Fireplace Insert or Generator

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Falstaff66

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Trying to prioritize. Live in MA, have a fireplace and lots of oaks. We also have well water. Oil heat, no gas line or propane. Underground power lines with few outages.

Fireplace insert would provide some oil savings now, along with heat in a SHTF situation. Generator would sit idle mostly, but is critical to our water supply for outages of even a few days. But fuel storage is a concern for the generator as well.

Any thoughts on what to prioritize among these two?
 
I'd say the generator first. Gives you more options. But the fireplace insert is usable for more situations (cut back on the oil heat and use wood for heat or a romantic evening).
 
The wood stove has an immediate use. You can get portable generators that will run your well pump for short money if you want something to hold you over until you can get something more permanent. You can store water in the house, but storing heat is a little more difficult.

Note: The more efficient inserts have blowers. If you lose electricity you'll lose this as well. Personally I'd make sure I could run this off the el cheapo generator as well. By that, I mean make sure the hooks are in place to run it off the generator (i.e. it plugs in somewhere so you can use an extension cord).
 
Generator first. For less than $1 grand you can get a nice unit, hook it up to an inlet to the panel and you're covered. $1500 all in tops.
The insert will run you $2k and won't give you uniform heat or water.
 
I would go with the generator. To run a generator for a few days doesn't take that much fuel. What you need to do is plan your tasks around it. Fire it up for an hour and do all the things that need doing with water, crank the furnace etc and then shut it down for 6-8hours if not longer and then do it again. YOu could probably make 10-15 gallons last a week or more if you are careful with how you use it. There are some good fireplace grates that really improve the heat output of a fireplace and they are fairly short money. I got one for my sister a few years ago and she swears it cut their usage by 25-30% and got better heat output. With the fireplace you could at least have some heat in the house at all times and balance that with the furnace when the generator is running. If you plan on using your fireplace you need to have seasoned wood. Having a bunch of oaks is useless as it takes at least a solid year for it to dry. We try to go 2 years on red oak.
 
i would go generator. a generator will keep your heat on, your food cold and your lights lit.

I like the idea of a diesel one i have a GM 1.6l motor running a generator now hooked up to a 120+ gal propane tank with an extra 120+ gal tank that is used for the kitchen. that said i have a stainless 1,000 gal oil tank in the basement that i could run a diesel generator from. the house is only 2700 sqft, My grandfater went big on some things
 
Generator First. I too have undereground power lines, but when the ice storm or early snow on leaves create wide spread outages, you could be down for days. Generator with transfer switch will give you heat, water (well pump) , fridge / freezer, TV DVDs for entertainment, and some lighting to get around house. My 80 gallon elec water heater held enough HW for hot showers day 1 and 2 for wife and I, and cool (not cold) on day three. I opted for smaller generator 6000 surge, 4000 continuous which uses a lot less gas then one big enough to run hot water and everything as once. Went with 10 circuit transfer switch to control what was on at any one time. If you have oil boiler system, you can have hot water too. (when my water heater needed replacement, I went with heating water with boiler.)

Assuming you have electric stove for cooking, I would get small camp stove for that chore if you have not already, then generator.
 
Generator hands down. Watch craigslist after storms. I got a 900 dollar genny for half price with the tags on. Rather then a transfer switch look at interlock systems. Lets you power the whole house rather than just 6 or 10 circuits.
 
Pick one or the other now and start saving for your second purchase. I got my coal stove first and my generator second. I'd buy the most expensive first... You need both.
 
I have generator for my home in mass and a wood stove for my camp in Maine. I rarely experience a outage in mass that requires me to run the generator but have a couple of times. The noise and lights working when everything else around you is dark and quite is advertising to neighborhood you have something they don't... not a great SHTF publicity stunt.

My place in Maine often looses power and in weather like this, heat is the only real necessity. You can melt snow or warm/boil lake water. You can get by with very little if need be. In my opinion sometimes less is more.

If your concern is stealth and survive in a SHTF situation get a wood stove, then you just worry about smoke.

If you want live your life with all or most things your enjoying right now but be prepared in an emergency, then get a generator.
 
There is a lot that goes into truly prepping to survive a SHTF scenario. A wood stove and a generator are small parts of that. DO you have the tools and skills and skills to cut and split your own wood? Can you maintain the tools? Can you get water out of your well once you run out of fuel for the genny?
 
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I had the same question a year ago for myself - went with insert. turn out to be the best investment. we use it more then we need too (guests,party, relaxation after stressful day, watching movie only with fire -unless its summer, heat, can boil some water on top, make quick hot dogs and buns inside the house, bake a meal inside. My neighbours love to visit me when the power is out. We didn't have outages for multiple days - but we can survive for a little bit as long as we have wood and water from water caching barrels. The best part - for most of my guests its a CHALLENGING GAME to split wood!
"OK, lets see how long can you last ..."
 
Falstaff66 said:
Trying to prioritize. Live in MA, have a fireplace and lots of oaks. We also have well water. Oil heat, no gas line or propane. Underground power lines with few outages.

Fireplace insert would provide some oil savings now, along with heat in a SHTF situation. Generator would sit idle mostly, but is critical to our water supply for outages of even a few days. But fuel storage is a concern for the generator as well.

Any thoughts on what to prioritize among these two?
Click to expand...
You didn't state the most important decision criterion: your budget.

You can spend $500 to $4,000 on either option. If your budget was $8,000, well, that's easy.

