I think you should have gone with a wood stove, your garage is ideal for that,brick walls, small size, and no insulation up top. I have 25'x22'x8' garage with only insulated walls and lots draft from my big garage door. I use 30"x17"x20" wood stove and within 40 mins I can work very comfi and it gets better as time passes. I installed my chimney by myself and found it very easy to do if you are handy with a miter or skill saw and own a drill. It was my first installation and hardly any challange to it. I wouldn't consider any other type of heating in my garage. Used wood stoves are cheap and easy to find.You don't need to spend more than a 100-150 for a good used one. The chimney, you buy as a kit ,which will give eveything you need to install it up to code. The most important part is building a frame for the chimney support. The rest is just putting stuff together. The basics of operating "safely" a wood stove is something you learn in a week and in time you will get better and become real good at it. You should install a damper in your stove pipe, for better use of the heat produced by the stove and a fan behind the stove will help you alot. If you or anyone else need more info just ask. Vic

> The generator is powered by propane? Yes. > You need to see what the KW pull is for a heat pump. At the moment with existing setup, what else does your generator power during an outage? Generator powers nearly everything. (The only things not on the generator are the septic enhanced treatment pumps, the pool equipment, and the hot tub.) > Based on your location/climate, a heat pump would be a logical choice for heating versus propane heating. The last few days have been fairly typical for the "cold" part of the year. In the last 72 hours, minimum temp 35, average temp 41. > Can you be a little more specific on how your tiered electric rate works? Without heating or cooling, what is a good average of KWH usage each month for your home? It is the PG&E E-6 rate plan. http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf This past month our net usage was 28.4 kWh/day, but during the summer we generate more than we use. > How large is your home? 2400 square feet. > Have you thought of a dual fuel system? Possibly an 80% eff two stg furnace that could be used for those rare cold snaps and power outages?The backup furnace would eliminate the need for aux heat from heat strips. That's what I'm thinking now. Definitely solves the power outage problem, though the woodstove does that nearly as well. Seems like a low or moderate efficiency furnace is about the same price as a standalone air handler anyway. > How would you characterize the insulation qualities of your home? Home was built in 1972, parts remodelled in 1980 or so... so not the greatest insulation, but we have installed double-pane windows everywhere and upgraded the insulation in some areas. > Ductwork has been inspected? Any hot cold spots in your home? Ductwork will be overhauled at the same time we install the new system. No particular hot or cold spots now though.

Texas Gem, there's nothing wrong with choosing the flames. :) Amck, if you want the look of an impressive range anchoring your kitchen, but with a sleek, new induction cooktop, you can install it over drawers, or any kind of cabinet that will give you the correct air channel for cooling, and bump them out a couple of inches to give them prominence. Then, paint, stain, leaf or clad the stove base to make its statement and find cool hardware to complement the look. Add feet in the toekick to finish out the picture. It won't look like a range, per se (or at least not without being hopelessly kitsch), but it'll highlight the importance to the kitchen of the cooking area, and add some pizzazz. If you have an oven below your cooktop, add some tall side storage, and a shallow drawer under, for trays and racks, and dress as above. RE NOISE: There are high pitched tones that some induction cooktops make that only kids can hear (and the occasional outlier adult who is highly atypical in not losing that range of hearing with maturity). Additionally, there can be perfectly audible buzzes, thrums and clicks. These noises vary with the pan, the contents and the power level, so it's possible to have a unit that does it and never know for the first five years. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in general, the massier the pan and the denser the food, the less you'll hear. Boiling water in a thin pan will often reveal them. Sometimes clicks come from inductors turning on and off at lower settings and are unavoidable. The audible to kids only sounds are usually persistent. If old fashioned fluorescent tube lighting always drives you buggy, then the sounds of induction might not be for you, especially if you have a quiet kitchen in a quiet house in a quiet neighborhood. If you're thinking "Huh? What noise from the lights?" you probably won't hear it. If the noise from the fluorescents is something you hear but doesn't bug you, the same will probably be true with induction. When in doubt, turn on the hood and some music. :)

Dinalo, That is the one idea that seems the most usable if we stick with the freestanding. I am going to play with it a little bit and see if I like the look. live-wire-oak, we are buying a new range anyway, but the comparable slide-in is more than double the cost of the freestanding I like. I have not looked at the layout page here to see what is needed, but I did post a link to a basic drawing of our space in an earlier message and our wall lengths in another. We went back and forth a lot about whether or not to change the layout, but we like how much it will open up our space and believe it will make the kitchen a selling point when that time comes. The problem is that I didnt realize the issue with the range and did not plan to spend that much on one appliance. It wont bankrupt us, but it might bite into other things we were going to do if we end up getting the slide-in.