I think most people have a minisplit as a secondary option. I have a minisplit system. Works fantastic. Works fair down to 17 F. Obviously the efficiency in moving heat from the 17 F outside to the 68 F inside goes down. So, I have a wood stove (and for insurance purposes I have oil-heated hydronic baseboard that is not being used anymore).
I have a 4 ton geo unit and it uses roughly 2900w when running in second stage, luckily it runs in first stage ( 2400w ) most of the time. I don't run my geo when it gets really cold though either.
The heat strip in the pan is barely noticeable, it pulls about 50-100w during the 5 minute defrost cycles when it's below about 20F outside. I am heating a 1890's farmhouse that was renovated in the early 2000's, 1900 ft^2. I only heat downstairs with the two heads off the mini split, 950 ft^2 which keeps the bedrooms about 62 F. It is a 27K BTU Bosch, I undersized it thinking I would add a 2nd unit for the upstairs rooms, but never needed it so far.
My experience is contrary to yours in Northern NH, I have a cold climate Mitsubishi unit that is rated for heat down to -12 F but like it or not the quality of heat is poor down below 10 F. Yes, it is technically heating the air above the room temp but down at the lower temps it is just a few degrees over the room temp. I am not the only person or entity noticing this, Both Maine and Vermont is suggesting that these are supplemental heating units only with some cold weather backup. As far as I am aware, there are no companies building cold climate mini splits with supplemental heating coils. On new construction on seasonal places, builders are putting in electric floor radiators to make up the deficit in very cold weather and speed up how quickly they can warm up the place. Mini Splits are not cheap and few people are going to install multiple units to cover the heating load at the design heating load. Far better to install a very efficient heat source that covers the majority of the load and a backup. The backup would be sized to heat the space just over freezing.
It would have been cheaper on the coldest days to use the propane, but it wasn't worth the hassle to switch over for me. The coldest day last year for me was Feb. 11th and it got down to -9F overnight, so it was a mild-ish year.
I am sure you could sell that tank if it's no good to you
I'm actually using it for secondary storage to run my larger generator now from my wood gasifier! I didn't want to let it go to waste even if the propane companies around here are knuckleheads. I doubt anyone could get it "legally" filled in the local area since they all want the original bill of sale for the tank or to sell you a new one. That was the first time in my life a vendor (all the vendors!) talked me out of using their product because they made it such a hassle to work with them... I couldn't believe it when I moved in! I guess they figured everyone is a captive customer or something. 😡
Trees extract co2 from the air we breath and generate oxygen.... in the process creating the fuel or "wood battery"
Yes but by burning wood you are releasing more sequestered carbon than would have been released if the wood was left to rot. Like I said it's about as close as we can get to neutral but it still isn't
And who wants to be neutral ? I m not for smoke dragons but this carbon neutral thing and bringing the associated costs up with all fuels is borderline insane.
They will never fix climate change with dictatorship. I have always said if we can get population down, so will everything environmental get better. Less babies, let attrition reduce population.
