What do you do when your 20-yr furnace dies in your circa 1887 house?  Well you can buy a new furnace.  But we really didn't want to do that.  Reasons to follow.  You can crank up the gas fireplace, but it really isn't sufficient to heat all of downstairs, and gets expensive.  What we have been doing is turning on the fireplace to just keep the parlor at about 60 degrees, and moving our one portable ceramic tower heater from our area during the day to the dining room at night to heat that to 60 degrees and then turning it up to 70 in the morning so the dining room is toasty and comfortable.

We hemmed and hawed about what to do with the darned furnace.  We were recommended a less expensive furnace by our service tech, so the cost with installation was about $3,500.  That is $3,500 we don't have and $3,500 we didn't want to spend on a furnace we don't really want.

After considering different options we have decided not to buy a new furnace.  I know crazy huh?!  Well not really.  For our area we had two Eco Heaters left over from doing the attic to Attic Day Spa conversion.  For our area we were really only concerned with heating Lauren's room and our lounge room, so we decided to mount those two heaters there.  I tried to convince Nathan we could use them in the other downstairs areas but we figured it would ultimately be temporary and neither of us were that thrilled with the thought of drilling into the lathe and plaster.  So our area is taken care of, but what about the inn?

We purchased two of these heaters by Lasko.  One is going into the dining room and the other will go into the parlor (the room with the gas fireplace and piano).  The one in the dining room should be sufficient to heat that room during the morning hours and then hold it at 60 degrees (chilly but the room only gets really used in the morning).   The one in the parlor will hopefully keep the room comfortable with or without the gas fireplace as assistance.  I really wanted an oil/electric radiator style heater that really looked like an old old radiator, but I could only find them in the UK.  This was the best solution I could find.

So what about the lounge?  We have had a plan to purchase an electric ventless fireplace for the Astoria room.  We even rearranged the furniture so we had the spot for it.  The reasoning being it is our largest room and the hardest to keep warm because of that size and its proximity to the upstairs furnace.  It would provide additional ambiance and heat.  We even had the exact fireplace picked out.  It is from Dimplex and is very similar in style to our gas fireplace in looks and has the most realistic flames for an electric fireplace.  The same furniture store that we purchase our mattresses from had a floor model they have been trying to sell for nearly a year and they gave us a fantastic price on it.  For now it is sitting in the lounge room heating that room.  So we now have heat in all the important rooms.

So why didn't we just get a new furnace?  We have never been very happy with the heating situation on the first floor.  Our personal area was always way too hot when the rest of the first floor was comfortable.  The reason because of the old windows, higher ceilings, probably little to no insulation in the walls.  There was no zoning capabilities with the old furnace, no damper system for out area, an all or nothing thing.  If we simply got a new furnace it wouldn't solve any of those issues.  What we have wanted to do for the longest time is retrofit our first floor with radiant floor heating and instant hot water, solving a few issues, getting rid of one costly hot water heater, and providing zoned heating with a constant comfortable temperature.  Of course this is not a small job, because it would be under floor heating, we would have to strip the floors in the inn as they are painted with a latex paint and when they get hot in the summer the paint peels up.  But it would also provide us the opportunity to insulate under the floor to help provide some added energy efficiency.  So do we spend $3500 on a furnace or spend a small portion of that on things we would purchase anyhow and apply the rest of that towards the ultimate solution we wanted anyhow?  We voted for the latter.  Watch for updates to see how our energy bills and heat goes this winter.