Yanmar makes a lightweight high speed diesel genset, which might be an option given an oil supply. But they cost more, so you are back to budget.
 
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Hiltonizer said:
The money saved by heating with wood will pay for your generator.

Wood heat before all.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. There are a lot of variables on the ROI of wood heat. It depends on cost of wood, quality of wood, how the house was designed etc. Most homes today are not designed for a single central heat source. You can certainly save some but if you are burning a couple cords and only saving 100 gallons of oil you are probably not saving much if anything. Our friends have that problem. They installed a stove and it is nice and heats their kitchen/ living room area but the way the home is designed that is about it. They go through a couple cords a year and figure they are saving about 100 to 150 gallons of oil a year. THey did all the research and the stove is sized properly, installed properly etc. One of the other issues is he cant cut his own wood. Doesn't have the land. So I think he is paying a little over 200 a cord for seasoned (not really) wood. They enjoy the stove and are happy with it but they aren't really saving any money especially when you factor in the cost of the stove, installation of the metal chimney etc. It was a couple thousand bucks for those items. They went with the generator first and then got the stove.

We heat almost exclusively with wood and I have had wood heat pretty much my entire life. It is great but if you are going to make the investment do research first as to how effective it will be on your home.
 
Wow, thanks everybody. Great suggestions. Seems the consensus is pretty clear. As for generator, I too thought diesel made sense, since I've got a few hundred gallons of it at any given time. But it also costs a lot at the pump, and those generators are less common and more expensive. So may go gas and get some Pri-G to store it.

I'd get an inverter and run my whole panel, choosing what to power of course. That brings the price up. Calculations suggest 7000 watts or so.

I can get a wood burning insert later, and would be in pretty good shape. I have plenty of my own oak logs that I'm not even using now.
 
Generator. You have a heat backup already (start stacking wood), but you have no water backup. I just did the generator/ hookup for my house, 10 circuit manual transfer switch installed for $900 with a 50 foot cable (generator is under the porch, hookup is around the corner). I got a portable generac 6500 running watt generator with a push button start to make things easy for the wife in case I'm not home. Paid like $800 for it, and after I got all the things I wanted on circuits (fridge, well pump, freezer and furnace) I still had like 5 circuits left. Ended up running our tv, internet and bedroom as well. We could have gone smaller but I needed 240v for my well pump. Find out how many volts your well pump is and go from there...

If I did it all over today I most likely would have gone with a propane generator as it's easier to store and has no shelf life.

I need to go the other way and get a wood stove backup in case of a longer term SHTF situation. Don't want to be a slave to gas.
 
Falstaff66 said:
Wow, thanks everybody. Great suggestions. Seems the consensus is pretty clear. As for generator, I too thought diesel made sense, since I've got a few hundred gallons of it at any given time. But it also costs a lot at the pump, and those generators are less common and more expensive. So may go gas and get some Pri-G to store it.

I'd get an inverter and run my whole panel, choosing what to power of course. That brings the price up. Calculations suggest 7000 watts or so.

I can get a wood burning insert later, and would be in pretty good shape. I have plenty of my own oak logs that I'm not even using now.
Click to expand...

Make sure that wood is cut, split and stacked now. Oak doesn't begin to dry until then.

Look into both rain barrels and a well bucket as back ups to your water supply. Both are cheap and easy although a well bucket usually requires removal of the pump from the well.
 
Falstaff66 said:
Wow, thanks everybody. Great suggestions. Seems the consensus is pretty clear. As for generator, I too thought diesel made sense, since I've got a few hundred gallons of it at any given time. But it also costs a lot at the pump, and those generators are less common and more expensive. So may go gas and get some Pri-G to store it.

I'd get an inverter and run my whole panel, choosing what to power of course. That brings the price up. Calculations suggest 7000 watts or so.

I can get a wood burning insert later, and would be in pretty good shape. I have plenty of my own oak logs that I'm not even using now.
Click to expand...

Take a look at the two threads that were going on (one I posted the link) about generators and benefits of diesel. For the power (conservative rating) they are actually significantly more efficient than a gas unit. Plus no issues with ethanol or the carb issues. Plus if you're pulling from your heating oil it won't be much more if any than pump cost of gas.
 
what's your budget as of now? As mentioned a little shopping around on craigslist may get you both!
 
Surprised at how many say Generator first [rolleyes].

Tough call really, but as some have pointed out the design of your home will likely dictate how well you capture the heat from a wood burner.

Personally, I'd be more concerned with pipes freezing in cold temps than spoiled food.
I've put food in a cooler outside with ice/snow during long outages.

Either way you go - both are good investments.

Falstaff66 said:
Trying to prioritize. Live in MA, have a fireplace and lots of oaks. We also have well water. Oil heat, no gas line or propane. Underground power lines with few outages.

Fireplace insert would provide some oil savings now, along with heat in a SHTF situation. Generator would sit idle mostly, but is critical to our water supply for outages of even a few days. But fuel storage is a concern for the generator as well.

Any thoughts on what to prioritize among these two?
Click to expand...
 
Billy2 said:
what's your budget as of now? As mentioned a little shopping around on craigslist may get you both!
Click to expand...

I can afford both, but it's a question of priorities. Other things are needed as well and I can probably only justify one of the two in the near term. Since it can provide heat by running the furnace, water, light and communication, it seems more critical.

I will look at the generator threads on diesel. Well bucket is out I think, well is 500 ft deep.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 

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