How many pellets do you use?

[P51mustang]

I live in upstate, NY just east of Lake Ontario in Lewis County. Often referred to as "The North Country." I heat my 1800 square foot home with primarily my Harman P61A. I just started on my fifth ton of pellets. I use Empire brand hardwood pellets manufactured about 45 minutes from my house in Lafargeville, NY.

Given I run my Harman in room temp. manual mode, I burn more pellets than if I used the auto mode. I typically burn between 4 and 5 tons per year with the highest being about 6 tons a couple winters ago when we had a pretty cold winter. I also have a hot water oil fired boiler and I usually go through about 200 gallons per winter.

For those of you not familiar with my geographic area of the world, we typically have VERY snowy winters (copious amounts of "Lake Effect" as I'm right off the end of Lake Ontario) and usually several below zero days and nights. This winter has not been as cold as usual but the month of March has been unusually cold and so will lower our overall average temperature for the winter as a whole.

 

[borninabarn]

I'm new to this forum, but thought I would share my pellet use.
I went to Farm and Fleet last fall and bought 1 bag. I have 1/3 of it left.
I work part time for a neighbor, farming so I go down to his grain bin about twice a month and fill up my 15 bushel cart with shelled corn. Probably burned 100 bushel so far this year. I have an older SCF 050 in the basement that I bought used 3 years ago for a song. It has issues sometimes, but mostly runs on "idle" and I go thru (2) 5 gallon buckets of corn a day to heat this big old farm house. The upstairs is closed off most of the time.
The LP furnace will run if it gets windy and cold as it is set on 68, but I only go thru 300 gallons in a year and that includes cooking, hot water and heating.
I use about a quarter of a cup of pellets every day along with a squirt of hand cleaner gel to light the fire after dumping the clincker. It's way less work than cutting, splitting, stacking and hauling firewood

 

[Tonyray]

I live in upstate, NY just east of Lake Ontario in Lewis County. Often referred to as "The North Country." I heat my 1800 square foot home with primarily my Harman P61A. I just started on my fifth ton of pellets. I use Empire brand hardwood pellets manufactured about 45 minutes from my house in Lafargeville, NY.

Given I run my Harman in room temp. manual mode, I burn more pellets than if I used the auto mode. I typically burn between 4 and 5 tons per year with the highest being about 6 tons a couple winters ago when we had a pretty cold winter. I also have a hot water oil fired boiler and I usually go through about 200 gallons per winter.

For those of you not familiar with my geographic area of the world, we typically have VERY snowy winters (copious amounts of "Lake Effect" as I'm right off the end of Lake Ontario) and usually several below zero days and nights. This winter has not been as cold as usual but the month of March has been unusually cold and so will lower our overall average temperature for the winter as a whole.

curious why you don't use room/auto.. if it's that cold, the stove would never shut off. [which i'm sure you know quite well]
auto modes blower seems to squeeze out every bit of heat till there is nothing left where as manual the blower shuts off for long periods of time.

 

[P51mustang]

curious why you don't use room/auto.. if it's that cold, the stove would never shut off. [which i'm sure you know quite well]
auto modes blower seems to squeeze out every bit of heat till there is nothing left where as manual the blower shuts off for long periods of time.

I've tried it in room/auto mode on several occasions, usually during the shoulder months of the heating season, and it seems to cycle on and off more than I'd like and so have opted to keep in room/manual mode. I justify it (perhaps wrongly) by telling myself I'm extending the life of my ignitor.

 

[Tonyray]

I've tried it in room/auto mode on several occasions, usually during the shoulder months of the heating season, and it seems to cycle on and off more than I'd like and so have opted to keep in room/manual mode. I justify it (perhaps wrongly) by telling myself I'm extending the life of my ignitor.

understand completely.
Around here we call it IgniterPhobia..lol

shoulder season for me even with a harman is annoying with the on/off/rinse/lather/repeat cycles.
my glass also will get dirtier during shoulder season on auto.
But. if we are gone most of the day and it really warms up, in room/manual, the stove will continue to burn pellets..
I guess since i have recently changed my igniter and found out how simple it was,
I don't concern myself with trying to save it... cost me 57.00 for an exact igniter right down to wire lenght of both leads..
have read here where many Harman owners have gone 7-8 yrs on same igniter using room auto mode.
whatever your comfortable with is the way to go...

 

[jp57]

I've been keeping track of how many bags I used this season...just found that I already burned more 18 days into March then I did ALL of December!

 

[P51mustang]

understand completely.
Around here we call it IgniterPhobia..lol

shoulder season for me even with a harman is annoying with the on/off/rinse/lather/repeat cycles.
my glass also will get dirtier during shoulder season on auto.
But. if we are gone most of the day and it really warms up, in room/manual, the stove will continue to burn pellets..
I guess since i have recently changed my igniter and found out how simple it was,
I don't concern myself with trying to save it... cost me 57.00 for an exact igniter right down to wire lenght of both leads..
have read here where many Harman owners have gone 7-8 yrs on same igniter using room auto mode.
whatever your comfortable with is the way to go...

Wow, 7-8 years? That's pretty good. Reading that puts my "IgniterPhobia" at bay so to speak.

 

[TonyVideo]

I am just on my 3rd year with a P68 and 45 and no igniter issues yet. I have one on the shelf waiting.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[anthonyj124]

1.5-2 bags a day when it is <30F. Breckwell p23 insert heating most of a 2200sqf lofted log home. 2.5 tons of Douglas firs annually two years in a row. Three tanks of oil in two years.

 

[mudeprived]

Castle Serenity in 960 sq ft heating only first floor and not basement.

1.5 bags a day and 1.6 tons so far. I start it up when I get home from work and shut it off when I leave in the morning. I do leave it run 24/7 on my weekends.

I would love to run it 24/7 but my gf freaks out thinking it'll burn the house down if we are not here.