Many rural homes in Ontario use an oil furnace for heating. This makes sense, because oil is an extremely compact, easily transportable form of fuel that for decades was the most economical choice.

As we know, oil is no longer as economical as it once was, and environmental damage from extraction, refining, transportation, storage and burning can no longer be ignored.

If you are running on oil heat, a simple change is to start mixing a bio-fuel into the standard heating oil. You might start with a 5% mix, or B5, merely by adding some biodiesel to the No. 2 fuel oil in the tank, and gradually increase the percentage from there. Over the season, increasing up to a concentration of 20% biodiesel, or B20, should work well. Biodiesel will gel up at higher temperatures than regular fuel oil, so be careful storing it outside in very cold weather. Higher concentrations of biodiesel can degrade seals and other components, and you may end up with a less efficient burn depending on the nozzle in your furnace. There is usually a small price premium for biodiesel. As with all oil and gas furnaces, regular annual maintenance by a TSSA-certified technician is essential.

Most people aren’t interested in sticking with oil though. Wood heat is making a strong return to the market, along with it some very efficient technologies. Open hearth fireplaces, while pretty, are very inefficient at heating and can even cause more heat to be lost through draft up the chimney than is used to heat the room! Most rural homes already have a cast iron wood stove for supplemental heat and ambiance. Particulate matter from wood fires is a very real concern in rural areas. Look for a CSA and/or EPA-certified wood stove to make sure it will burn cleanly and efficiently. Another similar technology is the masonry stove, which burns wood hot and quickly and then releases that heat slowly over time into the room at a comfortable temperature. A masonry stove may only need to be fired twice a day to provide ample heat. Interestingly, masonry stoves were the solution to what could be called the first energy crisis – lack of wood – in the 1700’s. Masonry stoves can often burn other solid fuels such as compressed pellets, straw, and more.

The newest technology is automated wood and pellet boilers and furnaces. With proper installation these systems can work very well.  A wood boiler can be sized to heat all of your home’s hot water in addition to space heating. Or if you have enough space, you might consider adding a wood furnace to your existing oil furnace, making it a true ‘hybrid’ system, and this is likely to be a more economical approach. Pellet heating systems when combined with automatic fill hoppers can continuously keep the fire burning unattended for days or weeks at a time. Although pellets are generally more costly, they are much more convenient than handling split wood. The pellets themselves are usually made from waste products from industries such as lumber or furniture manufacture. All wood burning heating systems should be installed by a WETT-certified technician.

Nearly all homes have enough electricity to drive a heat pump. A heat pump is several times more efficient than a baseboard heater because it uses electricity to move quantities of heat from one location to another, rather than converting it all into heat directly like a baseboard electric heater or space heater does. There are two main classes of heat pump: those that extract heat from the outside air, and those that extract heat from the ground. A new type of high-efficiency low temperature air source heat pump is available that works in our cold Canadian winters and still provides good heating performance. The downside is these heat pumps are only available in smaller sizes for now. It would be perfect for a small to mid-size home built to Energy Star or R-2000 standards. But most rural houses are older and would require two or more heat pumps. If two air source heat pumps would be required, a ground source heat pump is a more economical choice.

From a sustainability point of view, a ground source heat pump with a wood stove for emergencies is the most environmentally sound option, once you’ve done all that you reasonably can to insulate your home and seal it from drafts. We’ll look in more detail at ground source heat pumps in a future article.

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Inspiration for this article came from a shorter article Four options for heating rural house by Steve Maxwell.