Usually starts around mid October or so here in the mid-Atlantic.. nitetime temps start to drop... in the shoulder season, my glass get's dirty quicker from the on/off cycle thruout the day with a bit more ash. cheap pellets or top of the line softwoods, same deal..[although the cheaper pellets do make a mound of ash]... so, i just burn the same softwoods from fall to spring. makes no difference for me to have a shoulder pellet. when my stove starts to run 24/7, then the difference is very noticeable. less ash/cleaner glass..
Put the 3rd bag of pellets into the P43 the other day (MWPs). We have had a see-saw of temps - sometimes low 40's at night, sometimes in the mid 60's. Started the stove up on 9/7 - two days earlier than last year, but I've used less (at this point last year I was at 4-5 bags). I don't tend to have separate types of pellets for different times of year unless I can find a good deal on Vermonts or some other great brand at a low price on CL. Those I will hang onto until mid Jan. to mid Feb.
Of all the different pellets I have tried ( which is all pretty much chit around here ) I can't notice enough of a difference to even worry about shoulder pellets, so my approach is buy what is cheapest and close to pick up, when the glass gets dirty I clean it, when the burn pot develops a speed bump I scrape it, and when the stove needs a complete cleaning I clean it.
Although nothing to do with the post, forgot to mention that after five years of burning, I finally realized that stove temp keeps us the warmest throughout the year. Kind of stayed away from it because I always read that you burn more pellets in stove temp mode at least for a Harman. Was trying to do the impossible which was stay toasty warm and save pellets at the same time. Last year I was able to drop my feed rate from four down to three so really only used about 10 bags more than I did the previous years. But during shoulder season can't run on stove mode as it gets just too damm hot in the house and I do not want to lower the feed rate any more than three so I live with the on-off routine till it gets steady cold. By the way was this website down for five or six days as I could not get on or was it me?
I've been burning for about a month now early morning for either a slight chill or to keep the inside of the stove dry . Just adjusted thermostat to 73 with a swing setting of 2.25 degrees . Classic Bay 1200 in the basement. . Using Stove Chow at the moment until I start loading up on Vermont's . When stove is running 24/7 I'll move up to 74 and use the medium setting and that should do it.
Russell I'm gonna be using a lot of that this season as 6 ton of Chow is scheduled for delivery tomorrow
Yesterday the HD 30 miles from me had a sign up that said 6+ tons at 219/ton. Course I'm sure that doesn't include delivery. I think smaller tonnage was at 249/ton, but I could be mis-remembering on that - maybe it was 259.