Fuel calculators article

[begreen]

Here's a good plug for Hearth.com

http://forgreenheat.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-review-of-heating-fuel-calculators.html

 

[Highbeam]

Not bad. Funny how particular these folks get and yet they fail to mention that operational skill and fuel quality are at least as important as efficiency of the device.

 

[John Ackerly]

Not bad. Funny how particular these folks get and yet they fail to mention that operational skill and fuel quality are at least as important as efficiency of the device.

Good point. I wrote that and especially should have mentioned the importance of dry wood. Its really the same, whenever anyone mentions an EPA emissions number. They are all lab tests in very controlled settings. But they still have some relevance to the real world. I would be especially concerned about efficiency if I was buying a pellet stove, because as long as you clean the thing, lab efficiencies can at least track real world efficiency. For woodstoves, I think paying attention to a spread of 10 points or more is probably worthwhile for the consumer. Even if you use wood with 30 - 40% moisture content, a much more efficient wood stove still may be more efficient than a really low efficiency one.

It was an interesting project to talk to about 20 folks about their calculators. Some were very open to the discussion, but some didn't want to hear about it. It will all start to change next year when we begin to get more real efficiency numbers!

 

[Highbeam]

The hearth.com calculator was the first one I ever used and I just assumed that all would be built this way with variable fuel costs and variable efficiency settings. After all, you can spend more or less money for different levels of efficiency when you buy a furnace or water heater so why on earth would a calculator not allow the user to input the efficiency of his chosen device for comparison.

Especially when considering an upgrade from an old oil furnace at like 80% to a new oil furnace at like 90%, you need to be able to vary the efficiency.

Any calculator without that is "broken".