Absolutely beautiful day today.

Still running the Little Whit today,but the weather is absolutely lovely.

The sky is clear and a light breeze is blowing but as long as I was active it was certainly T shirt weather.

Brought up another full 55 gallon drum of shells from the barn and set it in the basement.

Then decided to do a tad bit of yard work and get rid of some limbs and other crap that came down earlier this winter.

Scraped the parking area in front of the house to get rid of the needles that turn to a nasty muck after we run over them for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Ahhh well.

Time to sit and enjoy now.

More rain and nasty weather coming by the weekend.

Using up all our older stored shells this winter so I can have the drums all ready and out of the way come summer.

Still have 22 barrels left in the barn to use, plus whats in the basement.

About 5 days on a 55 gallon barrel at present burn rate.

As we get closer to spring this will lessen a lot and so my feeling is that we will be in great shape to start next fall even before the new crop comes in.

My bet is that we will still have some left in the barn.

The Whit P2 is pretty easy keeper and does not hog the fuel.

Sure happy we got all the barrels we got earlier this winter.

IIRC it is about 30 in the barn total, plus maybe 10-12 more in the basement plus a bunch of smaller containers too.

A real shell piglet.

Really nice being able to get by on the one stove, as the big one in the family room is far noisier as its right close to where the TV is and the bedroom.

 

Sorry I'm not familiar with the term shells? Obviously a fuel for a pellet type stove? Is it shelled corn? Glad to hear it was a great day, cold and nasty woods here in Wisconsin, but still managed a pick up load of some giant silver maple chunks, giant in the spectrum of only 2 guys to lift and roll anyways

 

Nope

Hazelnut shells

Been burning this stuff since 91-92

Dry, very good heat and real cheap at 1-1/2 cents a pound

Grown locally in huge quantity.
Processing plant is only 15 minutes away.

We take our 3 yard dumpster, stick it on the car trailer and off we go.

3 trips and fill all our barrels full and we are set for the LONG COLD DARK AND WET


Once barreled it keeps a long time.
We shake it through a screen bottom pail into 5 gallon buckets and then pack it in for the stoves.

We have 2 Whitfields running this stuff and it's just a great way to fly

Heating a nearly 2400 ft ranch style shack for under $100 a season.

Takes some fussing to get the stuff in, but no bugs, no mess

 

Dex

Great piccy

Thanks for sharring

 

Well you learn something new every day! Very cool and interesting. At $100a season, how can you even afford internet to get on the good ole FHC?
Very cool information and thanks for the pics!I love hearing stories like this!

 

Been doing it since 91 92 season.

Became a way of life around here.

 

$100 would be well worth it to me, as much as I love cutting firewood I'd rather it be a hobby than a chore out of necessity, especially feeding a boiler...more cash to pay other bills and better yet, much much more time which I'd probably spend cutting firewood since I have nothing to do

 

We had no problem with just burning wood here for years. The stubborn homesteading mentality that has helped us divert cash to other projects has served us well also. Last year we moved to a supplemental pellet stove for a couple of reasons. We are getting older, the folks that supply cord wood up here are hit and miss. We have several bio fuel plants gobbling up incredible amounts of wood, two of them pellet factories. The three bag hopper and automation means we can leave for a few days if needed, without turning on the propane $$$$ burning system. I could do without the cutting part, I don't mind the exercise of splitting wood when it's cold out!

 

Those are cool pics - have you ever tried rigging a good shop vac to the tops of the 55 gallon drums so you can just stuck the pellets into the drum?