Fall is here, and winter is coming soon. It's already starting to get cold here in sourthern Norway, and so it's time to start thinking about heating. But what to choose? Right now the power prices are getting ridiculously high, oil prices are already ridiculously high, and wood just doesn't work too well for me.

 

Let me elaborate.

 

Two years ago I was using oil heating. That gave a steady temperature most of the time as long as it wasn't getting too cold. But it was too much work. I don't have a pipeline connected between the oil barrel and the burner, so every morning I have to stumble around in the garage to fetch a bucketfull. And if I "forget", the burner sucks itself dry, pulls mud into the pipes and gets all clogged up. Actually, I was going to get a pipe connected outside and have a large oil container that I would fill only once a year rather that every month, but then the oil prices went crazy, so I decided against it. It was already expensive enough.

 

So last year I went with wood. It's a lot cheaper. I got a truckload dumped in my garage and spent a few days piling it up nicely against the wall. (Well, at first, then it kind of became a heap of logs in the corner). But being at work all day with no one at home to keep the fire going, we were coming home to a freezing house. Every day I had to go fetch wood in the garage and get the fire lit. Even though I kept shoving in more wood I just couldn't get the house warm, until bedtime. And then in the morning it was cold again. So I ended up relying on electric heaters mostly, and still I couldn't really keep the heat up on the colder days.

 

This year I'm investing in a heat pump. It's like an air conditioner, put in reverse. Taking heat from the outside and transferring it indoors. (This is my contribution to reduce global warming.) They tell me it's more efficient that electric heaters, and can stay on all day, giving a steady temperature. And it even filters the air, with ions and stuff. I will have to use additional heating if it drops below -15'C or so. But that's ok. It's not that many days we get to those temperatures. And also the convenience of not having to go fetch anything is a huge plus. I want to get warm from the heater itself, not from the work of getting the heater going.