Why does your furnace require so much power? Is it an antique or something special? All electric, no fuel? We have a 1 1/2 year old oil
All-electric. And, according to a source, currently the _cheapest_ form of utility heating given 4.3c/kWH current rates. I figure about $200/month for heat in winter, or about 2x what it would be using a pellet stove instead. Firewood, of course, is even cheaper. We grow it on our property.
$700-$900/month range. Our boiler, installed was less than $2,000
Just over 2x what I have paid for the generator, which _could_ run it if I could magically somehow switch it over to 3-phase power for the outage. (The magic is in the switching and wiring, I know exactly how to do it inside the furnace. It has five big resistive elements, were I to add a sixth [there's room for eight] it would make up for dropping to 208V, and would be a perfectly balanced load. Anybody know of a source for a nice cheap 6PDT 25A knife switch?) Every time I ran the numbers my best bet has always been to find a surplus big honking generator and just live with its excesses. Even better is _two_, a small 24x7 efficiency unit for 110V circuits, and the big kahuna hooked to the furnace and started by the thermostat. I'm halfway there! (Modulo wiring and switching.) -- Jim