9 degree's outside and I turned off the Stove

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Pellet-King

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Nov 30, 2008
1,658
Northern Ct
I'm a longtime pellet burner, been living in this old 1952 Cape for 6.5yr's, from day one used the pellet stove as primary heat, Whitfield Insert I bought new 17 years ago, House came with Oil Forced Air, who would think F/A was even available in 1952?, 99% of the homes here have Oil Hot water radiator's, to me it's quiet and works great have lived in homes with hot water all of my life, but No I had to buy this house in the summer with a 1995 Carrier Low boy Noisey as hell Furnace, My bedroom is above the furnace so first off the tree is my bedroom and all you hear is WHOOSHHH, on and off all night long...hate it!

Last summer was giong to switch to NG, had the newest 98% efficient Lennox with variable speed blowers all set to install, called the gas co, Yankee Gas and website says free hookup to home, well thats fine and dandy, call them and tell them where I live and Whoa!, you live on a State owned road, thats COST's $$$, month later they came and assesed called me and said $6000!!! to run a 30 foot line to my house, well that blew that deal, now back to burning pellet's and Oil.
Now with Oil is so cheap, today I just turned off the pellet and let the oil run all day, the house will be more uniformly warm, my biggest problem burning pellet's is It's 70 in the living room and other side of house it's 59, the T-stat is in my living room, another fuckup by the builder who flipped this house before I bought it, all T-Stat's have ALWAYS been in the HALLWAY!! of every house I've been in.

Being my stove is a insert in the fireplace I have really no cheap option to add OAK, I know there's cold draft's induced by the pellet stove.
 
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Relocate the thermostat.
 
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I wish we had NG available here, it's the cheapest energy out there right now and would be worth the conversion. My stove would have been shut down a long time ago
Denny
 
No NG on my street and I have enough pellets down stairs to get me through this season and all of next. If oil prices stay low, Ill switch back to oil heat when my pellets are gone.
 
I just did the switch to NG and our home is warm, all over, once again even though I've run 2 stoves the whole time I've burned pellets. I still burn pellets in our family room to get the temp up to 74-76. The room has a lot of older windows.

I don't know why the $600 would stop you. I would just look at it as part of the cost of the install. I know.a changeover from oil to NG isn't cheap as I just did it and installed a 2 stage Rheem 96 efficiency furnace and a direct vent water heater. Check with your state as they may pick up part of your cost to do the change. I had to pay a permit fee of $500 just to open the street in our town. Yea, a money grab but what are you going to do. They had a police officer there for about 3 hours with his flashing lights.


Our house is about 1900 sq.ft. And keeping it at 68 day and 58 night, we like it cold for sleeping, cost me $127 last month for both hot water and heat. I have never been able to heat this house as warm as it is for that kind of money using 2 pellet stoves. We went through just short of 6 tons last year.

Me, I'd be paying the extra cost and move along. You will not regret it.
 
Here in Pa we have a new Govenor "democrat" he vowed to tax the hell out of the shale drillers up north to save the "children". I'm sure This will effect NG prices but who knows to what degree.
 
Here in Pa we have a new Govenor "democrat" he vowed to tax the hell out of the shale drillers up north to save the "children". I'm sure This will effect NG prices but who knows to what degree.

Isn't it amazing that taxes solve all problems according to some.
 
Isn't it amazing that taxes solve all problems according to some.

You forgot to put "problems" in quotes. God forbid a economy is thriving and making us more energy independent like all of these educated idiots insist we be. But I digress.
 
Relocating the thermostat won't make it heat evenly. If you want it 70 where it is 59 just raise the temp where it is until it is 70 where you want it. It would be the same result as if you moved the stat. Unless of course it is no big deal to run new wire etc. You may want to see if it is possible to make it 2 separate zones
 
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Yeah with pellets at $21/millionBTU and oil at $20/mBTU it's kinda hard to keep shoveling the pellet investment. Especially if your oil tank is full. If you can store them for when oil prices go back up next year ....
If your heating budget for his Winter is already busted ....

Funny 6 months ago used oil tanks from people converting from oil to gas were a dime a dozen. Some even came with oil if you'd just come remove the tank and not make a mess ....
Now I can't find a free one.
Conversion business must have slowed a little ... LOL.

