We live in an old home. Old by California standards that is. Built in 1939, with some additions and changes done mostly in the ’50s to it’s core infrastructure, it has the original ‘gravity’ furnace for the main living areas still. That makes it sound like we live in a large home, but we don’t. The two smaller bedrooms and bathroom are on one side of the living room, the dining room, kitchen and garage were built on the other side. In the ’50s, the garage was carved up to be another bathroom, bedroom and what I now call a Miata closet. There’s also an additional laundry room added on to the back of the house.

Having a furnace for only half of the house actually is fine. Well it’s fine when it works. Currently, it’s not working. It hasn’t worked in over a year and we’ve now assumed it’s completely dead. No one wants to repair such an old beast wrapped in asbestos and in a difficult to reach, small, Hobbit sized death chamber under the house. Yes, I tried to fix it, too, but after 65+ years, it’s no longer really something I think we can rescue.

A gravity furnace was described to us by our home inspector when we bought the place 11 years ago as “a big box of fire” under the house. It heats up air, which then simply rises through ducts into several rooms. The whole operation was nearly silent and it worked off of a thermostat and well enough for the three months or so we need heat here in Southern California.

When it died last year, our answer wasn’t to replace it with a forced air monster. This just seems not only to be overkill for a small home like ours in a milder climate, but really wasteful. How much carbon do we need to add to our home’s footprint so we can heat every room? Do we REALLY need every room heated anyway? Instead, we paid someone to insulate the walls, which has helped both keep it warmer, and cooler in the summer. The contractor was suppose to insulate the floors but our not-so-large crawl space wasn’t going to work for him. “Honey, the guy can’t get under our house” was the message my wife told me on the phone when the contractor balked at doing the floors. I can fit under the house, and don’t think of myself as being exactly ’small’ — clearly this was going to be more work than he thought. So, that job remains for me to do.

Now it’s cold again and we are once again thinking of solutions to our heating woes. Will insulating the floors do enough for us? Is this something I can do without help? What would be more environmentally sound? What about hydroponic heating? What’s the best environmental choice to make here?

We’re working on it. Comments are more than welcomed here.

FOLLOW UP on JAN 08, 2008:

Today, we had a natural gas driven fireplace insert added to our existing fireplace. This prevents the loss of warm air and draft we use to have from the existing fireplace (which was NOT an effective heating tool) and gave us a very efficient replacement. The insert is rated at 90% efficiency and includes a thermostat with a timer and settings.

I’ve also removed the vent covers to the old gravity furnace and patched the walls where they were. I’ve left the duct work alone and the old furnace will simply stay under the house.

This wasn’t a cheap solution, but it was certainly cheaper than replacing the heater and its way more environmentally sound. We’re happy with this solution. Thanks HughART.