heating through the night?

[vfamily06]

Hello

i have a harmon accentra pellet insert and i've been turning it off at night to save pellets. Am i really saving pellets since i seem to need to turn it up higher in the AM to warm the house.


i can turn it to room temp. i've turned the thermostats down all over the house and i'm saving electricity overall.

thanks

 

[lessoil]

If we turned our stove off at night, the furnace would come on to keep the downstairs at 62.
So since buying the stove we have gone from turning the stove down at night (68) to leaving it running at 73-75.
A rule of thumb for setting heat at night that I learned a longtime ago was to not lower heat any more
than 8 degrees from where you normally run it. You tend to negate any savings by making it work harder
to recover. I think we are still going to burn the same as last year even by running all night at the same temp we
run during the day. 3.5 to 4 tons

 

[save$]

What ever I spend burning pellets 24/7 is more than made up for by what I saved by not burning oil. I also hate going into a cold bathroom in the morning to take a shower. I'm thinking I save at least 50% of what I would have burned in oil. Once I allowed the house to get to the "oil temps" and left the furnace run only for back up under 65 F, my furnace doesn't come on at all.
Oil use is limited to the oil fired hot water heater. 20 F out side and 72 in the livingroom. 67 F in back rooms.

 

[jtakeman]

I have found that some cold nights its better to leave the stove on high/low and on warmer nights to go to Auto/Off. Because of the variable(heat loss, thermostat setback temp, recover time plus many more) what works for me may not be the ticket for you. You would have to do some trials to get your answer.

If you have an average of the shutdown fuel usage? Compare it to the burn for a few nights average.

 

[Pellet-King]

Off at night??, you nut's?, thats the time you need it most!!, on at night, off during day...as long as it's above 45-50 during day.

 

[Como]

You could work it out. Heat Loss is a factor of the temperature delta, the difference between the outside and the inside.

So you should save some fuel by lowering the delta.

That assumes everything else is equal, if your heat source operates less efficiently to catch up it could actually cost you money.

 

[velotocht]

Our pellet stove (fireplace insert) is in the center of the lower floor of our 2000 sqft raised ranch. I keep the temperature a 72F all night and most of the day (prgramable thermostat). At 5:30 AM the PTS steps up to 75F - and builds some additional heat down stairs.

We have a set of window blinds at the bottom of the stairs, about 3 feet long. When I go to bed I lower these blinds to keep more of the pellet heat down stairs. With the blinds at the bottom of the stairwell fully down the upper floor will cool from about 71 to 65F through the night. The upper floor's programmable thermostat is set at 65 - so if we are having a cold snap outside the oil furnace will kick in to heat the upstairs when the temperature cools to 65F. Thanks to the inslutated siding, new vinyl windows and several other warmth-projects I have undertaken in the past few years, the furnace never starts through the night -- so long as the outside temperature is greater than ~10F.

First thing in the morning (~7:00 AM) the first kid up pulls the blinds up fully. This allows the down stairs heat (~75F) to rise up the stairwell to the kitchen and dinning area. The upstairs TS also kicks up to 68F at 7:00 AM and this starts the oil furnace (upstairs loop). So, by breakfast time, about 7:20, the upstairs is nice and warm. At 8:00 AM the upstairs PTS drops back to 65F. When everyone leaves for the day the blinds at the bottom of the stairs are closed to keep the pellet heat down stairs. First one home in the afternoon / evening opens the blinds to let some heat up stairs.

There are two bedrooms downstairs - one has kids, the other is a guest bedroom. The kids room door stays open through the night, the guest room door is closed. There is a lower floor oil furnace thermostat in the guest room set at 48F (not programmable). With the door closed this room stays very cool - but typically not cool enough to kick in the oil furnace. With the kidz room door open, this room stays quite warm - near 72 'cause the pellet stove PTS in the hallway is set at 72. If the pellet stove kicks out in the night - or we have a very cold night - the lower floor oil heat will kick in when the guest room cools to 48F.

