Not with the price of pellets, between the shoulder surgery and then health issues in Nov, I anticipated no pellets at all this year and pre bought oil. Doing much better health wise but with pellets being so high and I already paid for oil I am only burning during cold snaps. First fire was only last Sunday after cleaning and testing the stove.
In all reality, pre buying oil cost me around 2600 (luckily I had a work payout of vacation time not used to pay for that). Even with current pellet prices I could have bought 4.8 ton of LaCarete for $1680 for full time burning. Figure in maybe a tank of oil to even out the heat and I could have been at or lower with better heat than baseboard oil.
Husband injured his wrist, he brings bags in with good hand and leaves it on couch arm for me (I can't get it from ground up ) and then I get in the hopper. All I can do is laugh about it
Thanks, that was the initial reason for not handling pellets as I didnt want to screw up the rotator repair. Its been 5 months now and I probably could not have handled the bags prior to now. Nov then had a heart (congestive heart failure) issue that now appears under control----hopefully as I dont ever want to feel like that again. Dr thinks it was stress related as everything has come back to normal with a few small issues-I'm 60 in April, NOTHING is perfect at this point
I've been heating with my single mini split until yesterday. My son said that the outside part was making a noise and had ice in so I shut it down. We finally turned on the furnace, then today, the pellet stove. It is 80F in here with that p68 going. The p68 is too much stove for a 1000 sq ft unit. I used to heat all 2200 ft of this place, but my son has the two units separated. I am going to have turn the stove down some more. Even in this below zero temps, we are roasting in here.
Now for the AC portion, I was so impressed with this system. Used less electricity than the old window units while keeping the entire house far cooler. On the day of my surgery in August we were in one of the hottest heat spells we have had in a while. Heat index well over 100 degrees yet I came home to a cool and comfortable home. Made recovering that much easier. My shoulder issue was the deciding factor to get this system as I am done carrying heavy window units.
Good thought. I have a killowatt meter I can place on the supply wiring in the basement. I’ll try that. I’ve been watching it all winter as the temps dropped to see if the output drops off which was my first curiosity. Now we’ll see how much it costs! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If the unit could have been placed on a differnt side of the house I could have just shut it down, although I think I would have still wrapped it. For 20 bucks a good tarp can help the unit stay safer in the winter around here especially being so rural and only as few feet from edge of the woods. This summer I will be building a shelter over the outside unit to keep it from potentially being hit by falling icicles that form over it. Its the back of the house and doestn get much direct sun at this time of year so the icicles that form can be large. Due to shoulder I couldn't do the covering this year and luckily not much ice building conditions yet.
gbreda icicles are a sign of heat loss. Which shows lack of insulation and air flow. You might want to look into that.. for others who always tell me I’m wrong, how come you never see icicles on garden sheds or unheated garages
When the roof was re shingled about 7 years ago, I had them cut a vent into the peak. The soffits were vented but not the peak. The icicles have been much less and much smaller since then, but still there to a point. Ive been kicking myself since then as I have no attic or crawlspace access. I would have been easy enough to have the crew remove some roofing and add insulation while the shingles were stripped.
My house is same; no ridge to vent to so the soffit vents go too walls… I have learned a lot about insulation and airflow
Good plan on building the shelter. I have a 3' overhang, so my unit is in little danger of being hit by anything from the roof.
So this whole process took quite a bit longer than I thought it would, but it’s finally up and running with just a few small steps to button up. There were two little snags that took a day to figure out. First the unit was reading the return temp to satisfy the thermostat so it was never turning off because the returns aren’t totally hooked up so it has been pulling basement air for the return. It was an easy fix on the unit to change that code. And the second was to have the fan turn off when the heat wasn’t being produced. Another simple fix on the thermostat. All in all I’m pretty impressed. Mostly want this for the summer AC needs but I can see myself loving this on warm winter days and the shoulder season when the stove would be overkill. We’ll see how it shakes out. The remaining tasks are to finish one return and one supply, the condensation hose, take out two unused sections of duct and insulation. So nearly done but again it is up and running.
Somewhere I read something like "with a proper insulation package, deciding on your heating or cooling source is a minor decision". Let that sink in, and the extra bucks for the next level (beyond fiberglass) is a simple choice.
Correction alert It was more like "the more you pay attention to your insulation, the less......". Same meaning but a simpler, shorter phrase. I'd like to find it again, it struck me as obvious, then brilliantly simple, and obvious! Duh.
