Winter tuning summer benefit

[Duetech]

Having a well tuned EKO for winter use has benefited my summer usage. Since I use my boiler for summertime dhw I never really shut my boiler down and until this spring my best burn times for pine/spruce were 6 hours. Now though I am getting 8-10 hour burns on a load of spruce which has a lower btu rating than pine and summers heat has yet to arrive. As a side note... We just had our propane tank topped (to 80%) and had a whopping $106 bill. The last time the tank was topped was in Jan of 07 the bill then was $250 which was what we usually paid every three months. I guess I should be embarrassed to say we were spending so much for hot water but on the flip side I'm glad I am not paying that now and hopefully this information can be a warning to others with older pilot light gas water heating units. By the way the time lapse for Jan 07 to Apr of 09 is 27 months and the average monthly LPG turns out to be $3.93 per month for cooking so the average we were paying for hot water was about $79.00 per month. (sound familiar?) What I was paying to heat my hot water for one year will buy most of enough red oak to heat my home and water for the best part of two years. I wish I could say I saved the money I didn't spend on fuel oil but I was off work ill for seven months and found myself glad I didn't have the extra bills for normal necessities because of the lost income. Next year what we don't spend for fossil heating might buy us a trip to Fla or out west. Now that's fine tuning!