I stumbled across this company out of Santa Fe NM that specializes in localized warmth, and thought it might be of interest to folks.
Cozy Winters Home Page
They have
boot warmers, heated floor mats, under-rug radiant heating pads, heated clothing, heated pet beds, small radiant heating panels, heated desk pads, etc. They have an electric blanket with rechargeable battery pack; super friendly for
solar power since you can charge it during the day when the sun is out.
We are living in a tiny tent popup camper while building our house (this is our fourth winter!!) so we are looking for options to spot-heat in the home, and we figured we could try out different technologies in our little camper.
Just yesterday we received our 2x3 under rug radiant heating pad. We got a no-skid mildly insulating pad to go underneath, and already had a rug to go on top. It only uses 65 watts. Today I am doing computer work in the camper which is usually slow-chilling misery. The gently warm floor makes such a huge difference to my well-being! The propane heater is off (sun is out) and the air is cool and fresh, but I am comfortable. Last evening in the twenties we did have the propane on but could keep the thermostat much lower without getting too cold, which meant much less of the dry-air-propane blast that we usually suffer.
In our house, our hope is that passive
solar will keep things moderate. We know that there will be times when we do want more warmth, at least locally. If we blew it on the passive
solar and need loads more heat we will add a
wood stove. We've heard from others with similar houses in a similar climate that they only use their
wood stove a couple times a year, though. So we would rather do without, if possible (and instead invest that effort into an outdoor
RMH butt heater bench eventually). We are thinking under-rug radiant pads and a couple overhead low infrared heating panels might be a good supplement in our evening hangout nooks, if the passive solar is working decently.
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