New, clean Mt Vernon burning 1 bag Turmans every 8.5 hours?

[investor7952]

Hello all. Im trying to find out whether my Mt Vernon insert's burn rate is consistent with what you guys are seeing. To test, I put my Mt Vernon on 70 degrees and turned off my propane furnace. Since the Mt Vernon can't get the house over 66 degrees in this weather in Virginia, the mt Vernon has been running full blast on heat output 5, flame level 3, normal elevation, wood pellet setting and actually using Turman premium wood pellets. The stove is 2 weeks old with no OAK and I cleaned it thoroughly yesterday. Under this scenario (which causes the stove to run in Manual High the whole time), I'm burning 1 bag of Turman premiums every 8.5 hours, or just under 3 bags/day. Is that typical for running on manual high?

If I extrapolate that across everyday this month, i calculate my monthly heating bill at $502 per month. That's 3 bags/day * 30 days * $5.58 per bag of Turmans (when bought by the ton). That seems high but maybe I had unrealistic expectations for the cost savings of doing a pellet stove over using a high efficiency propane furnace.

Most here would never admit this pellet thing is more hobby and obsession than anything. Yes you can save money IF U GET THE RIGHT price for pellets. The only problem if your trying to heat anything over 2000sft you will need some help from your other house heat source when its cold. Do the math of pellet prices. The time spent baby sitting the stove,filling,stacking, just to get subpar heat in most of your home vs just paying the propane fuel bill I think you will be amazed that just paying the bill and staying cozy throught the whole house is the way to go. Now with that said the best time I love my stove is early winter and early spring the main heat is off in the house and stove is plenty to heat the house. But the dog cold days of winter put the heat on and help the stove out. Your stove isnt big enough to heat your house. I know alot of guys will reply and say there stove is there only source of heat. Thats great if your heating 1500-1800 sft. But most who post here arent havening issues heating that size space its the ones trying to heat much larger houses and cant figure out why they arent getting the same results as others are getting heating there smaller homes.
Just for the record I am heating a 3400sft home with a Harman accentra insert. My floor plan is wide open. The stove way undersize for that size house does an amazing job 25 degrees and above. But anything under that I have to help it out with my oil heat. I stressed the 1st couple yrs about this but even with doing that I manage to save 450 dollars a heating system using the stove vs just useing all oil. Not alot of savings compared to time spent for stacking,cleaning etc but I will tell u this it is like a drug that is so addicting!