% of heating season

[Cheeks]

Is there a rule of thumb on what portion of the heating season has occurred at different dates? (I live in Massachusetts).

I just realized i'm about 65% through my pellets and I'm wondering how that compares to the heating season so I can adjust consumption or order more.

I tried to find cumulative heating degree days averages to compare to the total for the heating season at http://www.degreedays.net/ but they don't give averages by the day. If I use the monthly data, a rough estimate is that we're about 50% through. Any thoughts?

 

[Boondoggie]

I'm in southern NH, and I plan for having to run the pellet stove thru April 1st... I burn about a bag per day, so it's easy to count the bag remaining and have an estimate of how many days I have left.

How many pellets did you start with? At a bag per day, I bought 3tons (150 bags) for the season, which should put me into April since I started in mid Nov.

 

[Cheeks]

I bought 3 tons to start. This is my first year with the pellet stove so i'm still trying to find the best setup for an efficient burn. I have a feeling i've been burning more than i need to. I've messed with the sliding air damper and now feed rate. I'm going to do my first full clean today too. It doesn't help that i'm burning Green Supreme pellets, which I will never buy again.

We're down to our last row of bags on the second pallet, so almost 2/3 gone. We've used anywhere from 1-4 bags a day depending on the outside temps. Average is about 1.5-2.

 

[Enigma869]

I ran my pellet stove throughout all of April last year (we had some really cold days),and may have even had it going a day or three in May, so it's really tough to pin it down. Usually, once you get into late March, you can at least count on using fewer pellets, as it's unlikely you'll have to have your stove cranked. Like you, I was about 65% (almost three full ton out of the five I had purchased for the season) of the way through my stash. Because any sort of math makes my head explode, I didn't bother pulling out the abacus to formulate a game plan. Given that it's only mid-January, I thought it's more likely than not that my remaining two ton (plus 8 bags) wasn't going to get me through to April. Because of that, I decided to run off to Home Depot and grab another ton while it was warm last Sunday.

 

[St_Earl]

first year up here i shut it down april 15th.
yeah, that was a mistake.
now i just wait till june 1st no matter what.

 

[jp0469]

Today (January 15th) is considered the midpoint of meteorological winter so our average lows have pretty much reached their lowest. It's kind of an oversimplification but works well enough for me for estimating pellet usage.

 

[kofkorn]

I live in Central Mass, and average between 2 1/2 to 3 tons annually. Last year was a relatively average year, with almost exactly 2 1/2 tons burned. The lowest I've gone is just under 2 tons. A couple of years ago during the really cold/snowy winter, I used 3 1/2. I always have 3 1/2 tons to start the season, and burn any prior year left over first.

At this point, I've burned through 1 1/2 tons, and I fully expect to break into my last full pallet before the season is out. This has been a colder winter so far, so I expect to use at least 3 tons before the season is out.

If you are already through 65% of your stash, I would keep an eye out on some additional pellets to supplement what you have. As I recently saw in one of the other posts here, you should have about 1/2 of your stock remaining by Candlemas day (Feb 2nd this year). So you may be needing more before the year is out.

Plus, as long as you store the pellets properly, there is no issue with having extra and using it next year.

Good luck!

 

[Cheeks]

JP, you're not far off from my calculations.

So I emailed someone at the degreedays.net site and they sent 14 years of daily data on heating degree days, for Boston. Using the average per calendar day over that time, I split up the year starting July 1 to June 30 and then calculated the cumulative HDD. Then I found the midpoint to be January 24/25.

I did the same using October 1 to May 31 and the midpoint was January 22/23. Obviously the degree day midpoint will depend on many things but mostly the fact that the average temperature tends to bottom around this time so the HDDs are much higher. These are just averages and only over 14 years so we could have a really warm Feb and throw things off, but it's interesting to see where things fall. Also, it would likely be different as you move away from Boston.

With 2/3 of my pellets gone and less than 50% of the heating season behind us, i'll likely run out before we're done using heat (or deal with cooler temps).

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[Hoot23]

I'm gonna run out too. Gonna burn close to 5+ ton this season

 

[chken]

End of January is the midpoint I've always used.

 

[Bridgeman]

I deal with a winter in a couple of ways at work and I have always considered jan. 15 the mid point as far as equipment, snow storage capacity, overtime and mothballed equipment maintenance. I'm with jp on this one. I always plan on having half a ton to start next heating season. I'm on track to be with in 10 bags of that. Last weeks extreme cold was offset by this weeks thaw here in So. New Hampshire.

 

[Ctcarl]

Here in Connecticut I did 2 tons last year but that was with a stove that didn't heat well. I stopped end of March.I got 3 tons this year and just did one. So hopefully the remanding 2 tons gets me by.

 

[bbfarm]

1st year 3 tons. We didn't install stove until after Xmas

2nd year 6 tons and we were still using it in June

I am planning on 6 tons again, maybe a tad more

 

[ChandlerR]

Last year, because it was so warm, we did one ton, plus or minus. This year we'll be knocking on the door of two tons. Our mid point is the end of January too.

 

[Augmister]

This year has seemed to have been colder and I average about 3 tons for the season over the last 7 years. Key for me is a small house, well insulated and running on a thermostat. With temps in upper 30s-40s+, I'm well under a bag a day. Was a little over a bag a day during the vortex. Right now on bag 63 for the 2013-14 season. I'm a self confessed pellet pig with almost 3 tons of Somersets/Barefoots in reserve and will only burn them below 15 degrees. Since the beginning of October, knocked off 37 bags of MWP, 10 of the Somersets/Barefoots and 15 bags of Stove Chow. For the next part of winter, I have the Sets/BF stash, the other 35 bags of SC, 9 bags of MWP for the warmer days and a fresh new ton of FSU, I am picking up this weekend.

 

[boomhour]

Hope you are including the weather we had in mid-May last year.