They work on one or several types of solid fuel: peat, firewood, pellets, coal, briquettes, etc. The efficiency of such devices is about 80%; for pyrolysis and long-burning boilers, it can be about 85%. Significant disadvantages include “dirty” work with soot and ash, and the need to arrange a fuel storage facility.
The equipment burns a propane-butane mixture. It can be natural or liquefied gas. In the first case, it will be much cheaper, but is only available if the highway is close. For the liquefied mixture, you need to equip a special gas tank storage. At the same time, installation of the boiler and its connection requires permission, expensive design, and installation.
The coolant is heated using a heating element. It’s simple and fast, no complex equipment, installation permits, or connections are required. The efficiency is very high. The electric boiler operates silently and cleanly. But at the same time, it consumes expensive electricity. Heating, even with energy-saving models, is quite expensive for the owner.
Electric heaters are installed in each heated room. These can be radiators, convectors, or IR emitters. It is possible to connect any type of infrared or electric underfloor heating. It can be the main or additional source of heat. Electric heating is relatively easy to assemble and does not require special permits for connection.
Using solar panels or solar systems to heat the building. In the first case, batteries accumulate electricity, which powers electric radiators, convectors, boilers, etc. Solar systems immediately heat the coolant. In any case, the elements use the energy of the sun in their work, so they are installed only where there are many sunny days, or they are installed as additional heating.
An autonomous geothermal installation is used for heating. The principle of its operation is to extract heat from water or soil. They do it like this. The non-freezing liquid is supplied through a pipeline to a collector located deep in the soil or a reservoir. Here it heats up and moves to the heat pump. The equipment collects heat, cools the liquid, and then the process repeats. In this way, it is possible to heat the building all year round, since in the deep layers of the soil there is enough heat even in winter for the operation of a geothermal installation.