How to Heat Your Off Grid Home

Start with the Bones

During these darkest days of the year in the northern hemisphere, it is impossible not to think about heat. The days are growing colder as we tilt away from the sun.

Heating our homes is a matter of survival. If you doubt it, recall February of 2011 when a huge storm caused rolling blackouts in West Texas that affected the pressure in gas pipelines and impeded delivery of natural gas to over 30,000 homes in Northern New Mexico. At the same time, thermometers plummeted to record cold temps of 36 degrees below zero in some mountain towns. There were long lines outside stores as people purchased electric heaters. For 6 days and 5 nights, a state of emergency was declared, schools and businesses shut down and shelters were set up for anyone in need. There was the unusual sight of National Guard vehicles and uniformed guardspeople patrolling the streets. Fortunately, nobody died.

My family was not affected in our mountain homestead because we heated with a wood stove and used propane for our cooking and hot water heater.

Personally, I don’t think people consider heating enough. Yet, it is so essential. Not just to survival but to saving energy, which is very much the goal when living an ecofriendly life.

There are so many options out there for different ways in which to heat your home on and off the grid. I don’t claim to know them all or have a wide extent of knowledge on the subject, but I do have a lot of experience with heating in various homes and climates and off grid systems. It often seems like different regions prefer different heating systems as well, so take that into consideration while reading.

My first point, however, rings universal. When it comes to heating, you must start with the bones of the home. Don’t build and then consider heating later. Build with heating (and cooling) in mind.

The first thing every home should be built for, and I always wonder why they are not, is passive solar heat.

PASSIVE SOLAR HEATING

Passive solar heating is an easy way to utilize the sun to heat your home. This can be as simple as having a south-facing (in the northern hemisphere) wall of windows. The more windows, the more heat can be easily transferred and trapped inside. In Earthships, windows are often angled toward the sky to get even more heat absorption. In areas with hot summers, you must use shades in the summer to keep the sun out. This could be shade trees and/or window shades.

Additionally, add dark, heat-absorbing floor materials under the windows, such as stone, tiles, brick or concrete. These materials with high thermal mass will absorb the heat during the day and then release heat at night when temperatures cool. These materials also stay cool in the summertime when you need it. The dark color helps further with heat absorption. We have dark purple concrete floors.

Add a stone or brick wall behind your heating source or where it will get direct light.

Build your home with earthen materials such as stone, brick, rammed earth and adobe that have a high thermal mass. Or you can plaster your walls with these materials.

R-VALUE

And of course, R-value is super important too. R-value is the capacity of an insulating material to prevent heat flow. The higher the R-value, the more insulated your home is from cold coming in and heat getting out. Combining high R-value with thermal mass is the perfect marriage.

Generally speaking more volume means higher R-value, which is why thick but lightweight batts of fiberglass or mineral wool are commonly used for insulation. Other, less conventional materials like straw bales and cork also are noted for their R-values.

Our home is made of straw bales and plastered in concrete, taking advantage of both thermal mass and R-value. We are so pleased and consistently amazed with the insulating properties of our home. With passive solar heating, we only need to heat our home in the coldest months for a few hours in the morning when we wake up and a few hours in the evening before bed. This saves us so much on fuel and energy. Speaking of heating fuel…

SO HOW DO WE HEAT THIS THING?

Once you’ve got good bones built with smart choices around passive solar heat, thermal mass and R-value, then you have to consider how you are going to heat it.

Living off-grid you probably do not want to heat with natural gas or electricity. These are just not energy efficient or environmentally friendly sources.

WOOD

The most obvious and prevalent choice is wood. Most off-grid homes have wood stoves. Either steel, which heats up fast but has less thermal mass, or iron, which takes longer to heat but stays hot longer due to higher thermal mass. I personally prefer iron because it will give off more heat in the middle of the night when the fire goes out. Here are some pros and cons that we have experienced with wood stoves.

