Well, no big surprise there – we never have had any! In fact THIS is (currently) our heating for the whole house ——>
Well, a stove and one very small baseboard heater. Both in a Sun Room that is not fully insulated…
And yet somehow this house is substantially warmer than our previous suburban house in North Vancouver – even when we get up in the morning and the stove has been out for hours!! This house – although it looks old – was built in 1994 and our North Van home in 1993. So far equal. I guess the major difference might be the number of windows (larger and more of them in North Van) and of course the house sizes… North Van was 3500 sq ft with a basement and this place is currently 700 sq ft (soon to be 1100 sq ft when we complete the two rooms in the extension).
Although living in 700 sq ft is a bit of a squeeze at the moment (mainly storage space/cupboards) I can't recommend a smaller house enough! It takes less than an hour for 2 people to clean top to bottom, it's cosy, warmer and obviously environmentally better as it uses less energy. And a small home really limits the amount of 'stuff' you can have…
Of course it's easy to recommend smaller having had the luxury of an enormous home for 4 years AND having no children.
But I am still flabbergasted at how WARM this house is. I used to wear 5+ layers, have the central heating on and a small heater pointed at my feet and was still cold! Now I wear 3-4 layers and yes, I use the small heater on my feet, but even though it's November sometimes we don't have ANY heat on during the day! I LOVE it!
And soon we'll have baseboard heaters in the finished rooms – just in time for when it gets REALLY cold!