When we bought our retirement home a few years back we really felt it was perfect.
- It is situated on the banks of a fishing stream and is a true retreat from the city life we were used to.
There are three bedrooms which is great because our children and their families love spending time up here when the grandkids are on break from school. Life is very simple for us. We only go to town a couple of times a week and we depend on natural resources for much of our lives. We have a pumphouse for water and heat the house with wood in our fireplace. We normally have 10 cord of wood delivered each year. It is already cut and split so we just have to stack it in the wood shed so that it is dry all winter. Over the past couple of years the wood has been harder to find and the price has skyrocketed. As we are both retired, we have to be able to plan our expenses for the year. When prices increase on an annual basis it can make other things difficult to afford. We sat down with a representative from a local HVAC dealer last week. Surprisingly, he told us that there were several options. The best one was an oil furnace. He explained that they could simply deliver the oil when needed and it would allow us the ability to budget better. We could still use the wood to supplement the furnace which would make the oil last longer. We decided that this was worth the investment and peace of mind. If the wood supplies continued to decline in our area, we would at least have a reliable source of heat. At our ages, this is a very important thing to have.