burning to much?

[dhungy]

Hello... My wife is concerned that were are burning more pellets than we have in the past.

Last year at the end of the season i bought a ton of summersets on craigslist for a great price. I burned some and had about 28 bags going into the this season I bout another 25 bags before we really started burning. We began heating in October and at the end of December had about run out of my small stash. I bought a ton of pellets from a company who just started making them locally. I ran out of them the last week of January. So this past weekend I picked up 6 bags of dry creek to tide me over as i look for a good price on my next ton ( prices have gone up here... $255 for barefoot). I have burned 2 tons for $400. Thats not bad but the winter has been so mild my wife thinks we should be burning much less.. the stove is on low on thermostat when we are not home and at night.. The only thing i noticed was the ton of pellets purchased locally had very low btu's so i had the feed rate higher so naturally they burned much quicker. On low with those pellets would keep the room the stove is located between 65-69 degrees. Where as the dry creek I am burning now keep the room between 71-75 degrees.

I guess what I am asking is am i consuming to many pellets in this mild winter or am I right on par with everyone else?

 

[pell it]

I am right around the two ton mark here in RI. One ton stove chow, half ton NEWP, and about a half ton of "test" bags.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Hi,
What is your backup heat source? NG, oil, or other? In this mild weather, you might actually do some comparisons between what pellets are costing per day versus how much of your backup heating system costs you. In my home, I have heat pumps and I installed a whole house electric monitoring system. I have a good baseline of running the pellet stoves and using electric to feed all my other MANY electron sucking appliances and toys. I decided to do some experimenting and I've shut off my pellet stoves and let the heat pump keep my home at the same temps. I'm finding that with 65-70 days and 45-50 nights, it costs me about $2 extra a day. With pellets and no heat pumps at the same outside temps, I was using about 1 bag or $4 a day of pellets. Yesterday we had a high of 47 and 40 for a low. I used $3.50 electricity so that's still less than a bag a day.. Now last night it was down to 37 and since midnight I've already used a lot more electricity than normal for this time in the morning. We'll see what the final tally is at midnight. The object of the exercise is to see when MY heat pump becomes more of a burden than a money saver and when to turn on the pellet stoves.

You mentioned your locally made pellets were low in heat value because you had to turn up the feed rate. IMHO, this is a very common misconception of 'heat value'. Most pellets are rated in the 8000 to 8200 btu/lb range so that's pretty narrow. What makes you think they are low in heat value is that, perhaps, the length changed and you had to increase the feed to get the same lbs/hour feed rate. When changing brands of pellets, one should ALWAYS readjust the feed rate per your manual to get the proper flame height.. Maybe your stove is different in that regard. In any event, different pellet brands have different pellet lengths and mass per volume. I ran one brand where a 40 lb bag filled 4 five gallon buckets. My present pellets barely fill 3 buckets! The first pellets demanded that I open my feed wide open and my present pellets make me shut my feeds as low as they will go. You just can't dump a new pellet brand and expect everything to remain the same. Readjust, readjust, readjust.

 

[dhungy]

I can't back up my assertions with statistics or numbers btu's per pound and so on. What I can say that the air temp coming from my stove's convection fan was far cooler than what is coming out now.

Wood pellets are my primary and only source of heat. My furnace stopped functioning a few weeks after I got my stove.

 

[Bkins]

It would be very hard to do a compare unless 2 houses were exactly the same with the exact same amount of insulation. Insulation plays a big part in how much pellets you might burn realtive to someone else.

What is your wife basing her feelings on?

 

[jtakeman]

Is the burning too much compared to 1 stove and now the second stove going as well. Could be the area you spend the most time in is warm, But your also warming other area's of the house. So in turn heating more sqft to the comfort level. Which will require more fuel. I think I said that right???

 

[tjnamtiw]

I can't back up my assertions with statistics or numbers btu's per pound and so on. What I can say that the air temp coming from my stove's convection fan was far cooler than what is coming out now. Because you're feeding less lbs/hour, probably

Wood pellets are my primary and only source of heat. My furnace stopped functioning a few weeks after I got my stove.

 

[chrisasst]

Are you burning 1 stove or two stoves at a time?

This is my first year with two stoves going and I think I am burning a little more than I did last year..HOWEVER, pellet stoves are my only source of heat downstairs. Last year and years before I had 1 pellet stove and was using a Kero heater to help heat the other end of my house. So even though I am burning a little more (with) the mild weather, I am saving more since Kero is expensive.
Do you have another heat source?

 

[yooper81]

My electric is shut off! Literally! I burn through a bag plus per day but that = far less $$ than what the power co. Was getting. I used less than 2 bags the last 4 days but it has been rather warm out. Average say, 1.5 bags per day. House is above 70' with pellets. My wife is also concerned, but it's because she thinks I love my pellets and Quad more than i love her.......

 

[tjnamtiw]

My electric is shut off! Literally! I burn through a bag plus per day but that = far less $$ than what the power co. Was getting. I used less than 2 bags the last 4 days but it has been rather warm out. Average say, 1.5 bags per day. House is above 70' with pellets. My wife is also concerned, but it's because she thinks I love my pellets and Quad more than i love her.......

Break it to her gently.... :cheese: