Western Massachusetts Tacomas

I've got my pellet stove running strong again.

I have run my furnace very little all winter. Less then 100 gallons for a 1100 Sq ft house. My pellet stove in the living room heats the house nicely. As of now, it burned just over 2 tons of pellets since Xmas. If I had moved in earlier the 3 tons I had bought seems to be just right.

 

I think I have gone through around 2.5 cord of wood .

 

What does a cord cost? I don't have land to harvest it myself so would need to buy it, and then need to store it all as well. A ton of pellets is a 3'x3'x4' cube. I can store 3 of those pretty easy and clean in my garage.

 

I cut my own wood now . Last time I bought firewood it was almost $300 a cord . I have permission to hunt and cut wood on 120 acres behind my house from a neighbor .

 

I burned 3 tons of pellets and about 200 gallons of oil, but that's for a 1500 sq ft house and the stove can't quite keep up when it gets below about 10. It's in the living room which only has a single normal sized doorway leading out to the dining room and kitchen. I do have a mini split facing that doorway so I put that on fan mode to try to keep air circulating but it isn't perfect - the living room still stays 8 degrees warmer.

I have about two bags of pellets left now. Might do 3-1/2 tons next year.

 

My house is very simple. There is only 1 room downstairs. Kitchen, living room, dining room all surrounding the large chimney and pellet stove in the center. Staircase upstairs to 2 bedrooms. I have a fan at the base of the stairs to blow air up the stairs.
When I bought the house, there was no heat in the upstairs. Just some grates in the floors of the bedrooms so the heat can rise up to the upstairs. I had electric baseboard added to the 2 bedrooms upstairs and the bathroom, but didnt turn them on much this winter.

 

Morning Neighbors

 

morning Westside!

 

A friend's house is exactly like that. He has no furnace or boiler at all - the house was electric only when he bought it, and it was built in the early 1800s and poorly insulated so his bills would have been through the roof. Also, 100 amp service which seems odd for electric heat. He put in a couple mini splits and the pellet stove and doesn't really use the electric at all now.

Mine is 1500 sq ft on all one level, so it's tough to get heat from the stove to go to the rooms on the edges. Fortunately, the furthest rooms are a den/mudroom and the master bedroom so both of those are usually fine to be cooler. Sometimes I like more heat in the mudroom because it's also my office, but it's on its own boiler zone so I just warm it up that way. It also has a propane fireplace insert, but I don't run that because it burns propane at a ridiculous rate. If I ever decided to buy a newer pellet insert for the living room, it'd be nice to put my current Quadrafire in that fireplace and rip out the propane one.

 

morning all. Nice moist morning out there.

 

Morning Neighbors
It’s coming

 

Morning massholes



Happy Birthday @lynyrd3 !

 

Morning Neighbors

 

Thanks John

 

Happy Birthday @lynyrd3 !

 

Thanks

 

Happy birthday @lynyrd3

 

Happy Bday @lynyrd3

 

Gotta join in and say happy birthday to @lynyrd3

Working hard to keep the WMass thread alive