Pellet Consumption Graph

I envy your free time

"There are lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics!"--Mark Twain Do like your charting prowess though. Need to add indoor/outdoor temps, barometric pressure, brand of pellets burning that day, etc. Too much white space, and throw in some pie charts and histograms while you're at it...LOL!

It would be interesting to compare your local heating degree day trending to your pellet consumption graph, which would be an indication of what weather contributing issues are affecting your stove efficiency and pellet use. Assuming you maintain your house at the reasonably same room temperature year-to-year, that might help point towards whether it was the OAK install that reduced your pellet consumption, or was your pellet use affected by any supplemental house insulation or air infiltration control measures you added?

Using a graph system like yours, one could track year to year what affect burning higher or lower btu output rated pellets was having on pellet use. Or has it just been colder or warmer than past seasons, and that is the overarching issue? Anecdotal and experience - based assumptions certainly have their place, but evidence- based trending certainly helps put more 'science' into the equation of energy use and efficiency.

Strewth. I've kept track of my pellet usage for the last 5 years. Also my Oil for the last ten years. But wow,. DMKNLD.. That's a full time Job.

Here's mine

Even on a 1 setting I burn over a bag a day!

camdids said:

Strewth. I've kept track of my pellet usage for the last 5 years. Also my Oil for the last ten years. But wow,. DMKNLD.. That's a full time Job.

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I'm certainly no hard statistician guy - having flailed miserably at both math and graphing throughout my primary and secondary schooling career! But at the end of last heating season I came across an on-line article put out by our local agricultural extension service that had a 5 and 10 yr retrospective graph of the winter's heating degree day tracking. I'll let those stats guys compilate and crunch the raw numbers !!

It was interesting that, despite having about a 12% increase in heating degree days last winter over the winter prior, I burned a half ton less pellets then I did the season before. With no insulation improvements from the season prior, and keeping the stove thermostat in the same low 70's temp, I can only attribute my savings to burning better pellets - LaCretes vs MWP 100% softies, keeping my stove borderline OCD clean, and doing a few heat output improving stove modifications promoted by several of the 'consummate Quad tinkerers' on this forum like B-mod, tj, and Swine Flue.

That's about as far as my anecdotal / experiential 'cause and effect' goes. I plan to get another energy audit done after this heating season, which we did when we bought our 1870's farmhouse 6 years ago, and see what the changes have been since I did some insulation and air infiltration improvements, which will no doubt give me a better insight. Comparing the energy audit companies negative pressure blower test results certainly will augment the anecdotal "my house feels less drafty", and help me identify where else I need to invest in energy retention.

Good stuff!

TimfromMA said:

The graph below is a 3 year comparison of my pellet consumption. Over previous years, I would dump 4 bags at a time into my dispenser and find my average daily use until those 4 bags were used. This year, I’m actually measuring my daily use which is why this year’s line is more jumpy.

The X axis is the date.

The Y axis is bags used.


This is my first year running OAK and, so far, I’m liking the trend.


View attachment 143483

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Looks like I need to book my vacations around December 12th and January 3rd!

chickenman said:

So the claim out here of 30hrs on 33lbs is ridiculous if you are averaging 24hrs on 40lbs....

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I think it's possible, if you turn your stove off for 8-10 hours of the day...

TimfromMA said:

I've used Okanagan Platinum exclusively since I started keeping track. This will soon change since I only have 9 bags left before I start in with the DF.

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Home Depot is carrying blazer Douglas firs got a delivery today of 8 tons

dlavigne7324 said:

Home Depot is carrying blazer Douglas firs got a delivery today of 8 tons

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I got 5 tons today from HD, but only 3 were Blazers! The delivery guy gave me 2 tons that were FSUs. Being the last delivery of the day, he just assumed that all the pellets were the same, so he took them off the way they were loaded, and I got the last 5. Of course, the 3 that were Blazers had my name and the 2 that were FSUs had some woman's name on them. !?*?!

Otoh, he stayed until 7:30pm, making the last delivery of the day, having to use his forklift to drive each pallet down a ¼ mile dirt road, since there was no way his 18-wheeler was making it down to my house.

So, $239 a ton for free delivery and Doug Fir Blazers to boot is sweet. I just wish I had gotten my full order of 5 tons.

Back to the OP, I would go to degreedays.net and download your local degree days and import it into your chart. Run a regression and see what the correlation is between how cold it is and how much you burn.

chickenman said:

You know, something like our flue shown here;
View attachment 143511
Easy to make or Bob at Fireflame has my designed bit. Works even better on a vertical install.

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Never heard it called a balanced flue before. Most refer to this system as a concentric flue or "pipe-in-a-pipe."

chickenman said:

It is a term out here from gas heaters, effectively the same thing.
We don't have sidewalks or trash cans either.

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Fair enough....

TimfromMA said:

Looks to me like combustion air flowing in could cool outgoing exhaust gases causing increased creosote build up.

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On long runs yes. This has been discussed many times on both forums.

DMKNLD said:

It would be interesting to compare your local heating degree day trending to your pellet consumption graph,

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You beat me to it! Without comparing the 'temperature stress' your house sees to the pellets used, the chart tells you how many pellets you used but not WHY.

Yup I track hearing degree days along with pellet usage....

How are you measuring pellets daily? Do you scoop out the remaining pellets each day and measure? Confused a bit..

Way to go by the way!!

Adding the temps is important to paint the full picture. Would also be valuable to see $$$ spent / saved reflected in some way. You may burn less pellets this year, or maybe not - too soon to tell. Wondering how the steep price of those Okie Douglas Fir pellets will affect the numbers vs. burning less costly pellets in prior years.