Well, we're taking the plunge--we just ordered a pellet stove

[LostinVA]

We're going 100% oil-less this winter. The water heater is electric and we're having the oil tank removed (it's above ground in the crawl space).

Who the hell can afford to heat the house when heating over is almost $3.50 a gallon??? I'd love a geothermal system, but it's 10 times what the stove will cost.

To hell with Big Oil!!!

[tismyself]

1. keep us posted

I LOVE those stoves - I hope you'll post about it from time to time.

Geothermal is a costly retrofit.

[LostinVA]

4. We got a multifuel one, EPA certified

So, it's energy efficient and can burn wood pellet, corn, cherry pits, etc. We can get a ton of wood pellets for about $275. Our house issmall, and we'll used to being cold!

[harmonicon]

42. cool, answered my question right there

I wondered if the increasing cost of corn had made pellet stoves unrealistic, but I'm glad to know there are alternatives.

My brother's house is heated with a wood stove (probably the same that was put in when the house was built in the 40's), and loves it. It sure kicks out the heat, and he claims that it's cheaper than using electric or gas.

[lost-in-nj]

2. OMG $3.50!!!!!!

Before we went to gas I FREAKED when it was $1.99!!!!
the oil heated the house and the water
now we have a wood burning stove down stairs
and the heat is only at 69 up stairs
water is gas to

I hope your pellet stove works for you....

and a geothermal would REALLY be awesome...

blankies and sweats this year I'm afraid

:hi:

how are you two???
haven't talked in ages......

:hug:


lost

[LostinVA]

3. Last winter, it got really close to $4.00 a gallon

We were spending over $100 a week on heat and hot water and almost freezing -- seriously. We would sit in the LR watching TV dressed in flannel pants, wool socks, sweaters, fleecies, hats, etc. -- covered by a down throw. It sucked. There's NO WAY we'll be as cold this year.

[LeftyMom]

32. That's insane. I could never live in a cold climate.

My heating bill (natural gas) runs maybe $30/mo, if it's real cold (by California standards, anyhow, which would be right around freezing in the dead of night at worst.)

Luckily, my place is fairly newish (and recently remodeled) and utilities out here are crazy cheap. I haven't had a electric bill hit $50/mo yet, even in air conditioning season. And I'm doing some pilot program with SMUD leasing some panels on their solar farm, so that might even go down a bit.

Since we had that freak storm last year and there were down trees everyplace, firewood went down to almost nothing, so since I have a fireplace I shouldn't have to run the gas heat much at all.

[LostinVA]

34. I think I may hate you now

Even though I'm STILL chuckling over your "Alabama on the Allegheny" quip.

If same sex marriage was legal in other places, I'd be living someplace warmer, although it has to "have seasons," as per the wife. :eyes:

[LeftyMom]

38. We have seasons. Summer and Flood.

They actually get real winter with snow and stuff up in the mountains east of me. We just get wind and rain. The bay area has pretty much no seasons though- it's like 60-70 pretty much year round.

[LostinVA]

39. I'd LOVE to live someplace like that!

[InternalDialogue]

5. Awesome! Congrats on the switch.

I've been heating my own house (small) with a pellet stove for about four years. I went one year with both the stove and my gas heater before shutting off the heater and using pellets only. It's more than enough to heat my main room, my kitchen, and my loft (directly above the main room). My only cold spots are a back bedroom I don't use and my bathroom, although the stove would be enough to heat those if I just ran it on its highest setting and used some fans to direct the heat into those rooms.

I was getting scared that pellets were going to rise in price so much that I'd lose some of the economic benefit of using it (they were $180 a ton when I bought the stove, up to about $300 a ton now -- for the pellets I really like). But I learned this week that, because of the big beetle-killed pines in the Rockies, there's a plant in the state that has started making pellets out of them. Their price is $219 a ton, which is about $20 less than I paid last year.

Again, good luck with the stove. Nothing like a warm fire in a room that beats central heat -- and like you said, there's nothing like telling the oil companies to take a hike.

[lizziegrace]

8. how many tons do you use a season?

And how do you store it?

:hi:


I wish I could own my own place. Most landlords won't a tenant to use a fireplace even if it works.

[InternalDialogue]

19. Hey, lizzie!

I use between one and a half and two tons, depending completely on the weather.

On a really cold day (below 20 degrees, say), I'll burn one bag. That keeps my house at about 68 or 70 degrees. I let it get down to 60 overnight, since that's good sleeping temp for me.