Pros:

·       Completely independent. You can get a permit and go into the forest and chop down a tree, cut it up and heat your home. You don’t rely on any outside source. We used to do this when we lived in the mountains and though it was a lot of work, it was rewarding. You must be capable of doing this and have the equipment, such as a chainsaw, axe, and truck. It can also be dangerous, so it’s good to have a buddy to go into the forest with to get wood.

·       Helps to thin forests to control forest fires.

·       Inexpensive

·       Carbon-neutral fuel

Cons:

·       Coming home to a cold house after a long day out.

·       Waking up in the middle of the night to feed the fire.

·       Must empty pipes if you go on vacation.

·       Killing trees, just saying.

·       Messy AF #truth

If you do have a wood stove, it’s nice to have a back up that will kick in when the fire goes out and temps decline, such as propane.

NOTE: If you have a multiple story home, be sure to install floor vents so the heat from your wood stove can circulate upward. In my experience, the upper floors don’t ever get warm enough when relying on a wood stove downstairs. That’s just my experience though.

PROPANE

Propane heaters are also useful for off-grid. You can fill the propane canisters yourself or have a company deliver them. Either way, you are dependent on someone else to make sure your house is heated. If there is a shortage of propane, the store is closed or the delivery truck is out of operation, you’re out of luck.

Propane is a relatively clean gas. It is a byproduct of the gas industry produced during the processing of natural gas and crude oil. It also emits fewer greenhouse gases and air pollutants compared to other fossil fuels.

However, propane is still a fossil fuel, and its combustion still contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. When transitioning to renewable energy sources, propane can be used as a complementary fuel for its convenience, portability, and lower emissions. Our daughter’s bedroom was an addition that is not strawbale and is less insulated than the rest of the house. Also, it is on the second story with no floor vents. We put in a small propane heater in her room. We also use propane in our travel camper.

WOOD PELLET STOVE

We had never considered a wood pellet stove until someone convinced us of their convenience. Now, we’re so glad we have one. We prefer them to wood stoves. However, if we add another room to our house, I would like to add a wood stove, just to have one in case of an emergency. There are definitely pros and cons to pellet stoves like anything else.

Pro:

·       Wood pellets are a byproduct of the timber industry. The lumber industry on average uses 45 percent of each log, about 1/3 goes to pulp chips. What can't be used for lumber or pulp becomes sawdust and shavings to make pellets. Sawmill residues account for more than 90 percent of the fiber used in pellet plants.

·       Wood pellet stoves have timers so you can set the stove to start while you are not home or while you are sleeping, making them super convenient.

·       Small carbon footprint

Con:

·       Wood pellets come in plastic bags. We reuse our plastic bags for trash so that we’re not creating more waste.

·       You are dependent on others for your supply of wood pellets. If the stores are closed or out of stock, you’re out of luck.

·       They use electricity to ignite, which minimally drains your electric system. Once they are started, they use very little electricity. However, on January mornings when our batteries are low, we sometimes must start the generator before starting our stove.

·       Must empty pipes if you go on vacation

GEOTHERMAL HEATING

I don’t know much about this because I’ve never lived anywhere with it. The best example is Iceland, which runs entirely on hydro-electric and geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy is a renewable and sustainable energy source. It doesn't produce greenhouse gas emissions.

A geothermal heating system transfers heat from the ground to the home in winter and from the home to the ground in summer via water, utilizing a loop system, either closed or open. The water, after absorbing or releasing heat from the ground, circulates through a heat pump located in the house. The heat pump uses the geothermal energy to either heat or cool the building. Once the heat is transferred from the ground to the water and then to the heat pump, the conditioned air or hot water is distributed throughout the home using a forced-air or radiant heating system.

This does use electricity. These systems are expensive to install but save you a lot of money in the long run.

NOT COMPLETE BUT COMPREHENSIVE

Well, that’s a lot of information to at least get you started. You can do more research on your own. Ultimately, it’s important to build your home with heating in mind. Then, consider which heating source is best for you and your needs.

Or, live somewhere warm that doesn’t get cold and that will solve a lot of problems. In fact, live in the mountains on the equator and have perfect weather year-round.

I would love to hear from people who know of other great heating sources. What did I forget? What don’t I know? What is cutting edge?