Who hasn't turned on their Heating Furnace yet? - and a graph of my oil usage for 13 years....

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TX-L said:
I got a fuel oil delivery last week; I'm on an automatic delivery schedule so they thought I probably needed some this late in the fall. They were able to squeeze 5 gallons into the tank somehow. I have to call them and remove myself from the automatic delivery, as I will use very little if any at all this winter. My goal is to use none, but I will have to if I go to Quebec snowmobiling for a week. That is bothering me somewhat...

Cheers!
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TX-L: I am on automatic delivery, too. They used to come like 7 times a year, and now have adjusted the deliveries to only December and March. I figure there is no disadvantage to keeping the auto-delivery and they seem to be able to calculate my needs pretty well. I think the delivery guy probably rolls his eyes when he sees all of my stacks of wood. :roll:
 
I haven't run my furnace in 4 yrs. Don't even know if it works hehehehehe. Don't care!
 
I've yet to turn the oil boiler on in our new house. The tag team of the Accentra upstairs and the Mark II downstairs has kept the house toasty on even the coldest nights. I plan on never turning the boiler on, period.
 
fire_man said:
krex1010 said:
fire_man said:
I have made it so far using NO heating oil thanks majorly to the great advice on this Forum. There have been some 10 F nights and the Fireview has struggled, but thanks to a tolerant family the furnace has been OFF. Oil has hit $2.85/Gallon in New England and seems headed up. Who else has made it so far this year with absolutely no oil or gas?

I know Backwoods Savage (Dennis) has not used oil or gas because he ripped his furnace out. My wife would send me packing if I did that! :ahhh:

This is my oil usage for 13 years for only heating the house (Domestic hot water subtracted out):
Click to expand...

Dude......you made a graph of your heating oil usage?
Click to expand...

What can I say. The Engineer in me sneaked out at home. :roll:
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HehHeh . . . must be an "engineer" thing . . . my father-in-law who was a first generation German-American engineer at Pratt and Whitney took me aside when I first met him to show me why electrical heat is the most economical heat (according to him at the time) -- he actually had a notebook full of his electrical usage and the bill going back for years.
 
firefighterjake said:
fire_man said:
krex1010 said:
fire_man said:
I have made it so far using NO heating oil thanks majorly to the great advice on this Forum. There have been some 10 F nights and the Fireview has struggled, but thanks to a tolerant family the furnace has been OFF. Oil has hit $2.85/Gallon in New England and seems headed up. Who else has made it so far this year with absolutely no oil or gas?

I know Backwoods Savage (Dennis) has not used oil or gas because he ripped his furnace out. My wife would send me packing if I did that! :ahhh:

This is my oil usage for 13 years for only heating the house (Domestic hot water subtracted out):
Click to expand...

Dude......you made a graph of your heating oil usage?
Click to expand...

What can I say. The Engineer in me sneaked out at home. :roll:
Click to expand...

HehHeh . . . must be an "engineer" thing . . . my father-in-law who was a first generation German-American engineer at Pratt and Whitney took me aside when I first met him to show me why electrical heat is the most economical heat (according to him at the time) -- he actually had a notebook full of his electrical usage and the bill going back for years.
Click to expand...

Ummmm.... I hate to admit this, I have all of my electrical usage bills going back to 1995. I just have not graphed them yet. But don't tell anybody or I'll deny it!
 
The burner heats the water, so it runs for that. However, with the exception of one morning at 4 am, when I forgot to load at midnight (fell asleep), the baseboard heat has been inactive. Best part is that the house is 70-74 all the time, and it's in the 20s with wind right now. My wood is all what I refer to as "attrition" wood; hardwoods that have been blown down or were standing dead. In my area there is alot of Elm that stands upright for years, just waiting for me.
 
mywaynow said:
The burner heats the water, so it runs for that. However, with the exception of one morning at 4 am, when I forgot to load at midnight (fell asleep), the baseboard heat has been inactive. Best part is that the house is 70-74 all the time, and it's in the 20s with wind right now. My wood is all what I refer to as "attrition" wood; hardwoods that have been blown down or were standing dead. In my area there is alot of Elm that stands upright for years, just waiting for me.
Click to expand...

I wish I could do 70-74 all the time. I am dreaming of the bigger Woodstock stove - maybe, just maybe if I'm good, Santa will bring it next year???
 
Since starting with wood this season, my understanding of heat is much more intimate. I've learned more than ever that our rainforest homes aren't engineered for cold temps. Maintaining a winter 35 degree inside/outside differential is common and easy in our 2600-sqft home with our wood-burning configuration. A 45 degree differential is difficult and requires very careful management of the burn cycle. Now, when the temp dropped to 12 degrees in November (very rare here), we fought the good fight, but the wife caved in to the furnace for 36 hours as we dropped below 65 in the house.

Funny thing: Propane heat felt and smelled foreign to us after only a few months with delicious wood heat.

Similar to fire_man, I'll have a full report of this year vs. that previous three after the season.
 
If I didn't have some sort of back up heat I wouldn't be able to go on vacation in the Winter.
or I'd have to hire a house sitter.
 
Well, considering I have yet to change my thermostat from air conditioning to heat, the answer is obviously none. :cheese:

We will be gone this weekend, however, so it probably will run a bit but that will be the only time this winter.
 
This is our first year burning with our Englander, and the last time we touched the thermostat was to turn the air conditioning on :) The coldest I have seen our house was 66 degrees after I came home from work two weeks ago when the high temp for the day hit a blistering 17. We just received our electric bill for the month, and it barely hit $100. My wife works with one of my neighbors, and her monthly bill was $270 ! Needless to say I smile every morning when I am out walking my pup's and here there heat pump kick on !!!
 
Mine ran a couple times on some of those single digit mornings we had couple weeks back. Maybe an hour total. That was before I did some air circulation improvements.

The only time I expect it to run the rest of the winter is when I'm out of town for work.

Last year, before the stove, I burned 75 gallons of propane for heat and DHW between 12/1 and 12/15 with the thermostat at 65*. This Decemeber (which has been extremely cold compared to average) I burned 10 over the same timeframe and the house runs closer to 72* (on average).

That's about a $260 savings without taking the temperature difference (indoor and outdoor) into consideration.

I had to spend about $1,100 to get my chimney in order. If I include the cost of wood ($100 for gas for truck and saw, oil, chains, files, etc) and my average heating month bill is $300 then my payback is 4 heating months.
 
I ran our oil boiler/ hydronic system this fall, but only to test it. It still works. After a few hours, I turned it back off. It's reassuring to know it's there, but I don't plan to use it much any more. We're saving about 2,000 dollars every year by not buying oil. Won't be long before we're saving 4,000 dollars a year, in this market.

When our oil-fired hot water heater bit the dust in 2004, it was a no brainer to see that electric was the way to go for the replacement. I got a little advice from a plumber friend on how to permanently remove the oil HW heater, then I capped off the HW loop and installed a conventional electric heater. Plumbed it all in myself. That was a good move for us. Oil prices peaked big time, a few years later.
 
I havent turned mine on since just before Thanksgiving. I use it for the early and late shoulder seasons when the rooms would get too hot if i used the stoves. last year i burned 50 gallons. Gotta love it. I now have it set at 60 just in case. I think it came on one night a couple of weeks ago when the wind was howling like a bangee and my wife didn't quite shut the door tight after she let in the dogs and we went to bed. I woke up at 0330 with the door open about a foot or so. It was a litle chilly to say the least. Gotta love the wood stoves.

cass
 
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