On a moderate day (above freezing) I'll burn just half a bag, or even less. A lot of it depends on if the sun's out and if I can open my front door to allow the collected south-facing porch heat to radiate into the front entry.

I can keep ten bags' worth in my backyard in two garbage bins, and I can put another twelve bags under my stairs. The rest I keep at my folks' barn down in Littleton. If I work it right, I only need to run out for more pellets from them twice a winter.

How's the job search going?

:hug:

[lizziegrace]

21. Sounds good. I heated with oil last winter and froze.

I burned 295 gallons the entire season. I hung plastic shower curtains over doorways and used sealed radiator-style electric heaters in my room and the living room. The rest of the house stayed very, very cold. My electric mattress pad was the best $50 I'd ever spent. The cats agreed.

Job search isn't good. The economy, election and credit crunch have pretty much combined for the perfect storm. Companies are shutting down all over and hiring freezes are the rule now. I can make it until mid-October, then it's over. Bad thing is, I won't even have the money to move my furniture out. I'll have to leave it and everything else. It very well could be just me, the cats and whatever will fit in my car. At least no one can say I didn't try...

[InternalDialogue]

27. :frown:

I'm really sorry to hear a job didn't land for you. I thought you had made such a courageous and smart move, it had to work out. Maybe there's still a miracle to come this fall.

I hope even without the work you're holding together OK. I always remind myself that the problems that seem to worry me the most are the ones having to do with the society we all sort of helped build and buy into. The real parts of life -- the parts that don't have anything to do with money or politics or work -- are always there, and even if they're fleeting, they're real and they're what really matters. I keep a little bit more of my sanity when I remember that I'm always batting 1.000 in the parts of life that matter, even when the rest isn't working out so well...

[lizziegrace]

37. I have a lot to be grateful for

and I am. Every day. But winter's coming and I have no idea how I'm going to survive it.

[Sequoia]

56. We were looking at a place two years ago

and the dorky landlord was pulling out the wood-burning stove. He acted like his place was tops but the mildew, sagging window sashes and the stove going out the door disgusted me. I could tell he'd be the landlord from hell. Those types who act like they're doing you a favor by renting to people who can't afford to buy a house.

[LostinVA]

10. Oh, your post makes me so happy -- thanks!

Our house is small, too, and we figure we'll buy a doorway fan for what we suspect will be teh cold spot: a back bedroom with no plumbing.

Any trouble with your pipes? That'smy only worry. We have a crawl space,and most of the pipes are under thre, except for one wall in both the kitchen and bathroom.

[InternalDialogue]

20. I haven't had trouble with the pipes yet.

Mine are about 80 percent in a half-basement, and the rest run through my crawl space.

Turning off the forced-air heater meant that the basement wouldn't be kept around 60 degrees, just from having it on during the winter. But it turns out it stays in the 50s anyway, without the heater. (By the way, I also got rid of my hot water heater and replaced it with a tankless, which also provided a lot of heat down there.)

I did take the precaution of wrapping all my exposed water pipes with insulating sleeves. I don't think they'd have frozen anyway, but I wanted to make sure.

So far, so good (and there have been some frigid days here over the past few years).

[LostinVA]

23. Great -- thanks

We're planning to wrap the pipes in the sleeves, and spray foam around the foundation inside the crawl to keep the draft out as much as possible. The pipes are the only thing I'm worried about, since the boiler does keep the crawl from being freezing.


Our water heater is brand new, but we're going tankless when it goes.

[Debi]

6. Yea! hope it works for you -

when it came time to replace our furnace we wanted to get a geothermal but the cost was 3x a regular H/C unit x( SO wish we would've had the cash to do it (especially with this winter coming up and our windows STILL not replaced with no promise until after winter starts).

:hug: How're you sweetie?

[LostinVA]

12. I would LOVE the geothermal, too

Maybe in a few years. Our windows are old, too. EEK!

Fine, except I'm afraid Haruka may be getting too old for me. She'll be 26 in a few months.

[Debi]

22. Throw her to the wolves and hit the high schools baby!

:rofl:

[LostinVA]

24. Community colleges -- I don't want to be arrested

She just called you a bad word.

[Debi]

48. Heh heh

give her a hug for me and tell her I deserve it!

[cwydro]

7. Either I am completely out of touch

or have lived in the tropics for too long (or both), but I have no idea what a pellet stove is.

