Do you have central heating that’s delivered by a furnace or a heat pump? Either type of equipment is an excellent way to heat your home. Did you know that there are also alternate heating methods that are nice to have at your disposal? Sometimes it’s fun for just the ambience that these methods provide; at other times, these alternate heating methods can provide backup heating that can come in handy to warm up chilly areas of the home or be used if something goes wrong with your primary source of heating.
Let’s take a look at some of those alternate heating methods.
- Radiant heating. Radiant heating provides warmth from underneath floors or through walls. The systems heat through pipes or tubing, either with heated water, heated air, or heated coils. Regarded as a super-efficient means of heating, radiant heating is usually recommended for a colder region than ours. In fact, most of us would find radiant heating a bit too hot for our mild winters.
- Geothermal heating. Geothermal heating involves a system of pipes that are placed in the earth or in a body of water, with heat-absorbing fluid — either water or antifreeze — running through them. The fluids absorb heat from the earth or water, heat which is then distributed into the home.
- Portable or space heaters. Space heaters are much safer than they used to be, with features that cause them to turn off when they get overheated or tip over. Space heaters heat up spaces that are hard to heat so that you don’t have to turn up your central heating.
- Fireplaces. Fireplaces can be a pleasant source of heat and can also supplement your central heating. It’s possible to have a fireplace even if your house doesn’t have a chimney, thanks to an electrical insert. Insert fireplaces that run on wood or gas require chimneys.
- Pellet stove or masonry heater. There are different kinds of masonry stoves, but the thing they have in common is burning compressed wood pellets in a ceramic firebox. They are very efficient.
For more on alternate heating, contact Hansberger Refrigeration and Electric Company of Yuma.
