Pellet Usage

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PDawg

New Member
Sep 30, 2008
47
Central NH
Here is my pellet usage by month for last years heating season, I live in Central NH:
September 2
October 13
November 28
December 41
January 44
February 40
March 30
April 12
May 3

For a total of 279 bags. The house is about 1400 square feet 2 story new englander with excellent insulation in the attic and virtually no insulation in the walls, This summer I had blown in insulation in all the walls, the house wrapped and vinyl siding with another layer of R5 backing under the siding. I am hoping for a 20 to 30 percent decrease in pellet usage this year. Does that seem reasonalbe ?
 
yea...it does.
 
PDawg said:
Here is my pellet usage by month for last years heating season, I live in Central NH:
September 2
October 13
November 28
December 41
January 44
February 40
March 30
April 12
May 3

For a total of 279 bags.

279 didn't seem right.....your total is actually 213 bags.
 
imacman said:
PDawg said:
Here is my pellet usage by month for last years heating season, I live in Central NH:
September 2
October 13
November 28
December 41
January 44
February 40
March 30
April 12
May 3

For a total of 279 bags.

279 didn't seem right.....your total is actually 213 bags.

Still a lot of pellets for 1400sqft! You should see an improvement. I am heating close to 2K and using 175 to 200 bags per season(I was well over 5 tons). I bet you save close to 40 bags off the whole season. But only mother nature and time will tell for sure. We can only quess at it.

How much insulation in the attic? That is where I saw my biggest gain.
 
213was my usage, 279 it what I have for this year. As far as attic insullation I believe I have R42. It will be an intersting case study. At the end of this years heating season I'll compare heating degree days and pellet usage for each month to see what type of savings i get from the insullation.
 
I put R-38 in my attic/ upstairs area last summer. Last winter,in upstate NY, it was fairly mild, but I used over a ton less pellets than the year before. So i guess I'm saying yes it should help alot.
 
I increased the attic insulation in my home last year from R30 to R60 (Orange County, NY). I used about 25 bags less than the prior year. But I also kept the house at 75 degrees all the time where as the prior year I dropped the temp down to 65 degrees during the day when no one was in the house (heating 2500 sq ft) . This year I will be dropping the temp down during the day again so I should see a significant reduction in my pellet usage. I used 4Tons and 35 Bags the first year. I used 4Tons 10 Bags the second year. I Hope to use only 4Tons or maybe a little less this year. I'm still holding out to see what pellet prices will be in a few weeks. But I should be loaded up for the winter by the last week in September. Check out page 5 of the following link it states that sales have been "average to poor" in the northeast:

http://pelletheat.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/PFI-Newsletter-Issue-2-2010-FINAL-V2.pdf
 
Hard to say what a normal pellet usage is, there are so many variables that would cause more or less usage. I heat a 2700Sq/ft home with aprox 250 bags a year, but that usage can change quite a bit. The biggest factor I find changes my usage is amout of sunny days, and wind in the winter.
 
amick780 said:
......I heat a 2700Sq/ft home with aprox 250 bags a year, but that usage can change quite a bit......

You are well above the "norm" as far as amount of sq. ft. heated, and is most likely the reason for 5 tons needed. Typical home is around 1500-2000 sq. ft.
 
remember folks a few miles North - South can make a large difference, as well as what direction you house faces or if your on the shady side of a hill, mountain, valley.
Some one in CT telling a guy in NH how many pellets he should use is silly.

My experience:
There is usaully a 3 week difference in the seasons changing from Lebanon NH to Durham NH. The snow melts off my property at least a full month before my buddies who lives 1/4 mile away but has a yard full of pines and sits on a north facing slope.
 
Usage generally depends on how cold it is, outside, and how warm ya want it to be, inside. The more insulation ya got, the less fuel ya gotta burn.
 
mascoma said:
remember folks a few miles North - South can make a large difference, as well as what direction you house faces or if your on the shady side of a hill, mountain, valley.
Some one in CT telling a guy in NH how many pellets he should use is silly.

My experience:
There is usaully a 3 week difference in the seasons changing from Lebanon NH to Durham NH. The snow melts off my property at least a full month before my buddies who lives 1/4 mile away but has a yard full of pines and sits on a north facing slope.

Guess I am silly then! %-P
 
Any rough Idea how many tons I would use. Newbie here.

I live in Buffalo,NY area I have a small 900sq foot ranch. Built in 80's well insulated good windows house is very tight. I would only burn 100 gallons of propane on coldest months.

I will be using a Quadrafire castile insert.

I work during the day and am not there on the weekends.
 
hossthehermit said:
Usage generally depends on how cold it is, outside, and how warm ya want it to be, inside. The more insulation ya got, the less fuel ya gotta burn.

x2 all other factors being equal.
 
Skidozer: What you need to know is the efficiency of your propane furnace, the efficiency of the the pellet stove you are going to be using and the total number of gallons of propane you use in a season and you can estimate the number of tons of wood pellets you would need. The other information is not relevant. So provide us with this information and someone will help you.

A ton of premium wood pellets produces about 16.4 million BTU per ton. A gallon of propane produces about 91,200 BTUs. So about 180 gallons of propane produce about the same number of BTUs as one ton of premium wood chips. If you were using stoves of about equal efficiency that means if you use 540 gallons of propane in a season you would be using about 3 tons of wood chips; if 450 gallons then about 2 and a half tons. But as I said you need to correct for efficiencies of the equipment, so tell us as much information as you can.
 
skidozer said:
Any rough Idea how many tons I would use. Newbie here.

I live in Buffalo,NY area I have a small 900sq foot ranch. Built in 80's well insulated good windows house is very tight. I would only burn 100 gallons of propane on coldest months.

I will be using a Quadrafire castile insert.

I work during the day and am not there on the weekends.

If the house is as tight as you say, being that it's a small ranch, I think 2 tons is plenty......you may even have some left over to start next winter.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I got 2 tons of Dry Creek pellets over the weekend they are made a bout 2 miles down the road.
I plan on getting another ton in a few weeks. Just had the propane tank filled and bought the things needed to install my insert and reface it.
 
skidozer said:
Any rough Idea how many tons I would use. Newbie here.

I live in Buffalo,NY area I have a small 900sq foot ranch. Built in 80's well insulated good windows house is very tight. I would only burn 100 gallons of propane on coldest months.

I will be using a Quadrafire castile insert.

I work during the day and am not there on the weekends.
Welcome skidozer

I go threw 3&1/2 tons a year heating my 1400 sq foot house so 2 ton should do you just find if you are not there on the weekends.
BTW how much were the dry Creeks
 
I bought the dry creeks lthis past saturday they were $219 ton from Arcade Lumber.
That wasthe last he had new load comming this week. I bet price may even go down, tractor supply in arcade and springville and lowes are down to $195 for brands they sell.

I didn't call around because they have been great help to me with questions and such for me t install my insert I wanted to give them my business.
 
In another thread someone commented that my usage was down last year due to burning fewer bottom tier pellets (Michigans) and more top shelfers (Barefoot+Okies) than in 2008-2009. Perhaps.

I did some analysis today and it seams that my pellet usage is down by the exact same percentage as the Heating Degree Days in my location. 15%.
 
I'm keeping track of my usage right now, temp here is about 30-50 degrees. Used 8 bags for 9 days so far, my house is 1500sqft and I keep most of the house in the low 70's, bedrooms and second floor about 68.
 
I live in a 2400sq ft 170+ year old farm house, and burn about 7 1/2 tons of pellets a year. 2 bags of pellets a day keeps the oil man away!
 
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