I had a wood stove back in the day in the NC mountains.:shrug:

[Patiod]

9. I didn't hear of them until last week

when there was a news story on the Maine radio station that there was a pellet fuel shortage, because people are hoarding pellets. All I could think of was gerbils

[cwydro]

11. So what kind of pellets are they, lol?

I was thinking rabbit!:rofl:

[LostinVA]

13. Usually wood or corn, although cherry and olive pits can also be used in some stoves

[cwydro]

16. That is really cool.

I'm going to have to go google that. Is it expensive?

And good on ya for going that route, btw.

[LostinVA]

25. It's not cheap, but it's still cheaper than oil

We went through over 500 gallons last winter and we FROZE.

We got a really, really good deal, too.

[cwydro]

28. Plus, you're not putting money in the pockets of assholes.

I'm gonna let my dad know about this. He would be fascinated, I think, and we need something new like that out at the farm (his retirement project).

Is there a website or anything?

Can Haruka power her SUV with these pellets???;-)

[LostinVA]

29. BINGO -- I hate giving them one cent

Someone at work was like,"What if it breaks? You won't have an oil tank." Furnaces break, too -- ours did last year.

There are a bunch of different companies that sell them. The best prices we've found are at Northern Tool & Equipment. Home Depot has a few, too.

Ha! She has a Saab now. I have a diesel car, so I almost could!

[cwydro]

30. A Saab?!

Well, I'll be!!

Unfortunately I still have a gas-guzzling pick-up. Paid for though.

But I do ride my bike most everywhere.

[LostinVA]

31. Thank god both our cars are paid for

[old mark]

63. They are made from sawdust from sawmills and wood processing factories

compressed and mixed with some type of wax, actually recycled material.
They are very clean burning, very efficient, and easy to store and use.

If our estimates are close to right, our installation will pay for itself in about 3 winters. We use gas now, and it is just beginning to get out of hand.

Prices of the stoves are going up, but we have a new pellet making plant nearby and they will be no problem to get, and not as expensive as they were.

mark

[sasquatch]

14. I used to try and hustle them when I worked at TSC

:hi:

[LostinVA]

15. We checked out TSC, but we got a better deal online, even with the shipping!

Do TSCs carry burlap dog beds, btw.

[sasquatch]

43. They did when I worked there

[LostinVA]

45. Thanks -- we want one for Mick's "lair"

It's the toolshed out back. He likes to lay in there and survey his domain... or take naps.

[Connonym]

17. I'd love to do that

I get scared living in WI with the thought that if something happened to the natural gas supply we'd be totally screwed. I remember one winter when my daughter was an infant it was so cold that the furnace never shut off and it was still too cold for the baby. We kept a constant fire going in the fireplace and we all slept in there at night. House I'm in now doesn't even have a fireplace. It really makes you scared to think how dependent we are on modern conveniences and dangerous it could be if someone sabotaged the system.

[SallyMander]

18. So cool!

I have a colleague who has a corn-burning stove -- is this the same thing? It works great and makes the house super cozy!

[LostinVA]

26. Yes, it's the same thing

[cwydro]

33. Well, keep us posted on

how it works out through the winter.

I am very interested in this.

I live in a hot place now, but eventually I'll be back farther north.

[LostinVA]

35. I definitely will -- I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out!

[1]

36. i've been heating with a pellet stove since 2003...

and i've been hearing that the price of pellets would skyrocket from the beginning. it hasn't happened over the last five years (knock on a pellet.) i was paying $130-140 a ton in 2003, the last ton i bought was $170. and i'm lucky that there are two or three local pellet manufacturers which i'm sure keeps the costs down.)

there are differences in the pellets and differences in their prices. some burn hot and fast, some burn lower and slower. most places around here (sw missouri) let you buy them by the bag (40lbs) so you can experiment a bit before you commit to tonnage. buy your pellets early (late summer/fall) and you can get great prices.

in the beginning i would go through a ton and a half, up to two ton per winter. which was reasonable. but over the last two years i have not gone over one ton a winter. the conditions have been similar if not colder lately.

the two biggest things i learned to cut back on pellet consumption were flame/air control and when to fire the stove up.

my stove (an enviro fire ef-3 fireplace insert) has adjustments for the pellet flow into the firebox and air flow to the firebox (and a fan control to push the heat generated.) the trick/art to the burn is the balance between the pellet/air flow. when you get the mix perfect you are grabbing every btu from the burn. you will eventually see it in the flame being produced. initially you will know it when very little ash is left behind because you are efficiently burning. (and in my case, with a glass front, there is also very little "black buildup" on the glass after burning each day.)

you'll pick up on it pretty quick. you'll look at the firebox and know you've got it right.

