Not Worth it???

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I hear ya.
I will tell you. The other night I was sitting down in front of the stove, cold beer in hand and the wife came downstairs with a little something she picked up at Victorias Secret on. She told me how proud she was of me for doing all the work on the house and how nice and warm it was...I didnt really care how much it cost or how much it saved me at that point. That beer was COLD!
 
Webmaster said:
TedNH said:
Lets say Propane stays at 2.00$ per gallon.
I could spend 3400$ on 1700 gallons to heat my house or a year/over the winter @ a temp average of 62*.
or
I can spend 1000$ on 4 tons of pellets to heat my house for a year/over the winter @ a temp average of 68*.

Only thing I see there is a 2400$ savings in the first year. If you dont count purchase of the stove.

You are not looking at the BTU comparison!
Also, if I bought a bunch of solar panels for electric and hot water, should I calculate the payback and NOT figure in the initial cost or maintaining them?

1700 gallons of LP = 170 million BTU's
4 tons of Pellets = 65 million BTU

Perhaps you have a terrible furnace, but the price comparison point is this - if you bought an LP freestanding stove and installed it upstairs - using your figures (65 million BTU), you would burn 650 gallons of LP in it.....for the EXACT same heat as the Pellet stove.

There are a lot more reasons than money to buy a pellet or wood stove. However, for the proper education of our readers I think it is important to compare BTU for BTU as opposed to "My friend heats his house to X with x".

A pellet stove on full blast will warm me up better than propane fired baseboard. Dont care how many BTU's per what ever you have. Its about applied BTU's.
 
TedNH said:
A pellet stove on full blast will warm me up better than propane fired baseboard. Dont care how many BTU's per what ever you have. Its about applied BTU's.

Exactly, which is why my post mentioned that a freestanding LP stove located exactly where your pellet stove is would use the same BTU.

Removing those windows should save a LOT of BTUs....it's always tough to fill a bucket that has holes in it!

As far as Victorias Secret and burning waste sawdust from your local area (see the Pellet Plant tour I just posted), that is priceless!
 
If those big windows were south facing they might have become a considerable source of free heat via solar gain.

TedNH said:
elkimmeg said:
Ted mazkes a good point but he has given valid reasons money should be spent insulationg and draft proofing homes.
Its one thing to pay for heat but my theory I would like to enjoy it a while longer. What if $250 for additional draft stopping and insulation
saves a ton of pelet burning? What if you can improve the effeciency of your central heating system and it's delivery?

yup.
My house is an open concept with vaulted celings. The baseboards in the house were not able to keep up with the heat loss caused by some huge windows that I had. I say had because I removed them this summer and replaced them with a nice insulated wall and some new Marvin windows and a new slider. I suspect that most of my heat was going out those windows. This winter will be the test. My furnace is 2 years old so the technology is good.
It is very hard to determine where and how you are loosing heat.
Here is a photo of what I was dealing with. Last winter I covered them with plastic.
 
Old thread, but another aspect that I didn't see mentioned... More so with cordwood than other forms, but...

An additional cost savings that the health nazi's would approve of, is that burning is good exercise!

It probably doesn't matter much for those in strenuous jobs, but if you listen to the gov't crapaganda, more and more of us are working sedentary occupations, eating too much and GETTING FAT! We are constantly being urged to get off our butts and head down to the local health club and EXERCISE...

I tell people that I cut and split 7+ cords this summer, and they look at me like I'm nuts. I point out how much money we were saving by burning - everyone else is b!^@#ing about how much their heating bills have gone up, I tell them ours dropped 90%, and they wonder if the work is worth it. I then add that I don't need no steenking health club, and don't need to pay those big health-club dues to (often not) go to the health club and engage in non-productive exercise. (Why don't they hook all those machines into a generator and at least get some juice out of the deal?)

Between the exercise I get from processing our wood and going on Atkins, I've dropped from over 230 down to about 183 and am in far better shape.

Instead of paying for the priviledge of exercising, I get a workout that saves money - can't beat that with a stick!

So when figuring your cost savings for alternative fuels, figure in the savings in health club dues as well!

Gooserider
 
You're right, it's agreat workout and saves a lot of money, but the girls at the health club look a lot better than my woodcutting buddy. Especially when they're hot and sweaty!
 
Hmmm, maybe you need to talk the girls at the heath club into stacking the firewood for you when you split it.
 
I'd never get away with dropping the YMCA. Wife and kids use it almost every day. The little princess gets out there and splits wood also. She splits and stacks it. The exercise is her motivation.

As far as Natural gas prices going down....bullcrap. They just upped ours by 29 cents per ccf. My first winter here I was buring close to 200 ccf a month to heat this place. Poorly insulated and really really leaky. I've gone nuts around here sealing air intrusions and adding insulation. Last month's gas bill was 21ccf. Better than before but not as good as I'd like it. There are still things around here that need insulating. I didn't get as much of the insulation project in the attic done as I wanted to. The kitchen is almost done, so I will get on that and try to add 8 -10 more bags of cocoon insulation up there. I will also be under the house beefing up the bat insulation that's in terrible condition down there.
 
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