Forced Air Central Heating is AWESOME

Well, after several weeks of tinkering with it ourselves, I finally got the DH on board with calling a certified repairman to work on the furnace. 
Liquid Propane is not a gas to be trifled with, if you didn't know.  Being heavier than air, a gas leak can fill a basement with fumes.  From that point, the ignition of the furnace or a water heater, or any number of other things can cause a catastrophic explosion.  The only upside to such an explosion is that it usually "blows itself out", whatever that means in "Volunteer Fire-ese". 
Now, How?, you might be asking, does this apply Beige Recyclables?  Well, in researching the furnace online while we were trouble shooting to find out what its problem was, I discovered that the poor little furnace is actually a Mobile Home furnace.  Oddly enough, made by Coleman, the camping people.  And, yet, somehow it made it's way into the quasi-basement, glorified crawl space of a 1911 Four Square Craftsman farmhouse with about 2500 sf of living space.  Hmmm, I'm thinking my Engineering friends would go pale if asked to do the calculations on that heating load.  So, it's probably a miracle that it has kept us this warm for this long.
And, I am so glad that the repair-guy could find a part to repair it at all, and really thankful that the whole saga added up to a little under $1000 when all was added up.  It could have been so much more.
So, we'll be taking as much advantage of those Insulation Tax Credits as possible.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.........

I think I missed this last November on Energy Steps to Take for a Less Pricey Winter, but we were doing all these things anyway.
The tax credits for insulation and the like.  Still dreaming about the solar electric system and the geothermal pump.........
Shopping around for cheaper energy sources?  Well, out here, there's generally only one, maybe two, propane suppliers in any one area.  And there's only one choice in Electric Providers for any one location.  Competition has not reached the hinterlands.

There's a link to Michael Bluejay's guide to Saving Electricity.  He's really got some good information going on here.
(Beige Recyclables note:  just let it slide that he also wants us to become vegetarians and drive less - he means well).

Using a Space Heater can be tricky.  Every year, somebody's house burns down because the space heater started a fire.  A space heater will allow you to turn down the thermostat on your household system so you save energy, with a few disclaimers:
Putting a space heater near the thermostat and also turning the thermostat down will make the temperature in the other rooms a LOT Lower than you might have intended.
Lowering the thermostat so far that heat doesn't get to rooms or spaces with plumbing may lead to pipes freezing.  That can be counter-productive to your budget.  The reliable Beige Recyclable Technology, Heat Tape, comes into play here too.  Don't forget to plug your heat tape in every fall after you check for damage and wear.  Remember that pets and wildlife sometimes like to chew on the wiring if they can get to it.  Once again, living in an old house, mobile home, or other alternative shelter does have it's special charms.

And that brings me to the Miraculous Amish Fireplace scam.  but, that's enough for today.......