Outdoor boiler is wood fired and keeps the house warm in the winter with very little use of propane. Click the image for a larger view.

This home is heated with a radiant floor system which provides quiet, clean heating throughout the whole house and garage. The domestic hot water is heated with the same boiler as the floor system. It uses one of the heating zones to operate a heat exchanger inside the 80 gallon hot water container. This particular zone is given priority over all other zones, so water is heated first. The primary heating system described here is powered by propane and is located in a dedicated boiler room between the kitchen and the garage.

Located outside, between the house and the wood shop is a wood fired boiler that augments the propane boiler. The way this works is that water is heated by wood fire outside, then pumped into the boiler room where it circulates through a heat exchanger that heats water returning from the floor and domestic water zones, and before it enters the main boiler. As long as the wood stove keeps the water above the point where the boiler will engage, no propane is used. The wood stove is set to heat water to 190 degrees F. When the water cools to about 120 degrees, the propane boiler inside will engage and continue heating the house.

Of course, the use of the outdoor wood boiler is entirely up to you. The house functions just fine without it, using only propane in the conventional manner.

There is no air conditioner in this home. It’s not needed. In the southern Rocky Mountains, simply opening a window for circulation is all that’s needed to keep things cool. A hot day here is 78 degrees F. Ironically, the winter months are usually milder than in the valley. The coldest temperature we’ve recorded in four years was -10 degrees F, while the valley often sees -30 degrees F several times in one winter season.

There are three ceiling fans in the great room, and one in each bedroom. Since the home’s construction in 2002, they have never been used.