I have optimized our heat distribution in our house by trial and error over the past 5 years. My wife and kidz think I'm nuts for playing with it all so much but I like it. To date (late Feb) here in Southern Dutchess county NY, we have burned just over 2 tons of pellets (since September) and about 110 gallons of oil (since Dec 15 including domestic hot water). At 2.79 for oil - not available anymore! - and 230 per ton for pellets, my heat costs so far = 2*230 + 2.79*110 = ~$770. That's much cheaper than my first 2005 home heat consumption of ~750 gallons (that was pre-pellet stove and pre-insulation work). That would total over 2600 dollars at today's price of $3.49 for oil. So - do I like my pellet stove? You betcha! Am I looking for other ways to cut heating costs? Yep -- I'm goona replace that leaky front door with an energy efficient one real soon!

Anyway, take care, all!

RonB

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Onced the house and the contents get cooled off, it takes a lot of energy to get it all back up to temperature again.

The house and everything in it act like a giant heat sink.

Once warm, the stove has to work far less to maintain the level of heat as opposed to raising the level up again.

During really cold weather we use two stoves in our 2400 Ft Ranch style house.

During warmer weather we will use just one and then depending on the outside temp, we will use either the large Advantage II T (temps in the mid to low 40's and if the temps are 50 or so we will use the tiny little Prodigy.

Run the stove all night, or basically 24/7 as long as the weather is cold/cool

If your stove is an auto lighter on a stat, just let it do its thing.


Using fuel oil just makes no sense at all these days.


Snowy

 

[ChrisWNY]

I shut my pellet furnace down at night, I don't run anything overnight, just allow the temp to slowly drop when we're all sleeping. During the morning, I allow my propane furnace to kick on once or twice to bring the house into the low 60s (temp generally only drops to 60°F overnight on cold nights). House is empty during most business days (we don't run any heat source when we're not home), so when I get home from work I brush and vac the burn chamber and fire it up the furnace, on weekends I run the pellet furnace when we wake up in the morning. On really frigid nights, I'll burn at a low setting all night to keep the first and second floors warm. I go through about 4 bags of pellets per week during cold weeks, the past couple weeks have been a bit milder so my pellet usage has dropped by almost 50%. Our LP use has been cut by nearly 90% since we had the Fahrenheit pellet furnace installed in December 2010.

 

[smalltown]

I have my Castile on a programmable thermostat that lowers the temp at 10:45 PM and back up at 4:30 AM. On very cold nights we opt to manually keep the nighttime temp higher as j-takeman apparently does otherwise it will take a good amount of time to play catch up with the normal daytime temperature.

 

[dmaclaren]

we keep ours on manual all the time except for just after cleaning when it needs to start up. We turn it down from 70 - 66 at about 8:00pm then up in the am. With the PF100, it's only a manual thermostat (YUCK).

We have to shut all the registers down in the master bedroom except the closet and bathroom. If not, it's too hot to sleep. We try to get it around 60 but it's more like 63. We have to turn on the fan or we need to crack a window.

Since Dec 8th, we have burned 3 tons for 3600 sqft with 1600 an unfinished basement which keeps about 65 - 66

 

[pete324rocket]

Using a programmable setback thermostat to turn the heat back at night saves 15 percent(or more) when using electric heat. This is fact. Then why should pellet heat be any different?

 

[mpcm]

Well, it seems I am in the minority here based on these posts.

I keep all three zones in the house at or just below 60. Pellet stove is on one far end of the first floor left zone, it keeps the pellet stove room itself warm enough (over 60, ceiling is 70 w/ fan), but most of the heat travels upstairs. The right side of the first floor gets okay solar gain during the sunny days, but remains cool. Upstairs heat rarely kicks on as long as the pellet stove is going, and is usually at 62-66 from the stove heat floating around.

So far this heating season we have burned 2.1 tons of NEWP and 1.3 tons of Okies, and in just 2011 so far have burned 286 gallons of oil, at a cost of ~$900. I'll be looking quite seriously at what to do with my old nh farm house, fortunately the prior owner replaced almost all of the older windows. Now if only he had insulated the floors... or finished anything else they started... I love the place though. Just my wallet doesnt.

 

[Turbo-Quad]

It probably depends on how fast your house loses heat. I have no insulation so I leave mine on low all night. If its extrememly cold i'll leave it on meadium or even high. It is far to diffficult for my stove to recover the heat if I shut it down. I burn less pellets leaving it on.

