Stove chow it is. Should be worlds better than the Green Supreme and New England that we've been burning.
Everybody ready for the cold snap?
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No had one ton of new england pellets out of nh I think, not 100% sure I have the name right but I know New England is in it. Got them free with the stove purchase.
Husky
Feeling the Heat
bogieb
Minister of Fire
Last night I switched the downstairs stove to Stove Temp / auto, feed rate as low as it will go (~0.5) and fan on high. Staying in the 70's down there.
Had the main floor stove on Room Temp / auto, with thermometer set at 72 until a couple of hours ago. The stove had shut itself down and it was 72 where the thermostat is at (middle room of house), but the bedroom was down to 67*. Since it was still 2* outside (down to -8 now), I knew it would do nothing but get colder, so turned the P43 to Room Temp / auto, high fan with a feed rate of 1. It is a little over 70 in there no, and 73 in the thermostat room, so will probably be turning the feed rate down as low as it can go here in a little bit. Wind chills are -20 right now and expected to drop to -30 to -40. As long as I can keep warm air going to the bedroom side of the house, it should be good.
I feel sorry for the poor Explorer - sitting out there in the cold. I did pull it up as close to the garage door as possible for both wind break from the retaining wall and to catch a bit of the heat that escapes out that way. The car is enjoying a balmy 15-20* inside the garage (I'm guessing). Cats are snuggled up in the living room, which is where the stove is.
Had the main floor stove on Room Temp / auto, with thermometer set at 72 until a couple of hours ago. The stove had shut itself down and it was 72 where the thermostat is at (middle room of house), but the bedroom was down to 67*. Since it was still 2* outside (down to -8 now), I knew it would do nothing but get colder, so turned the P43 to Room Temp / auto, high fan with a feed rate of 1. It is a little over 70 in there no, and 73 in the thermostat room, so will probably be turning the feed rate down as low as it can go here in a little bit. Wind chills are -20 right now and expected to drop to -30 to -40. As long as I can keep warm air going to the bedroom side of the house, it should be good.
I feel sorry for the poor Explorer - sitting out there in the cold. I did pull it up as close to the garage door as possible for both wind break from the retaining wall and to catch a bit of the heat that escapes out that way. The car is enjoying a balmy 15-20* inside the garage (I'm guessing). Cats are snuggled up in the living room, which is where the stove is.
karen_in_nh_2014
Member
Just an update to my earlier posts (#31 and #33 in this thread) ... I used oil overnight but decided to start up the insert late this morning (outside temps low single digits at that time). To my surprise, it started up great and has run beautifully all day. I went into the living room in mid-afternoon to add pellets and all my kitties were in the living room, enjoying the warmth. I don't think we got above 12 degrees today, so I was very very pleasantly surprised.
I am leaving the insert on -- it may run out of pellets overnight, but then my oil furnace will kick in so it will be fine. We're expecting a low of NEGATIVE 15 overnight ... brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ...
I am leaving the insert on -- it may run out of pellets overnight, but then my oil furnace will kick in so it will be fine. We're expecting a low of NEGATIVE 15 overnight ... brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ...
bogieb
Minister of Fire
I know at 3 PM today, it was 2* at my place. Granted, it was after the front came thru, but it was 0 at 6 am, so I'm guessing if it got to 10, we were lucky (I was out and about so couldn't track the temps).
Update: 10 tons arrived today. of Stove Chow! I had assumed it would be nations choice because inventory levels were low on those. They must have got them in. This is excellent news. Now i have 15 tons of stove chow in my garage. OINK!
Pete Zahria
Minister of Fire
10 tons? You better hope oils doesn't drop to 80 cents a gallon... Haha
oil could be free - dont have a way to burn it. Not worth the install cost of a new furnace. I have a 4 car garage. the 15 tons take up 2 ports. i have a pallet jack which i found is extremely difficult to roll/pull with 2000 lbs on it. I did figure out if my wife steers the pallet jack, the garden tractor pushes them very easily. took me 15 minutes to get all 10 tons in the garage.
at least now i know my pellet costs for the next 3 years. 199 a ton. even if depot is selling them at 400 a ton next year. if by luck they should drop drastically, i'll sacrifice the other 2 car ports and load up again.
boomhour
Burning Hunk
![[Hearth.com] Everybody ready for the cold snap?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/174/174830-da6950743803d7f3e792fb8c2674f4b4.jpg?hash=zmVXwUftHe "[Hearth.com] Everybody ready for the cold snap?")
