Shoulder season has arrived here in SE Michigan

Stove off during the day and on low every night. Pleasant during the day, nippy at night almost every night now. Not below freezing but cold enough to require a small amount of bio mass heat. Keeps the cats warm, nit us so much, we have an electric blanket on the bed....lol Got my extra burn pot from Stove parts for less this morning, fast shipping and good price too.

Trying to conserve the high priced and getting worse daily, propane. Close to 3 bucks a gallon here as of today.

 

My stove has been on since 9/23. Some times it only runs at night, other times it runs a couple of times during the day too (when it is heavily overcast and/or windy at this point).

Saw a sign for oil at $5.40/gallon yesterday. That is a cash price only so unsure what they are getting otherwise. Just looked at my propane provider's price and it is $4.50/gal. For the last 6 months or so it has been lower than oil, which is not the usual case.

 

That's the price I see on "COD Oil" for SE NY where I used to live, for 200-299 gal.

 

I suspect you'll be leaning heavily on your new solar array on the roof this winter. Do have one question and I don't know the answer but, if the panels are covered with snow, do they still work? Both mine are manual light so they have to be lit and extinguished as needed. Only thing them being on remote t'stat does is reduce the feed rate to minimum when the t'stat is satisfied, but then it's not been cold enough to run at anymore than minimum feed rate anyway.

 

All 3 of my rental properties heat with propane (hot water and central heat) and I gave them all the 'pre buy' paperwork and interestingly, none of them took advantage of it at $1.99 pre paid and presently it's pushing $3.00 a gallon. I did and pre bought 500 gallons. All 3 of them are gonna find out that a 'bird in hand' is a helluva lot better than paying market price. Oh well. On a 20% level fill, the average cost at 3 bucks will be over a grand and all of them will require at least one fill this winter. They all have leased bottles on them so they are locked into a certain supplier. Myself, I own all my tanks (bottles) so I can source my propane from any of a number of local suppliers if I want to but again I pre bought at $1.99 what I might or might not require, depending on the severity of the winter. Least my supplier who owns the bottles, takes payments with no finance charge so long as it's paid within 90 days.

 

The panels will still gather light while snow covered. Obviously not as much, but they aren't completely dead. Snow slides off them, much the same as the snow slides off my standing seam roof. They should actually clear first since they are black versus my hunter green roof.

I will use every bit of power they produce during the winter. The sun angle is so low that realistically, I expect only the 6 southern panels to produce anything (I have a hip roof and that is the short side of the house and that is loaded up). But, using the pellet stoves does not use much electricity. I've always used the pellet stoves as my heat since I put them in. Okay, last year I used the mini split quite heavily but I did that to see how much it would take as I get older. The propane boiler is strictly back up although I do run it in the deep of winter a few times a day to keep pipes from freezing.

 

If I was 20 years younger, I'd probably invest in panels or geothermal myself. I'm too old to realize any long term savings.

Been running the stove at night, off during the day for a while now.

We reroofed this summer and we considered standing seam as well but didn't simply because of our age. The 20 year asphalt shingles will outlast the both of us by a long shot and once we are in the ground, won't be concerned about the roof or anything else for that matter. Be taking the forever dirt nap,

 

Neither standing seam roofs, or solar arrays make sense for everyone or for every house or situation. And sometimes it isn't about making "sense", and that is fine too. There is no 1 right way and fortunately there are a multitude of choices.

 

Even though you mis spelled it, it is a pain concerning the cost of propane. I believe what most consumers don't realize is, propane isn't a naturally occurring fuel source but is derived from catalytic cracking of crude oil so as the cost of crude rises, so does the cost of propane. Keep on mind that NG coming out of the earth also has to be refined as well. You cannot burn naturally occurring NG. It's way too dirty.

 

I don't either, something about 'truth in advertising' got lost in that shuffle.

I avoid 'bio' anything like the plague. Bio fuels, especially bio diesel are algae magnets. Been there and dealt with that in the past in my diesel tractors and once you 'contract' it (algae in your fuel), it's very hard to remedy it. I'm a devout believe in biocide now. Use it constantly. Remediation of algae and what it does to fuel systems is very expensive. Like I said, been there, did that and don't want to do it ever again.

I read somewhere a while ago that refiners are adding a percentage of bio-diesel to their non bio-diesel fuel and not telling the public. Kind of like adding corn liquor to unleaded gasoline but it never states that anywhere. Corn alcohol in unleaded gas causes issues as well. Phase shift or the separation of the corn alcohol from the gasoline is the main contributor to gummed up carbs and failed fuel lines and why I also use a stabilizer in my gas I put in my seasonal equipment. Myself, I use Marine blue Stabil. Not cheap but it actually works and as a side note Stihl adds it to their pre packaged oil mix bottles as well.

 

He just wants to argue with people.

 

Way too old to argue with anyone except maybe my wife and with her I always loose anyway. Might as well argue with the dog.

 

Woof.

 

Not jt, me maybe