I'm trying to decide which is the best feed rate to keep my Lopi Pioneer on most of the time. We don't keep our house really warm, we'd like it to be 66-68 degrees tops and that's just in the evenings say from 5-11 when we go to bed.
So far I've been running the stove on low only and only getting up to 63-64 degrees throughout the day, the problem is that obviously on low in the morning it takes HOURS for it to reach that temperature, especially if we have the stove off at night which we usually do.
Our goal as we only bought 2 tons to heat our 1200(approx) 3 bedroom ranch was to use no more than 1/2 a bag a day. We have a thermostat and I was thinking, would it be more efficient and still in keeping with our usage goals to burn at a higher feed rate while using the thermostat? I was thinking that if in the morning, if it takes say 6 hours to bring the house up 5 degrees (I'm making that up) on low, I could bring the house up to that temperature even faster but running it on med or med-high for a shorter period of time. I'd theoretically use the same amount of pellets right? Say if Low burns 1lb an hour and Medium #3 burns 2lbs an hour, but can heat it up in half the time?
So I guess my question is, is it more efficient and would use the same amount of pellets or less for us to run a higher feed rate to reach a higher temperature, than trying to hit that temperature on low?
My plan is to not run the stove at night (we don't really care if it's cold in the morning), run the stove on High until it hits 64 or so, and then run on low to maintain that temp for the rest of the day until evening when I'd put it on medium until we go to bed. I figure on high at 3.5lbs an hour, we should be able to get the house up to temp in 1-2 hours and burn the same amount of pellets that it would take us in 6 or more hours on low to reach that temp.
Make sense? I hope so
So far I've been running the stove on low only and only getting up to 63-64 degrees throughout the day, the problem is that obviously on low in the morning it takes HOURS for it to reach that temperature, especially if we have the stove off at night which we usually do.
Our goal as we only bought 2 tons to heat our 1200(approx) 3 bedroom ranch was to use no more than 1/2 a bag a day. We have a thermostat and I was thinking, would it be more efficient and still in keeping with our usage goals to burn at a higher feed rate while using the thermostat? I was thinking that if in the morning, if it takes say 6 hours to bring the house up 5 degrees (I'm making that up) on low, I could bring the house up to that temperature even faster but running it on med or med-high for a shorter period of time. I'd theoretically use the same amount of pellets right? Say if Low burns 1lb an hour and Medium #3 burns 2lbs an hour, but can heat it up in half the time?
So I guess my question is, is it more efficient and would use the same amount of pellets or less for us to run a higher feed rate to reach a higher temperature, than trying to hit that temperature on low?
My plan is to not run the stove at night (we don't really care if it's cold in the morning), run the stove on High until it hits 64 or so, and then run on low to maintain that temp for the rest of the day until evening when I'd put it on medium until we go to bed. I figure on high at 3.5lbs an hour, we should be able to get the house up to temp in 1-2 hours and burn the same amount of pellets that it would take us in 6 or more hours on low to reach that temp.
Make sense? I hope so
