should be made taking into account the area of ​​the house, the material of the pipeline, the origin of the equipment manufacturing companies. Domestic systems are cheaper than foreign ones; of the latter, most will have to be laid out for Finnish and German quality.

And finally, it is necessary to analyze the volume of fixed costs for heat supply of a wooden house - here should be taken into account both the monthly costs of energy, and the cost of repair or replacement of individual elements of the installed system, as well as its maintenance.

Thoroughly comparing all the options acceptable within the budget, you can easily determine the most effective system that requires moderate costs.

When designing a heating system for a wooden house, maximum attention should be paid to the issue of the safety of its functioning

Gas heating

Gas heating, despite the constant increase in prices for this energy carrier, it remains the most convenient and quite advantageous solution to the issue of heating in a private house - including wooden. Of course, if the facility is already connected to the gas main.

Process gasification of a private house - a technically complex, red tape and quite expensive event. Even wealthy people are not always ready to fork out for such a “pleasure”. You can heat the building with liquefied gas by burying a gas holder in the area: it will feel exactly the same as if a gas main had been brought to the house. But this is not cheap.

The most common way to implement gas heating is to install the boiler in tandem with radiators or a water floor heating system. Such a solution is affordable and quite payable. It is best to stay on a double-circuit compact wall-mounted boiler, which will not only heat the house, but also provide you with hot water all year round. Such equipment is extremely safe, it is convenient to maintain, it demonstrates high efficiency.

For wooden houses with a small area, you can consider installing gas convectors. Convectors will cost inexpensively, they are effective, however, “gluttonous”: fuel consumption compared to the boiler will be greater.

A gas-fired heating system practically does not require human participation: it is enough to start it and periodically monitor it (which with constant residence does not cause any difficulties). Well, of course, pay bills on time.

Gas boiler and water heating is a durable and hygienic system with high heat capacity at a reasonable price

Read more about the device and the principles of gas heating at home in our next article:https://aquatech.tomathouse.com/en/otoplenie/documents/gazovoe-otoplenie-v-chastnom-dome.html.

Liquid fuel - an alternative to "blue"

When there is no gas pipeline in a wooden house, and there is little hope for electric networks, installing a diesel boiler can be a good solution for heating. The arrangement and operation of a system based on it requires considerable waste (both the boiler and fuel will be expensive), but the advantages are significant: the homeowner gains independence from gas networks, without losing the opportunity to enjoy the automatic operation of highly efficient equipment.The efficiency of liquid fuel boilers is almost the same as that of gas boilers. "Get" diesel fuel is not a problem - there would be funds. And they can deliver it to any settlement.

To have oil boiler It should be in a specially equipped boiler room. All the requirements for this room, in principle, are easily fulfilled - you should not worry. The only thing that can upset if a wooden house is small is the need to donate a couple of square meters of usable area.

Reservoirs for diesel fuel can be installed in the boiler room, or buried in the ground

Electricity: simple, convenient, but disadvantageous?

Electric heating is perhaps the easiest, most convenient and fastest way to heat a wooden house. It is environmentally friendly, its work is easily automated. Possible options for the implementation of electric heating using various equipment: electric boiler plus batteries, convectors, infrared heaters, film heating, warm baseboard. Initial investment in any of the above equipment is much less than in a gas or liquid fuel heating system.

But there are many “buts.” Firstly, there should be a good new wiring, designed for high loads. Otherwise, by turning on the electric heating, you risk, at a minimum, to remain without light for some time, and to extinguish the fire as a maximum. Secondly, the effectiveness of such systems, whatever one may say, leaves much to be desired. Well, and thirdly, the cost of electricity in relation to the heat received from it is very high. So this option of heating a wooden house can be reasonable only in two cases: during an occasional visit to housing (on weekends, on vacation, during the holidays) and for “securing” the main system.

Electric convectors - affordable, compact, eco-friendly and hygienic parting for heating a wooden house

Solid fuel boiler: practical solution

Firewood is the most affordable energy source today. And most importantly - allowing to obtain economical heat. By installing a boiler that runs on wood, coal, briquettes or coke, the homeowner gets a heating system with high energy efficiency and quick payback due to low operational waste.

Of the disadvantages of this option, it is worth noting the need for constant human participation in the process of equipment operation. Boiler room for solid fuel boiler must comply with a number of strict conditions - the risk of fire during the illiterate operation of such a plant is already very high. Especially in a wooden house.

Read more about solid fuel boilers in our article:https://aquatech.tomathouse.com/en/otoplenie/kotly/kotly-otopleniya-na-tverdom-toplive.html.

The furnace - not losing relevance

Despite all the advantages of modern methods of heating a home, stove heating a wooden house is still in demand. For many, this is a tribute to tradition, the opportunity to create a special atmosphere in the room: not only to warm, but also to “decorate” the interior.

A stove in a wooden house is always in the spotlight, it not only produces heat, but also brings aesthetic pleasure

To install a brick oven, you need to equip a separate foundation for it. It is best to do this even at the stage of construction of the building. If you plan to install a cast-iron unit, you can do without a foundation. But in that, and in another case, good isolation of the surrounding space is necessary.

The cost of laying the furnace depends on its design, the quality of the brick, fittings and facing material, the amount of necessary work. The price of ready-made industrial solutions also varies greatly: the brand, power, type of structure (stove, fireplace or hybrid) matters. But, in general, such a heat generator is expensive. But this is more than offset by the favorable price of fuel.

Is such a heating system efficient? Definitely difficult to answer.The oven itself can heat only a small area, and unevenly. But if you choose the appropriate unit, think over the scheme of hot air circulation throughout the house, make a full air heating, it turns out that the stove heating is quite in line with the expectations of the homeowner.

Safety, accessibility, comfort

Whatever benefits the operation of this or that type of heating of a wooden house promises, the safety issue comes first. Any of the systems based on fuel combustion is dangerous - this must be understood. Uncontrolled heating of heating equipment and chimneys, open flames, fuel leaks, gas cylinder explosions - all this is a real threat to people's lives. And also for the integrity of the building itself.

Insufficient or completely terminated removal of combustion products and poor ventilation strongly pollute the air in the house. Especially “sin” this stoves and fireplaces, as well as gas convectors. The safest heating is electric. But it is not without its risks.

Analyzing the cost of heating, it is worth noting the following trend: as a rule, the cheapest energy sources require large investments in equipment, and the most expensive ones, on the contrary.

When choosing a heating system in terms of energy costs, it is worth considering the efficiency of the devices used in it. After all, real costs depend on him. Only those units with an efficiency of 90% or more can be considered quite effective. Energy carriers for wood stoves, a solid fuel and gas boiler, and a gas convector will be the cheapest. The most expensive sources of energy are electricity and liquid fuel.

An important role in assessing the effectiveness of the heating system of a wooden house is the speed with which the equipment heats the structure. The systems that heat the air directly, and not the heat carrier or building structure, cope most quickly with the task. Almost instantly, you can feel the heat coming from the infrared heater.

An important point is the ease of operation of the heating system. The less attention she needs, the better. The most troublesome to maintain equipment with manual fuel loading. Least of all problems with automated gas, oil and electric systems.