 

[jtakeman]

Using a programmable setback thermostat to turn the heat back at night saves 15 percent(or more) when using electric heat. This is fact. Then why should pellet heat be any different?

I used a setback in the other house with oil heat. I do the same with my pellet heat. I think it saves me. But haven's bothered to keep the house a steady temp to compare against the setback. In my head it saves me< So I am sticking to it!

 

[brihvac]

Do you guys leave the stoves on when you are at work and the house is empty? I would be afraid of fire

 

[DexterDay]

Stove always runs 24/7. (temperature permitting). Uses less pellets when its super cold because of the lack to "catch up" with the heat loss. She burns while at work, sleeping, or away. Gets cold when its shut down. Have not used my LP furnace in 2 yrs, and I plan to keep the streak going. Many safety features on these stoves.. As long as you keep your stove "Clean" and in good working condition. (No bypassing anything) Then you should have many joyful years of a beatiful fire. (The cheap heat helps too) LOL.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Do you guys leave the stoves on when you are at work and the house is empty? I would be afraid of fire

Do you turn off your other heating system when you go to work?

 

[brihvac]

Doing HVAC for a living, I can tell you they are not the same. A typical heater has more than 4 safetys that will shut it down if something is not right. My Harmon does not

 

[save$]

Do you guys leave the stoves on when you are at work and the house is empty? I would be afraid of fire

If your stove has been properly installed and maintained, I don't think you should have any more concern than that of leaving a properly installed light bulb. Unless there is someone or thing messing with your stove, you should be as safe as any one can be with any heating unit. These stoves have multiple system over rides to shut them down should something fail.

 

[smalltown]

Not to be sarcastic, but if I was worried about a fire when I was away I wouldn't use the pellet stove at all.

It took me a while to get used to the stove late at night with its particular rumbling sound, but now I sleep soundly.

 

[DexterDay]

Doing HVAC for a living, I can tell you they are not the same. A typical heater has more than 4 safetys that will shut it down if something is not right. My Harmon does not

Do you not run your Harman when you are away from the house? Most stoves have a "Minimum" of 2 safety devices. Most burn there stoves because of the money that it saves and the "hobby" that it becomes. Some do buy them just for the ambiance factor and want to show there friends the new toy. Whichever way you choose, they still have to be "Safe", for the Manufacturer to be able to sell them. Another reason they are "tested" by an outside company. To each there own, but I believe my Quadrafire and Fahrenhiet, to both be as safe as my LP Furnace. So long as they are kept Clean and in good working order. I worry more about my clothes dryer starting a lint fire, or my house being struck by lightning.

 

[heat seeker]

I had a little trouble at first, leaving the stove running all night. After a few days of that, I got enough confidence in the stove to let it run overnight. Having a bunch of smoke and CO detectors helped, too. It's still an eery feeling, if I get up during the night, seeing the flicker of firelight downstairs, I'll tell you. That said, I still shut it down when we leave the house, but will probably eventually get over that once I gain more confidence in the stove. After all, if I leave it running, basically unattended, while there are people in the house at night, leaving it running with no one in the house should come easy. My main concern is that we get some vicious winds up here at times, and the stove is on the windward side of the house. I am a bit concerned that the wind will cause a problem when I'm not around to remedy it. Time and experience will bring some confidence, and there is seldom a time without someone in the house, so it's not a huge deal either way. Oil just hit $3.59 around here - I'm loving this stove more and more!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Doing HVAC for a living, I can tell you they are not the same. A typical heater has more than 4 safetys that will shut it down if something is not right. My Harmon does not

Well my stove also has 4 safeties. It runs except for cleaning 24/7 for the entire heating season.

ETA: The only heating device that I've ever had go tango uniform was a gas fired steam system. There were many safeties on that, but still it ran when it shouldn't.

 

[brihvac]

I stated my Harmon does not. I could care less how many safetys are on your stove. I was just asking a general question on if it was safe to run the stove when not at home. Everyone gave me a helpful answer except you.
Theres always one in every forum

I apologize to the OP