Can this be right?

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mass_burner

mass_burner

Minister of Fire
Sep 24, 2013
2,645
SE Mass
Okay, so on 11/20, I put 100 gals in the oil tank, tank was a little above empty, its a 175 gal tank.This brought me to 5/8 tank. Checked the tank this moring and I have a little under 1/2 left. Friday is 12/20, so that's a liitle more than 1/8 tank per month. At that rate, this 100 gal will last another 4 months?
 
Are you saying this is good or bad? I could argue either side here! ;)
For the bad: A lot of people here use zero fossil fuel to heat their house...
The good: I used 100 gall. per mo. back when I had exclusive oil heat!
 
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Good, I guess, compared to last 2 years. We used to use 600+ gallons/year. Now I'm a supplemental burner. Bedrooms are far from stoves; and wife is home all day (that's another topic); and we use oil for hot water.
 
That sounds like way to much for us hearth forum guys. No, thats not bad. Do you heat your hot water with oil?
If so that's even better. Be careful of the stale oil syndrome;lol
 
Paulywalnut said:
That sounds like way to much for us hearth forum guys. No, thats not bad. Do you heat your hot water with oil?
If so that's even better. Be careful of the stale oil syndrome;lol
Click to expand...


yes, oil for hot water also.
 
I say you need to modify your burning habits. 100 gallons of oil is just ridiculous!

Just kidding. Good for you. The guy in the cube next to me just got 200 gallons of oil delivered. He had his first fill somewhere around the beginning-middle of November. He is a thickheaded bugger that thinks programmable thermostats are a capitalist conspiracy because you waste energy getting back up to temp.

He also thinks the return on investment to replace his 1940's boiler isn't worth upgrading.

So I think you are definitely supplementing. But just to rub it in, I havn't turned on my heat since Thanksgiving just to warm the place back up after leaving it for 3 days.
 
mass_burner said:
Good, I guess, compared to last 2 years. We used to use 600+ gallons/year. Now I'm a supplemental burner. Bedrooms are far from stoves; and wife is home all day (that's another topic); and we use oil for hot water.
Click to expand...

Good job man!

I put 100 gallons in on 11/26 and I'm gonna check my oil tank tonight to see where I'm at. I'm supplemental too. My wife and I work all day so I only use the oil furnace (programmed) from 530-615pm to get the house back up to 69 degrees by the time we get home. Then I get the stove going again and it keeps the house warm until the middle of the night. The oil may kick on again in the morning when we are waking up, but some days the house stays warm enough overnight to not need oil in the morning.

You say you're a supplemental burner, what do you mean by that? Does that mean that you use oil heat all day while the wife is home and then only heat with wood when you get home and overnight? Or does your wife keep the stove going during the day?
 
whats heating oil?:p

sounds like your doing just fine to me
 
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Yes it is a combo. Never used. Doesn't work and nobody is willing to come out and look at it. Never needed it anyway

When i go away I have plenty of friends that live a couple houses away. Load up either the hampton or yukon twice a day and good to go
 
Dave K said:
Good job man!
You say you're a supplemental burner, what do you mean by that? Does that mean that you use oil heat all day while the wife is home and then only heat with wood when you get home and overnight? Or does your wife keep the stove going during the day?
Click to expand...

Thanks. I hope it plays out. I start the fire at 7:30 when I wake up until I leave at 9:20 or so. My wife tries to keep it going the best she can, but she's in and out with shopping, errands, school pickup etc. The heat in the house generally prevents the furnace from kicking on during the day. When I get home I start both inserts going, setup the little hallway fan and burn unitl about 12:30. Again, most times the heat will last long enough to keep the furnace off over night in the common area. Also, we have Nests in the common area, it senses when your not at home and steps down to a lowest setting, 50d, until it knows your back in the room. I'm generally seeing from "No Usage" to 1.5 hrs of furnace time in the common area per day depending on weather/events. Nest gives you a daily usage report hour-by-hour.
 
