Every year, my mother sends our horses to a heated farm to spend the winter.
It us just to cold, this farm north, for them to go without heat but our barn is not heated. It costs a lot of money to board the horses, for the winter months, away from home. I am trying to convince my mom to use that money to heat our own barn this year but she is worried about the dangers of starting a fire with all the hay and other combustible material in our barn. She also has concerns about the electric bill because a horse barn cannot be closed up tight. There must be ventilation even in the coldest winters or the horses will get sick. I still feel that these are all issues we can research and, with the help of an HVAC technician, work through. In a year or two, the heating system will have paid for itself. We might even be able to lay most of the ductwork ourselves and save a lot of money. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but if I can get Mom to agree to the heater, I’m going to try and convince her to get a whole heater and air conditioner combination so the horses will be comfortable in the summer too. I don’t imagine it would cost that much more to get a whole HVAC system rather than just a furnace. Still, first things first. I think I will have better luck talking her into a heater than trying to talk her into a whole heating and cooling system right now.