What we know about heating in Feilding
Burners first, heat pumps rising
Between the 2018 and 2023 Censuses, heat pump use in Manawatū District homes rose from 36.52% to 55.71%, while wood burners slipped from 61.51% to 57.78%. In 2023, 29.88% of homes also used an electric heater and 9.15% a fixed gas heater.
Not a gazetted airshed
Horizons Regional Council monitors air quality at the region's two gazetted airsheds, Taumarunui and Taihape. Its advice to burner owners is to install or upgrade to an Air Quality NES-compliant wood burner if possible.
Frosty mornings nearby
We don't have a Feilding weather station in our facts. Palmerston North, 20 kilometres south, averages 10.1 air frosts and 41.4 ground frosts a year (NIWA), and MBIE's H1/AS1 puts Manawatū District in climate zone 3, the same as the city.
A floodplain town
Feilding sits on the floodplain of a major river and flooded badly in February 2004; Horizons commissioned a new flood protection scheme in 2009. The town is 70 m above sea level.
The town and its council
Feilding had 16,929 residents in 6,534 dwellings in 2023, with a median age of 40.5. It's the seat of the Manawatū District Council, postcode 4702.
Adding a heat pump to a house with a burner
A burner heats one room hard and the rest of the house barely. A high-wall heat pump in the lounge gives steady heat on the evenings you don't want to light the fire, and cooling on a hot afternoon.
Size it for the room on its own, not as a top-up, so it can do the job if the burner goes. On the label EECA regulates, compare heating capacity at 2 degrees as well as 7.
If you want the burner's warmth in the bedrooms, a heat transfer system moves warm air from the lounge. BRANZ says those systems aren't heaters; they only move warm air to where it's needed.
What we'd do
Our advice for a Feilding home
We'd add a properly sized heat pump to the main living area and keep the burner for the coldest nights, if it's in good order. We'd put the outdoor unit on a north or west wall, which BRANZ says suits heating best, and clear of the bedrooms next door.