Pellet heads!! What's up today?

We got no snow. Just lots of rain and 60mph wind. Lost power for 2 hours. I was in Georgetown Mass working on a furnace so I missed it. No great loss. It was warm out so the wife was warm enough in the house. Lot's of flooding around me though. High tide pushed to shore by near hurricane force winds. Fortunately for me, I am far enough from the ocean and high up enough so I don't have to worry about that.

 

Have one in the bedroom for supplemental heat (bedroom isn't heated). Keep in mine that no matter what any of the manufacturers claim for heat output,. they are all limited to 1500 watts input so btu output isn't all that great and electric is the most expensive heat source per btu of any fuel.

You can buy the cheapest electric heater or the most expensive but btu output will be the same.

 

Nothing here, nada. No snow, no freezing rain, nothing. Leafless trees and pismuckle brown grass.

 

I went out and cleaned up 8" of snow. Very easy moving except for the wind whipping it around. Got a couple more inches of white stuff while I was out there. Let it sit to soak up the rain. It did that admirably. I did have to go out and clean up the slushy mess left on the driveway, and that the wing back plow left. Everything else is one big block of ice (the driveway still has icy spots, but a bit of sand will take care of those areas). Roof on the east side didn't start dumping until late in the day. I kept up with it thru the evening, but the last part didn't dump until overnight. Now my ramp has a humpy-bumpy surface that probably won't go away until March .

 

Came home from work hoping the sun had done some good. Little to no difference. Just about every driveway around here is the same. Put some sand down-as much as my hand would allow which wasnt much.

Chance of light snow showers (that wasnt forecast here as late as last night) should help the ice on the driveway

 

Snowing all nite, but light snow.About 4". 5f

 

It's a balmy 40 here and no cloud cover at all. Stove is idling. Probably the usual mud pie outside too. I need to get out one of the tractors today and refill my plastic garbage cans with mix, something I have to do every hump day.

The joys of winter I guess. Might as well take the blower and plow off, Don't see any accumulation coming in the near future. If we do get any, the loader bucket can handle it just fine. It is nice to own large tractors with very capable loaders on them.

 

Get 'em while you can... Aubuchon
Dan

 

Considering the present rate of inflation as well as the terrible supply chain economics, I still believe it would be expeditious to buy all you can for the coming seasons, not gonna get cheaper than the are today. If you have a place to store them that is.

 

I put sand out on my driveway and ramp yesterday morning and was able to beat a little of the ice off. That was a function of the sun warming the sand. Snow pack is keeping the ground level too cold for meltage from air temp alone. Anything that doesn't come off today is stuck there for a while as temps start to slide and tonight it will be back into the negative numbers.

I thought the chance of snow today was only for extreme southern NH - but maybe that changed.

 

Looks like their everyday price for my area. Although, they start giving bulk discounts at 10 bags, not a ton (or at least my local shop does). Aubuchon's is very proud of their GS and they were more than the Orfords and Logik-e during the fall. I bought 10 bags of each of the non-GS to try (they are still in garage at this point). I think I also got some reward $$ back too for spending over $50.

Got an email add from TSC yesterday. I definitely don't need pellets but just had to look to see what their lowest price guarantee meant



Looks like their pellet prices went up to $5.79/bag ($279.50/ton with bulk diescount) on the website, but only $5.69/bag if I buy from the local TSC stock.

 

When I went out at 7:20 with my grandson to wait for his bus, I was surprised at there being some ice on the walkway and driveway as it was 38* at the time.
About 8:30 got an automated call from Sanborn school district saying a bus carrying 7 Memorial School students slid off the road on Meadowwood Drive in Kingston, driver & kids fine, put on another bus, safely at school, all parents had been notified. As Graham is autistic, he gets picked up in a Dodge Caravan minivan bus. so I'm guessing it was his bus. Unless Sanborn sent the message to everyone in the school district.

My youngest graduated in 1997. School today is so different, automated calls, text messages, emails, they use some app called Pickup Patrol for if you have to get a child dismissed early, Zoom meetings, logging into web sites for remote learning days, almost everything is done electronically . And with Graham being autistic there is a constant communication flow with the special ed ( aka In Step) team (district social worker, occupational therapist, behavior therapist, teachers) .
Compared to when I went to school in the 60's & 70's, it is like the Jetsons world.

UPDATE- don't think it was his bus. Meadowwood Dr is on the far eastern side of Kingston, we're on the far west edge no way his bus would have made it that far in 7 min.

sam

 

I kind would prefer the local road people would spread hot sand versus salt or brine or CACL because all of them promote metal corrosion on vehicles and especially brine which attacks electrical connectors.

The reasoning is, sand clogs the catch basins on the road side but there are none on any roads out here and none on the freeways either so I find that a lame excuse at best.

We are back in the dumper here, no snow but it's a balmy 18 this am and windy. Stove is trucking along and I got up this morning at 6:30AM to the furnace running. I always cut the burn rate back at night out of habit.

Still on my rear bottle of propane but it's getting close. I'll run it down to 5% and valve it off and open the front one. I pre bought 500 gallons at a great price (presently a $1.50 a gallon less than current) but I need to drop the front bottle a bit so I can receive the full 500. You can only fill a bottle to 85% which is 425 gallons. You have to have the air space above the liquid so the dip tube can pull vapor, not liquid. That will cover me for the remainder of the cold weather and leave me with one full bottle and a partial, which I'll top off this summer when gas prices are (hopefully) lower.

I own my bottles so I can fill with any supplier I want but my hunting buddy also owns the propane company and always gives me a very competitive price.

 

Do keep in mind young lady that what they will cost next fall will be 2 different things but even paying more next fall might not be all bad because utility prices are also increasing. My buddy near Bar Harbor, took a 40% increase in his electrical rate. Nice quick 80 buck increase for the same amount of power.

 

THAT TIME OF THE YEAR

The fire in the big stove has been getting rather lazy and the clinker in the fire pot has been growing way too fast....

Moderate weather today....Decided to shut the big boy down early this morning and let the beast cool good....then remove the exhaust fan and clean the blade and the inner passage way.........

Then removed all the baffles and run the "Wa Wa Brush in and around the passages.

Gave it the LBT and all is soooooooo much better.

The fan was chucked full of ash.....Most of the packed in ash fell out of the blade when I got it off.....

A piccy after vacuuming the worst of it up.
The area between the blade and the mounting plate was packed full too.

Yeah it was past time to give things a good cleaning.....

Also dusted off the low temp snap switch....It was really skunked up too....

All up and running now.....Much livelier fire....and the clinker clean out time should get back to once a day...
I bought some all silicone gaskets for the exhaust fan a while back.
This is cleaning #5 now and the only thing I have done is mark the gasket so it goes back the same every time.

The Lytherm gaskets are usually a one shot deal....
I bought several of the orange gaskets.....JUST IN CASE.

All "MORE GOODER"

 

Deep Freeze-Sn*w-Rain-45 deg temps for several hours-Sn*w-Cold again causing ice skating rinks for driveways that wont melt off.

Mother Nature sure is fickle this past week

 

Mee to, but this is new England. Luckily it showed up on radar but not hitting the ground.

Going to try and attack the ice more with sand this weekend. Almost out of sand now and need to get some from the transfer station. Hoping another day before attempting to get the heavy buckets of sand into back of my truck will be better for my hand.