the other thing was when to fire up the stove. i pretty much turn the stove off each night (the cabin is well insulated and it will hold heat well unless we get below 10-15 degrees) and i rely on a heated mattress pad to keep me warm during sleep (i love that thing too.) days here can be sunny and i get a lot of heat from sun through the windows. what i learned was to fire up the stove at a very low pellet flow earlier than i thought would be necessary. if i waited for the cabin to get cold i would have to burn the stove pretty hot to get the indoor temp comfortable. lots of pellets to do that. if i catch the temp on the down side and burn the stove low early, i equalize the downward temp toward the upward and increase the stove heat output as necessary. i don't even know if this paragraph makes any sense to anyone but me, but it saved me tons of pellets.


i hope you find some of the above useful. i think you will be amazed how efficient these things are. i know i was...

[LostinVA]

41. Thanks for your post

It's definitely useful.

[Jamastiene]

40. Bookmarking.

I've been looking at all kinds of alternative heating sources. I saw a thread about the wall panels you can buy and didn't like the fact that you still needed electricity to operate them. I want something that doesn't need electricity. We don't have a fireplace and I'm too lazy to chop wood for a wood burning stove or fireplace anyhow, so this might be something to look into.

We have to coax our electric heat as it is now. It is on its last legs and I don't have $4000 to replace the system. My sleeping bag is good to 20 degrees, which is fine with me, but I don't want the pipes to bust and my aunt gets cold so easy. So, in search of heat I go.

[tedoll78]

44. Neat thread.

I'm soon building my retirement home in southern Mississippi, and I'm 99% convinced that central heating isn't necessary in such a climate. The house will be on 20 acres of forest, so naturally I'm looking at a wood stove/fireplace combo.. but I might have to look at pellet heat. Thanks!

[LostinVA]

46. I bet you don't need central heat down there -- just central AC

[Rosie1223]

47. Be sure to contact your insurance agent before you install

You will need extra coverage for a wood-burning furnace as your primary source of heat and they will want a certified installer or an inspection after it is in. You want to be covered just in case.

[LostinVA]

50. I was informed a pellet stove is not considered a wood-burning stove/furnace

[Rosie1223]

53. Oh, good for you!

We decided against installing a corn-burner because our insurance agent told us our homeowners rates would go up and we would have to have it professionally installed or they would drop our policy entirely. After crunching the numbers we saw it wouldn't pay for itself anytime soon (but we have LP heat, not fuel oil like you).

Enjoy your new stove!

[Fire Walk With Me]

49. You stove-cook your pellets?

You must absolutely adore your hamster! :)

[Gormy Cuss]

51. Good luck!

My relatives love theirs. They replaced a wood stove and electric baseboards and for them it was not only cheaper but easier.

[flvegan]

52. What does "heat the house" mean?

:popcorn:

[LostinVA]

57. I hate you

[Tommy_Carcetti]

54. Wait....what type of "pellets" are we talking about here?

Help me out, I live in Florida so the heating thing is a little foriegn to me.

[LostinVA]

58. Wood and/or corn

[Tommy_Carcetti]

61. Phew. I was worried it involved....other...type of pellets.

In which case, I would not care to be your neighbor downwind.

[Sequoia]

55. Can you burn regular wood also?

When we burn oak the house becomes quite hot, but we burn those pressed logs you can chop into biscuits which isn't so messy. Get some wool sweaters while you're at it.

[lildreamer316]

59. Oh, how I wish I had that option. I don't know how we're going to afford oil this winter.

It was hard enough last year. We went without for several months.

The next house I move to is getting pellet stoves; for sure.

[radfringe]

60. we put up 10 cords of wood last month

last winter, my partner was home most of the time, (she was layed-off in September, couldn't find a new job until this april) - kept the woodstove going round the clock

had an oil delivery in Oct-2007, about 150 gallons, didn't need to order any more oil until end of Feb 2008, just got another 150 gallons - that took us well into July this year

previous years we would have gone through 150 gallons in a month or less when we heated exclusively with oil through the winter.

partner is working now at a temp job that is suppose to end in December. If the temp job is extended or she finds another job, we'll probably go through more oil this year. We've buttoned up the house a bit tighter this year, still have to put some insulation in celler ceiling.

[old mark]

62. We are getting one installed in a few weeks, too.

We ordered an Empress.

We will be using the gas furnace only as a backup.

Good luck with yours.

mark

[Shakespeare]

64. I know absolutely nothing about pellet stoves.

But I wanted to post and say :hi: anyway! :7