Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Ice be fun if you stay in. Get to watch the slip slide.

 

Boo hiss, colder, rainier, sn*er, icier, just"im for you.

 

I was without my pellet stove during this most recent cold snap. I had to wait a month to get the stove shop in here for repairs. Turned out Mickymouse had been in my stove and eaten some wires. May have come in through the air intake from outside. Lucky for me they didn't do more damage. seems it was the ignitor wires and one other. Tool two men a couple of hours to do the cleaning and do the repairs. They found two dead mice and some other mice body parts. Seems this isn't uncommon.

 

Glad they were able to find the issue. Mice in the system isn't good, they can wreak havock to anything that has wires. Known a few people that had to have their motorcycles completely re-wired. Maybe in the spring/summer have your son remove the OAK from the stove and block it off. Or at least find a way to block it from the outside. Also block off the exhaust from the outside. That would keep critters, insects and humidity out of the stove. Just need to remember to revert everything back to open prior to the next season. I put a sticky on the control board so when I open it to turn the stoves to on - I am reminded what I need to do first before turning that switch.

 

I did the exact same thing.

 

Watch'um out for rodents, I give bigger ones swimming lessons.

 

All "MORE GOODER " now ...Ice is all gone and temps are back into the mid 40's F at night an 50's during the day...

Got a lucky break yesterday....Sky cleared off and we loaded up the outfit and did a shell run.

Got a late start so we backed the trailer into the barn and will wait until we get a break in the rain..(Few days) to unload.....
We have been waiting for a weather window since November and to no avail....Every weather window fell on a Sunday or some time that we could not get away......

Plant will be operating another 3-4 months......
We have 23 barrels empty now.....I want to get the stock full up ASAP .....

Full to the brim as we get close to summer......

With the recent power outages and the BS that getting the stoves on the gen set involves.....Decided that this time we are going to install a WISEWAY GW1949 non electric gravity stove.

Looked at one running......

I had started this plan back a couple years ago when we had an ice storm.....

I built the floor pad unit and purchased the tile.

I just need to put in the tile and ready to go.

I finally got a definitive answer on having a vent install with a horizontal run....(Warranty on my new roof is void if any holes (Chimney) are made......

I can go up about 30" above the stove (Need adjustable pipe) then out the wall above the windows and then up above the peak (This part of the house has a roof peak at the center of the windows...(Perfect place to anchor the pipe using a mounting standoff bracket)

The Valance over the windows need to go....It does not match anything in the room after a redecoration some years ago....Soooooo...Good riddance ......

I found the smallest thimble made (9" x 9" outer flange dims) Most are 12"-13"

I need to get after the area above the windows with my stud finder AND A SMALL HAMMER....To locate where we can get through the wall......Once the thimble can be located....We are golden.

I am not really keen on using pellets.....COST.....But for power outages the Wiseway is the Catsazz

I have explored Battery backup gizmos....Inverters and solar/wind

All are very expensive and just fall waaaaay short of making it to prime time.....

The genny is workable....But usually we see storm outages in the weeeeeeeee hours for some reason....
Easy to just toss a fire in the WW and go back to bed......Except in sub freezing temps....Then we need to get a propane heater in the pump shack....


Thimble on it's way.....
Going to go at this a bit at a time and get the thimble in and the pipe done.....

Floor pad finished and then we can get the stove.....May even find a used one reasonable......

Off on another dammed fool crusade......Leterrip.....

A note.....All the junk piled on the stove pad belongs to the Daughter and Son in law and when they got their new camp trailer the stuff never quite all went back in the new rig....The pile was 3 times the size.......

The old stove pipe over near the Big Whitfield was supposed to come out when they did the roof back in 2015 ...The had the brackets all back into the roof while I was gone......So we left it...

I though about trying to use it......Just way too hinky of an install....45 degree angle on the pipe to reach it...No way.....

 

Stove is running hot after the cleaning and repairs. Hotter than I remember. Have turned in back some and will have to learn new settings. Making some noises I am not familiar with. Will need to see what it settles into after a few days of burning. The repair man was telling me this same stove is now selling for $5,000. It was $4,000 when I bought it 11 yrs ago.

 

Before I read far enough down, I thought you were going to use shells in the Wiseway and I wasn't sure that would work. BUT, I see you would have pellets, so I don't need to ask the question.

 

I do not think the shells would feed well.....Auger fed stoves work fine with shells.....This is going to be pretty much a backup heat source and not a "Full time use appliance"

The two Whitfields do a great job of heating the place....Except when the power is out...

We have pretty much always used the Quadrafire 1000 to heat with the generator in outages...

Sadly that stove is at the farthest point from the family room and even farther from the bedrooms.

The Wiseway will be pretty close to the Big Whitfield ......

Still working out the actual install details.....The wall thimble is on it's way....As soon as it is here and I can get a tape measure on that bad boy and then calculate all the data as far as what we have to work with space wise over the two bay windows ..

I found my stud finder ...so some insight into the area will be a lot easier.

The plan is to get the thimble location sorted out and install the thimble through the wall and all exterior calking done....Then cap the hole temporarily while we get the pipe and other bits and pieces.

With the pipe location a finite solution, the position of the floor pad can be adjusted to suit the needed requirements .....

The pipe can be installed and all sealed up through the thimble.....

I may wait on the pipe install until the stove is here....I would really like to get the interior pipe fit to the stove and fire that bad boy up outside and do a high heat burn off and season the paint on the stove and the pipe......I DO NOT WANT TO SKUNK UP THE HOUSE.....OR SET OFF THE MONITORED FIRE ALARM.....

I am excited to finally get after this project.

I need to set the tile to the floor protector (Tile still in the boxes).....Some minor adjustments to the location of the protector may be needed depending on the final position of the thimble/vent pipe

Doing this install a little at a time will lessen the $$$ hurt a lot.

I can shop for the pipe online and likely save a bunch of $$$$ as opposed to running down to the big box and grabbing it....

Gonna be sweet when it's done.....

 

Our P43 was $2700 in 2013, now they're $4079. P61 is $4810, P68 $5259. Still wish I hadn't let Lori talk me out of getting the P61 back then. Was only about $400-$500 more

She's been doing very good over the past week, more like her old self than she has been in a long time. Have a follow up at Lahey next week.

sam

 

Glad to hear that Lori is doing better. Prayers that continue. I now would rather my stove was smaller. At the time I bought it we were heating the whole house. Now we have it separated into two living areas, closed off from each other.

 

Beavers? They damm up running brooks

 

Busted our butts today and got the dumpster of shells all unloaded....

Weather was yucky...We left the rig parked in the barn and hauled the gear to the barn to do the work.

Got a short dry break about 2 pm and were able to get the dumpster off the trailer and back in it's place on the slab before it rained again.....

Looks like we MAY see a few dry days coming up next week....If they materialize we will grab another load....Still have 16 empty barrels.....

Feeling good about getting the load we did.....

Shell withdrawal's me thinks....


This winter has been a real booger as far as being able to schedule shell runs...

 

My P61a was $3,239 in January, 2014. Well, it was more than that as I also had them install and provide the exhaust, the venting was another $500. Oh yeah, and I got the hopper extension for $200.

 

A box of parts be expensive you know. Try ham gear or jewelry or a house right jt.