Heating Montana Homes
Across western Montana, furnaces usually begin to rumble and kick out the first heat of the year around early October (sometimes as early as September!)
And although it’s certainly becoming more changeable, here in Montana we can have long and cold winters. Which begs the question: how will you choose to heat your home? Because you’ll be using your heating system for six or seven months a year, it’s critical to think about cost and maintenance alongside the look and feel you’re looking to achieve.
Nostalgic, but not practical: Wood-fired heat
Oftentimes, when people think of a home in Montana, an image of a log cabin set in the woods with a lazy curl of smoke ascending from the chimney comes to mind. And yes, while woodstoves and cords of firewood were commonplace for decades, it’s not so much the case these days.
For starters, here in the Missoula Valley, the town is ringed by mountains, meaning that especially in winter, the air has a tendency to settle on the valley floor in what’s locally referred to as an “inversion.” So, if there’s a lot of woodsmoke being generated by households, the smoke will settle in and make the air quality poor. In fact, in the 1970’s, the air quality was so bad that in 1981 the City of Missoula established an Air Stagnation Zone, meaning that no new construction could include wood-fired stoves. For this reason, coupled with their inefficiency and general messiness, you’ll likely want to find another heat source.
A breath of fresh air
The most common option (and our recommended option) for heating a home in western Montana is forced air heating. Forced air includes having a furnace installed in your home with an air handler attached. The furnace heats the air, while the air handler blows it through a duct system throughout your home and into each room.
Forced air systems help avoid the air stagnation that can come with other types of heat sources. Another big benefit is that while the air ducts transport heat during the winter, they can also be used in the summertime to force cool air into the rooms of the home, provided you also attach an air conditioning unit. Even better, you can attach an air filter or even a humidifier to your air handler, helping to clean and combat dry as it circulates through your home.
Forced air systems also can utilize an air source heat pump. This unit looks like a larger air conditioner compressor and also sits outside the house. Unlike AC, it cools and heats, and does both much more efficiently than either a natural gas furnace or a conventional air conditioner can.
In addition, homes are so well insulated these days that air circulation becomes paramount. For this reason, we usually attach what’s called a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) to a furnace in a forced air system. An HRV will take air out of the system, blow it outside, and then bring in fresh air into the furnace for circulation.
Warm and cozy: Radiant heat
Another popular option for home heating systems in western Montana is radiant heat. Generally, the radiant heat source is in the flooring or in a baseboard unit, where heating elements warm and distribute heat, which then passes upward into the room. This can be especially nice if you suffer from cold feet–– having a warm floor can feel incredible.
Having warm floors in your home is certainly cozy, but if you go with radiant heating remember that you’ll still want to have a duct system and/or an HRV to circulate the air throughout the home so it doesn’t become stagnant. Still, radiant heating is a popular option because it generally requires less energy and is a quiet system, unlike forced air.
A note on gas stoves
While often seen in advertisements or home magazines, gas stoves aren’t generally a viable option unless you’re planning to build a one-bedroom home. Yes, they are pleasant to look at and do put out heat, but you’d need to have multiple gas stoves running in several rooms in the house if you wanted to make gas stoves your sole source of heat. That being said, adding one to a sitting room or master bedroom can add a lot of cozy ambiance.
Unless you have your heart set on a certain type of aesthetic, you’ll likely want to select either forced air heat or radiant heat. Both systems require little maintenance and create a warm and inviting atmosphere in your home.