We just went thru this process. First we had an architect, who worked with our 1st builder. No contract, but price was $1/ sq foot. Not heated square foot but everything, porches, garage, etc. It ended up that the total price would be somewhere around 7-8k. Did good work, fancy details but no consideration for budget of finished product. Had falling out with builder (thankfully before we signed a contract) and fired the architect. Ended up paying about 500 for the prelim drawings. Then found another builder who worked with a designer and an engineer. Designer took the prelim floorplans, cut back on square footage and extras and sent CAD drawings to engineer for stamp.. Designer charged 700 for finished product. Engineer charged 300 just for the stamp. So 1k for everything. I personally would not do % of finished project price unless the architect planned to be at your site to monitor framing, etc and put out fires before they start. The more the project ends up costing you, the more they get paid. I prefer paying for the work that is done... But I guess this depends on your budget and what type of house you plan to build.

I have the Harman SF-260 which is a stand alone wood/coal boiler. http://www.harmanstoves.com/callouts.asp?id=32 I have it installed in line with my oil boiler. It takes some tinkering with the temperature settings to get it to the point where the Harman unit keeps the water temps hot enough so that the oil burner does not kick on. I now burn mostly wood, and it will go 8 hrs on a full load of wood, but keep in mind that the firebox is huge. It would abe best to have access to wood cheap or for free. When burning coal, I use the "stove" coal, about the size of a fist, and load it 3 times/day. I am going on 7 years with the unit and have been very satisfied. It heats almost 3000 sq feet. I use more oil in the summer heating my hot water... I estimate that it paid for itself after 2 years, even when I was paying for coal for part of the winter (about 4 tons). Joel

We live in MD, in the DC/Baltimore suburbs although it's pretty rural out here (horse farm across the street, state park south of us). When we built 12 years ago our choices were electric heat pump or oil...there is no gas piped out here. A heat pump heated our townhouse b/f we built and I hated it b/c it took so long to warm up the house and if I wanted a "quick fix" I couldn't stand over the register to warm up quickly! I grew up with natural gas so I am used to HOT air coming out of registers and oil gives me that, as well as the "quick fix" to warm up quickly...and to dry mittens and boots :-) We have a maintenance contract to have them come twice a year...in late summer to service the furnace and late winter to service the A/C. We also have automatic oil delivery and, as far as I know, we still have a "budget plan" with fixed payments throughout the year. Although, since oil has risen so much lately, we actually voluntarily raised our monthly payment so we wouldn't owe a lot at the end of the season. We haven't had an oil delivery lately so I don't know how much it is now...but I'm sure it's quite high...they're forecasting a big jump in home heating oil prices this winter. We're actually considering getting a pellet stove to supplement the heat so we don't use so much oil...but I haven't looked into it too deeply yet to see if it's actually worth it. Besides, the kitchen remodel comes first! When the oil is delivered, the tanker connects to a pipe on the outside of our house that feeds into the 250 gallon tank in our basement. HTH!

I'm not sure what the question is, but your logic is right. With fossil fuel prices on the rise (and electric rates too for that matter), heat pumps still remain an economical choice for heating and cooling. Can you post the utility rates for your area? Others can advise you on which would be the best choice given the rates, but most likely a heat pump would be...