What's your "away" house temp???

[jtakeman]

On the boiler your capable of burning approx 13 lbs of fuel an hour............

Dems a lot a pellets. I bet the pellet mills dance and sing when you crank it up! WOW!

 

[AndrewChurchill]

Last year I tracked my pellet usage daily by using degree days and on average I saved 30 pounds of pellets per day by turning my thermostat down to 55 when we weren't home as opposed to leaving the thermostat at a constant 72.

 

[imacman]

I set my stove programmable stat to lower the temp to 65 in the main living area, and to 60 in the bedroom zones for the oil burner.

 

[teetah222]

Typically the house gets to about 65, but a week or so ago it was only 63 when I got home. I have wall heaters turned to low and so far this method has saved me about $40/month in electricity. And I'm just beginning to use my second pallet of pellets, which I started using mid-November. Have gotten through a couple of days at a time with only one bag by letting the fire go out while I'm at work, and then building the heat back up in the evening.

 

[dbjordan]

I use my pellet stove space heater to heat my entire 1800sqft open rancher. The 3 rooms farthest away from the stove are kept closed (gym and quest bedroom unheated, bathroom electric baseboard, programmable stat). I have a skytech 3301p and have used it in both program and thermo mode. Program mode is 68F at night and away 72F when home. I have found in cold weather that I use less pellets in thermo mode at 72F, and it keeps the whole house warmer overall. In the shoulder season the program mode works best. I found that in the cold months it just took too long to get the whole house back to a comfortable temp (for us). So bottom line is "cold" season 72F 24/7, shoulder season 68F to 72F.

 

[Augmister]

Things last longer if they don't have to cycle on and off continuously. Take you car for example. A car that's driven primarily on the highway has fewer breakdowns and needs less maintenance than a car that primarily drives in stop and go traffic.

Exactly! Less is more......When we are out of the house, why does it have to be at 69-71? We use a programmable thermostat and we drop the temp at bedtime (10PM) to 65. At 4:30AM we bring it up to 69-71 and drop it back after we leave for work to 65-66 during the day until 4PM, when we ramp it back up to 69-71. Run a cold mist humidifier constantly to offset the dryness.

If we do hit a snag and the temp drops down to 59-60, it takes hours to bring the temp back up in the house. We always clean the pot in the morning and a deeper cleaning on the weekend. Full blown cleaning after every ton. Also make sure the pellet hopper has at least a 12 hour supply of pellets so as to not have those 59-60 degree incidents.

 

[mgambuzza]

On my Castile in the kitchen - 74 when home, and turns down to 64 while away. Preset to come back to 74 an hour and half before come home from work. On the Harman in our basement - set stove mode at absolute minimum setting maintaining heat throughout the day and return to 70 in evening.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

In reading through this thread I stumbled onto a post that mentioned (to paraphrase) that a short distance from the stove that basically it would be COLD.

Natural convection with hot air rising and cold air falling can and does circulate air throughout a house.

Now if the house is large with a lot of small room (cut up) this becomes more difficult.

My house is real open and heats quite well even with the stoves scattered around the house.

As long as the interior doors are left open, the warm air will move throughout the house and the cold air will gravitate back to the stove.

Been there done that. The cold air will actually flow right across the floor and if there are hallways it can be felt easily.

Another way to see this is to hang a very light piece of ribbon so any air movement will cause it to wiggle.

Supprising at how convection works.


Snowy