Wilbur Feral
Minister of Fire
A balmy 5 degrees just outside Philly this morning. Santa Fe has the basement office at 71, while MVAE has family room at about 73, but it's got a bunch of windows and skylights. Heat pump came on but very little aux heat. Not a bad showing!
bogieb
Minister of Fire
Weird - with the P61, I got about a bag in 24 hours at the lowest feed rate setting (DL's). Switched the P43 over to the same setting and it went thru 3/4 or so of a bag since about yesterday afternoon (Vermonts/LaCretes). Keeping me warm so I can't complainSo... what are you getting out of a bag of pellets, 4-5 days??
Got up at 4 am and put both on feed rate of 2. House had dropped to 71* and 67 in the bedroom. Once it got back up to 73 (69.5 in bedroom), I backed off the P43 to 1.5 feed rate have no doubt I will lower it more thru the day. I'm experimenting with this mode as I've never run it before. I just want the stoves to pump out continuous heat and have the blower continuous but don't want to be roasted out as I would be if I had them on room temp / manual (since the temp dial has to be set 75-80 to have it blow hot air into the room continuously).
When the good stuff runs out (sometime today), I'm sure I'll be raising those feed rates.
OK. This officially sucks. We are at -22
here at the A-Frame. P61A ate a full bag of pellets overnight & at Stove Temp ~70,
the bottom floor of the house (block & framed w/2x6, R21) is at 66. Gas fireplace in the great room stayed on all night as well,
SkyTech on the TRX-I set at 72. Room is at 70. Radiant floors in the bathroom are toasty from the oil boiler. EVERY fuel supplier
is having fuel burnt.
here at the A-Frame. P61A ate a full bag of pellets overnight & at Stove Temp ~70,the bottom floor of the house (block & framed w/2x6, R21) is at 66. Gas fireplace in the great room stayed on all night as well,
SkyTech on the TRX-I set at 72. Room is at 70. Radiant floors in the bathroom are toasty from the oil boiler. EVERY fuel supplier
is having fuel burnt.
bogieb
Minister of Fire
Just backed the P43 feed rate down to 1 as it is 74* in the office and 71 in the bedroom.
Jp16
Member
Pete Zahria
Minister of Fire
I used about 2-1/2 bags in 24 hrs....... And I could have gone up a notch on the temp..
You're doing awesome..
Well I think I found the limitations of our little insert last night. Was -15 with a wind chill of -38. The house was 70 when I went to sleep and in the low 60s when I woke up with the pooches. I kicked the furnace on for a while. I guess I can't be upset given that the placement is less than ideal to distribute the heat.
bogieb
Minister of Fire
Weird - with the P61, I got about a bag in 24 hours at the lowest feed rate setting (DL's). Switched the P43 over to the same setting and it went thru 3/4 or so of a bag since about yesterday afternoon (Vermonts/LaCretes). Keeping me warm so I can't complain
As I was dumping some Inferno's in the P61 - I realized why the P43 goes thru pellets faster than the P61 at the same settings in stove temp / auto; pellet size. The P61 has been mainly running on either long, or wildly differing length pellets. At a set feed rate, I can see how those long pellets would block off pellets from entering the auger. The P43, on the other hand, has had a steady diet of short pellets. I have also noted that the P61 has a much shorter flame than the P43 while at these settings, so that sort of supports my theory.
I just dumped in a full bag into each stove to fill the hoppers. I also had poured 1/3 bag into the P43 earlier today (using up an opened bag leftover from when I switched to the hotter pellets), but had not poured any into the P61 since yesterday. So I used about 2-1/3 bags to heat my 1600 sq/ft
karen_in_nh_2014
Member
Honestly, that doesn't sound bad at all, given our recent temps here in New Hampshire.
My p52i worked great yesterday during the day, but simply could not keep up with -15 temps overnight. Today it is working great again (it's sunny but very cold -- expected daytime high is 9 degrees, very slightly colder than yesterday) but I expect it will have a hard time overnight, so I will just let it run out of pellets, at which time my oil furnace will kick in (I have it set for 65, which is actually much higher than I like it for overnight -- that is WAY too warm for the master bedroom, so I have had to close the vents). Tonight it is "only" supposed to get down to negative 10, as opposed to negative 15 last night. (Heat wave!
)(Of course I will leave for work around 4 a.m. Monday, when we will still be in negative numbers -- I hope my car will start! I've gone out and run it a bit today ... hopefully that will help ...)
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