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My Grandparents summer home at Harvey's Lake PA is still in the family and used as a summer place. The 50 year old Lennox oil furnace needs to be replaced. The heat exchanger is finally rusting out. Hoping it makes it one more winter. We have traditionally set the thermostat at 40 degrees for the winter, after draining and winterizing the pipes, of course. Half the family wants to simply turn the heat off in winter. The other half wants a new heating system. When my grand parents used it as a summer place, it had a coal furnace and the heat was off all winter. What would be the ideal system to install? Cost of installation vs. operation. It is, very infrequently, used for long weekends during the winter. No natural gas available even though they FRACK it nearby

Why not do just that??? Drain your pipes & shut it down for the winter--does it get used in the winter???? I'd bet it would be used LESS frequently in the winter if there was no heat.

Roger that Fred! The side of the family which doesn't know which end of a hammer to use wants a new oil furnace. My side of the family is worried about the 50 year old twin oil tanks in the basement rusting out and draining into the floor drains which go,.....you get the idea I'm leaning towards a heat pump with electric back up or simply an electric furnace. Either shut the heat off or get a low temp thermostat and set it for 35. The other side of the family is concerned the plaster will crack if the heat is off. Being reminded that it survived decades with no winter heat doesn't sway them. It does need heat for spring and fall occupancy. Probably a 1500 square foot Cape Cod with no insulation and single pane windows. It's 80 plus years old.

Hell, for fall/spring I'd just get a lil chubby or even a, SORRY, lil wood stove. I picked up a couple horses at Harvey's Lake--pretty area:)

If it was only me, coal it would be. However, I'm fond of the place and wouldn't want the other side of the family anywhere near a coal stove the house has a nice wood burning fireplace and more free wood than we can burn. It just could never heat the whole house. Most likely, oil it will be. I'll just insist on a new super tough oil tank.

Drain the pipes, put the red RV antifreeze in all the drains and toilets so they don't brake the traps, and call it done. You really didn't want them in there anyway.

you're absolutely correct! I'd love to do an experiment. I once went up for a winter weekend to check the place and found the furnace had broken down. It had been bitterly cold outside. Below zero temps. A 2 liter bottle of soda froze and exploded in the house. Temp inside was 10 when I got there. I went down to the basement to see what was up with the furnace and noticed water bottles in the basement had not frozen and the temp was about 45. Poured concrete foundation and floors. Always cool in the summer time. I wonder if we simply circulated the air from the basement into the house it would stay above freezing up stairs? Probably not, but I'll never know unless I try it some day. I did get the furnace running. Bad ignition transformer. The furnace ran for 24 hrs straight trying to get the house and it's contents up to temperature. I didn't have an extra transformer and the service guy couldn't get there until the next day. I crumpled up some newspaper, lit it, shoved it in the burner inspection port and hit the reset button. Fired right up and never went out until the service guy got there. Old trick I learned in burner school. Do not try this at home!

Would not circulate basement air to upstairs...may not be good for foundation walls to go lower in temp...frost.

With todays Smart technology, heating can be brought on or ramped up some hours before anticipated arrival time via remote controls.

I wonder if we could tap the lake for geothermal??? I'm sure the paperwork can't be that bad!

Carbon12 wrote:I wonder if we could tap the lake for geothermal??? I'm sure the paperwork can't be that bad!

I sure would...then just have to suffer through the summer with air conditioning...sigh.

I guess I could look into that. I'm sure the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania probably would object, however. We do have a well and plenty of unused yard. Could use those for the geothermal system but the payback time frame for a mostly unoccupied structure would be,.....never.

Maybe I could put an air source heat pump compressor in the basement. I've heard it's theoretically possible

"PUMP and DUMP"
Could that water well sustain long duration pumping cycles?
You're right, if not done for "cheap"...payback is not going to look too good. A/C sure is nice.

Absolutely. Back in the day, my grandfather had a 1 inch pipe buried a hundred yards along the edge of the property with spigots every so often. Just in case the forest caught fire, allegedly. Frost and the years have fractured the pipe. If you turn the water on a geyser erupts at the edge of the yard. The well and pump can maintain that indefinitely as far as I know. We used to turn it on for hours on end as kids and run through the plume of water and build dams in the channel the runoff would create. The salamanders liked it

Family partnership don't ever seem to work. Buy them out.

Regarding your rusting oil tanks in the basement. If they do leak and that fuel oil ends up in the lake, you and your family will not have enough money to pay the fines, the clean-up and the lawsuits from all the property owners on the lake. Check your insurance policy. I'll guarantee you that you have no coverage. DRAIN THEM OUT NOW!