mass_burner said:
Thanks. I hope it plays out. I start the fire at 7:30 when I wake up until I leave at 9:20 or so. My wife tries to keep it going the best she can, but she's in and out with shopping, errands, school pickup etc. The heat in the house generally prevents the furnace from kicking on during the day. When I get home I start both inserts going, setup the little hallway fan and burn unitl about 12:30. Again, most times the heat will last long enough to keep the furnace off over night in the common area. Also, we have Nests in the common area, it senses when your not at home and steps down to a lowest setting, 50d, until it knows your back in the room. I'm generally seeing from "No Usage" to 1.5 hrs of furnace time in the common area per day depending on weather/events. Nest gives you a daily usage report hour-by-hour.
Click to expand...


Nice. Keep it up! Its great to not have to buy oil monthly!
 
mass_burner said:
yes, oil for hot water also.
Click to expand...
That's great. I used 70 gal.since beginning of Nov. I heat hot water too. You have colder temps up there though.
What ever you're doing keep it up:)
 
Heck, that's almost my yearly consumption.....but you're on the right track....sounds a lot like how we started, and it just kept getting better from there
 
Thanks. Coming from all you seasoned vets that means a lot. Still, 1/8 tank = ~ $65/month in the 4 coldest months. My next projects may help that, looking into a "small" PV array on the south facing roof; and the Mass save guy is coming back for the area where the stairs go down to the basement (foundation walls foam board) and possibly spray foaming the entire basement ceiling.
 
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Just a quick sanity check, tank gauges are really non linear and most tanks are not straight sided. Unless you do the volume calculations and "stick" the tank trying to guess consumption by reading a level gauge is not very accurate. Nevertheless it looks like you made a big dent in your consumption. A lot of folks with standard horizontal heating oil tanks get a shock when they get down low in the tank as they are in the curved section of the tank so 1/4 full is actually far less than they think it is.
 
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oh, so the lower the oil level moves down fom the "equator" the faster the needle will move down?
 
Depends on the tank, most horizontal tanks have a half round lower section and half round top section separated by a straight intermediate section. Unless the float is compensated for the difference in tank sections the upper and lower half round sections have less volume than the straight intermediate section. The easiest way to visualize is sketch it on piece of graph paper. The float measures the horizontal lines but as you will note there are a lot less boxes in each cross section in the lower parts of the half round sections than there are in the straight sections. Once that float hits the top of the lower cross section each preceding inch of level has less and less volume. On the other hand if you are pumping out of an upright vertical barrel than the float would be pretty accurate.
 
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mass_burner said:
Okay, so on 11/20, I put 100 gals in the oil tank, tank was a little above empty, its a 175 gal tank.This brought me to 5/8 tank. Checked the tank this moring and I have a little under 1/2 left. Friday is 12/20, so that's a liitle more than 1/8 tank per month. At that rate, this 100 gal will last another 4 months?
Click to expand...
A hundred gallons lasts us about 2 years! Last winter we used the oil furnace twice until March when I ran out of wood that was ready. After that, I broke down and put 150 gallons in, and this year i've been more relaxed about reaching for the tstat in the morning. House is insulated pretty well, but 2/3 of the first floor (a garage about 500Sq ft.) sits on a giant unfinished slab, the other 1/3 is the room with the stove, currently my wife's study room. Unfortunately, i've never achieved more than a 6 hour burn with this stove, hoping for a new Liberty or Cape Cod after the summer.
peakbagger said:
Once that float hits the top of the lower cross section each preceding inch of level has less and less volume.
Click to expand...
I've also learned not to trust the oil gauge, when it gets below 1/3, it seems to go a lot quicker, I understood why, but could never put it into words, Thanks!
 
Matt Ruggeri said:
I've also learned not to trust the oil gauge, when it gets below 1/3, it seems to go a lot quicker, I understood why, but could never put it into words, Thanks!
Click to expand...
Goes faster at the beginning too...tanks are usually not filled completely, and the top of the tank is narrow too. Gauges are usually only right (or closer to right) during the middle half or even third of the tank.
 
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