Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Happy New Year, everyone.

Below zero for the next 5 nights, w/ -11 called for Sunday night.

Finished a pallet of Upcountry a few days ago, and have switched over to the MWP, which are a nice chocolate brown this year.
Quality on these has gone up nicely over the years.

One of our Vornados died a while ago, and i'm using Honeywells.
Got a few for $15 each.
The change necessitated some innovation in my setup to heat the far end of the house.
Long narrow path to that room.
But it's really cool how the changes are working.

I'll make a little video here in a sec.

The rooms behind the air dam still stay plenty warm.
Getting the heat to the far end of the house has always been the challenge.
The new adjustments make a massive difference.
Before when we got well below zero, i'd have to pulse the stove on high in intervals.
I don't like running Helga steady on high for hours.
When it gets way cold, i would even have to run the oil in bursts to keep the far end of the house warm.
Like -15 -20.
Pretty confident now i can manage the coldest nights w/o the oil.
(It's not baseboard oil, but funky forced air, and the stat is in the stove room, so has to be run manually.)
Probably have to run on high intermittently at -20, but that's a massive upgrade for some cardboard and a new fan hung.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zGaU19Yo1do

 

I haven't bought MWP in the last couple of years. The local TSC has them MWPs in their bags, but they don't deliver and I've can spend less, including delivery by having HD deliver GS (I usually have a 10% off coupon to make that work). I may have to pick up some from TSC just for funsies and see how they compare to previous years. I thought I heard the gal at TSC say they deliver now - she was telling a guy he qualified for free delivery (which would be great and change how I buy pellets).

Thanks for the video of your set up. That is definitely a challenging area to heat and it looks like you have it well in hand now.

 

We get a flat $75 delivery fee from wood pellet warehouse.
It doesn't make sense to buy more expensive pellets.
I cannot recover the extra money.
Just a 3 speed switch and the feed gate on old Helga, no fancy controls.
I actually doubt even that would make enough difference to actually make more expensive pellets a money saving proposition.
Helga's either running on low, or medium, or medium with intervals on high.
I don't think any pellets are going to make low work at meaningful colder outside temps.
The Upcountry were fine, but they still leave a puck after a while.
Actually, the MWPs have been going for a while now, and the build up is much slower, and smaller.
Bought the Upcountry year before last since they were the same price as MWP then, but this year they went up.
$319 for the MWP as it is.

I am so thankful Wood pellet Warehouse delivers.
Even getting pellets from TSC a mile away would be a big problem with our Subaru.

-13 Sunday night.
Looks like the Vornados won't be here till Monday.

 

That short hallway before the back room has the door to the side porch, and the basement door on either side too.
Just to make things more challenging.

 

Now that it is warmer out, I'm trying to get the P43 empty of pellets so I can test some Orford's HW pellets that I bought a year or two ago (I got 10 bags just because they were there).

Dang, time flies - I just lo0ked on my spreadsheet and see I bought them fall of 2021 for $6.59/bag (10 bags gets the same price as a pallet). That equal $329/ton - about what I paid for the GS I got this past fall from HD.

 

Holy cow do the Orford's run hot. I measured the air coming out of the distribution at 325* . Should have baked some potatoes while it was up and running.



Method of testing (not scientific, but close enough for my purposes): Measured on P43, feed rate 3, fan high, on thermostat, using oven thermometer, first measurement at 20 minutes after ignition then measure every 5 minutes for 20 minutes. The stove was not cleaned. For comparison.

Only one other pellet has run that hot - Fusion Blend (Lauzon). Here are my top 6 test results




Not running the rest of the bags until the cold weather comes back though - don't want to waste that heat!

 

I am such a nerd and have a spreadsheet for lots of things that no one else would even think of. I wish I had been tracking my pellet usage and pellet details when I started in 2014. But, I didn't think of it and was so busy working on my house and working a job that it was far from my mind. I didn't start tracking usage until the 2016/2017 season. And I'm not sure when I developed a method for testing (probably the next burning season as I think I was down to 1 job then). The Top Temp column was added way after I started tracking general characteristics and a lot of lines just say "not taken" because of that.

Ugh, thanks for pointing that out. Since I retired, I have no reminders of what year it is - I'll probably be typing 2025 for the next several years .

I'm doing good to know what day of the week it is. You'd think I'd been retired for a while, but it's only been a week - don't ever give me one of those cognitive tests that asks about the date because even before retirement I needed my phone or computer to tell me that

 

Congrats! And don't worry about what day of the week it is.....that's easy.....it's "6 Saturday's and a Sunday" club.

 

It is Tuesday January 13, 2026 and I have no one to celebrate Burn's day with on 01/26/2026.

 

Lori is always asking me what day it is but with her erratic sleeping schedule sometimes she isn't sure if it's night or day.

I have been retired for 5 years now and still feel weird if I don't get up by 6am. I have to keep telling myself it's ok to sleep in if I want to.

Sam

 

Day of week is important for my weekly dump run (or if I need to get sand for icy driveway) since it is only open limited days/hours Tuesday (day), Wednesday (night), Friday (day) and Saturday (day).

 

Don't you mean challenged?

 

Sand pile at public works here is in the front lot, and available 24/7.

Did my best a while back to mitigate the effects of the expected melt/re freeze, but ended up chiseling and shoveling ice for 2 1/2 hours anyway.
It has paid off though.


Also, a nice secondary benefit of having the OAK, is it keeps the area around the control box cool.