The strange warm weather has ended today and it's back to 40 degree days and 25 degree nights so I converted the living room back to wood burning mode! See you later decorations and hello wood and wood burning tools!
It's Officially Burning Season
- Thread starter Caw
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Gearhead660
Minister of Fire
Dan Freeman
Minister of Fire
We lit our first fire this morning. It had been unseasonably warm here in the Pocono Mountains the past few weeks, but now it looks like upper 20's during the nights and 40's during the days. Now, that I have retired the propane stove for the season, I will top off my propane tanks now to have them full in case I need the generator this winter. Can't wait to see what they are charging for propane these days!
I fired off the wood boiler this morning. Just checking to see if everything is ready. I need to top of my unpressurized storage and that needs to be down with hot tank so I will be running it for a day or two to bring the storage up to full temp. My minisplit starts to have tough time moving heat up to my second floor with the predicted temps this week.
I'm also reluctant to run my heat pump down around 40 with the new electricity prices, even with my solar panels. Much cheaper to just have a small fire on the borderline days.
I have 2100 KW " in the bank" from my solar system so I dont mind running the minisplit but its definitely is working hard to heat my entire house.
I know it's coming but just dont want any surprises. I had to build a new grate from scratch this year and it made it through its first burn.
I know it's coming but just dont want any surprises. I had to build a new grate from scratch this year and it made it through its first burn.
I wish they banked kWh here. I'd give them a kWh when I make it and they give me a kWh back when I need it. Even trade. No $ needs to change hands.
Instead we get paid out monthly based on the market rate at the time minus fees. The price this summer for electricity here was $0.24/kWh therefore all my summer credits were paid out at about $0.20/kWh. All together I banked around $300. The price is going up to about $0.32/kWh for the winter starting this month though so I'm kind of getting screwed. I'm losing about $0.12/kWh of value on the electricity I overproduced this summer.
Feelsbad but that's how it's done here. There's the usual change to winter rates around this time but it's not typically this drastic. With the price of electricity soaring so high I'm more thankful than ever to own solar though. It pays for itself even faster with higher prices. I'm just more likely to burn during shoulder season now and instead of only having a bill 2 months of the year itll likely be 3 now.
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