"Economy is thriving" -- Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha, LOL
 
I'd also have moved the thermostat 17 years ago.
Maybe in another 17 years you'll be able to take the hearing aid out at night ...... :-)
 
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Ok now it's 6 hours later, furnace is coming on/off every 15 minutes, time to clean the pellet and turn it back on!! but temp is set 68, i'm sure this house has no wall insualtion and whats in the small attic is probably very old, there's even big sheet's of cardboard layed on top and it's the natural colored not pink like they make in last 40 yr's insulation I've seen.
Was thinking of trying a wireless t-sat, it's only mounted 12" away from the hall now, feeding a wire could be a pain esp thru 2x4's
 
Ok now it's 6 hours later, furnace is coming on/off every 15 minutes, time to clean the pellet and turn it back on!! but temp is set 68, i'm sure this house has no wall insualtion and whats in the small attic is probably very old, there's even big sheet's of cardboard layed on top and it's the natural colored not pink like they make in last 40 yr's insulation I've seen.
Was thinking of trying a wireless t-sat, it's only mounted 12" away from the hall now, feeding a wire could be a pain esp thru 2x4's
Sounds like you need a thermostat with adjustable 'swing' like on the pellet stove. That way the furnace would stay on longer and distribute the heat better.
 
Sounds like you need a thermostat with adjustable 'swing' like on the pellet stove. That way the furnace would stay on longer and distribute the heat better.

If you cannot do that you can lower the CPH(Cycles Per Hour) or raise the heat anticapator setting if it is an analog tstat.
 
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It's a digital honeywell, not programmable but it can be adjusted I think, the 65 degree setting appears to have the most swing, off at 67 on at 64, when i had it set to 68 it was trying to keep the house warm, it was cold here teens all day, once afternoon I set down to 65 and it did not come back on very much, maybe once per hour, It only takes 5 mins of runtime or less to heat this place up
 
the swing setting doesn't change with temperature set point. Something else must be going on there. IIRC Honeywell's don't have swing settings.
 
It's a digital honeywell, not programmable but it can be adjusted I think, the 65 degree setting appears to have the most swing, off at 67 on at 64, when i had it set to 68 it was trying to keep the house warm, it was cold here teens all day, once afternoon I set down to 65 and it did not come back on very much, maybe once per hour, It only takes 5 mins of runtime or less to heat this place up

It sounds like the system may be oversized which is common. If you can't adjust the swing I would adjust the CPH lower, which would make it run longer cycles. But running it 5 min/hr with weather in the teens doesn't sound too bad from an economic standpoint.. You would need the installation manual prob and not the homeowners manual. A model# or pic of the stat would be helpful if you want to try this.
 
Furnace is a 1995ish carrier lowboy oil forced air with a beckett burner I have manually set on the furnace a time of 90 seconds the blower will run after the furnace shut's itself off, it is oversized for the house, when getting estimates for gas furnaces they told me it wa probably a 125k unit which i should be running a 75k btu furnace
 
Reduce the nozzle on the oil burner to consume less GPH. It will make the burner much quieter and it will burn longer resulting in fewer cycles.
 
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The original thermostat for my oil burner was also in the living room, never had any issue's until the pellet stove went in the corner of the living room, now the stove blows on it and it reads way higher than actual temp. Just this week I relocated it right next to the central air and pellet stove thermostat's that are right around the corner from the original location.

This location is still a little warmer but atleast they read the same as each other so I can set the oil a little lower incase the stove needs some help on the really cold nights.

Also to the op, check out the lux thermostats that have a adjustable swing temp.
 
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Even with a swing setting making it cycle less it won't solve the uneven heating problem. The way to solve this is to take the fan out of auto and put it to on.
 
Here in Pa we have a new Govenor "democrat" he vowed to tax the hell out of the shale drillers up north to save the "children". I'm sure This will effect NG prices but who knows to what degree.
Yeah. Asked his office for specifics, got BS about "Fairness." Typical politician.
 
What's wrong with fairness? There will be more winners than losers. He's putting his money where his mouth is since he is proposing to raise his own taxes. Lowering taxes on the middle class sounds good to me. The way it looks only couples with about $180,000.00 in taxable income would receive an increase. Where the majority would see a decrease.
 
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