Heating season has arrived.
Reminds me of boating expenses when I was in the fishing charter business in thr Gulf of Alaska, smaller homeowner boats, say up to 25 feet “break out another thousand”. But for larger high horsepower diesels and complexe systems vessels it’s “break out another ten thousand”.
So to heat my house and shop this winter (will need to top off about February) it’s going to cost an additional $6,045, but for a full winter season I’ll be paying about $8,000 more then two years ago. Feels kinda like boat repairs to me.
Not going to the politics which go from local to national to international, that’s not where I’m going here. The reality is what it is, so I’m just trying to stretch this batch of heating fuel to make it for two winters instead of one.
My house which is a log two story 2600 square feet is heated with a oil fired boiler and base board units. I’ve been using a Blaze King Princess wood stove which has been the best wood stove I have personally used. I know there’s other good ones out there but the big supplier here is Blaze King. I've been buy from Kent for 40 years and he’s expensive but reliable, so I’m happy. You have a problem or a need, they take care of it.
But my house is divided up to a point where it’s hard to get the wood stove heat to the far side of the house for reasonable comfort, especially when temperatures drop down into the negative-20 to -50 plus below. We will usually burn 6 cords of wood in a winter. Stoves we’ve used in the past have burn as much as 9 cords in a winter. I’m happy with the Blaze King. But that half of the house has to be kept on the warmer/hot side to get comfort on the far side. Not very efficient. So we still burn a fair amount of oil to keep a couple of base board zones going to help with the comfort level so Karyn isn’t always sweatered up to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy all the while saying when “can we go to Arizona”.
So with the costs of everything going up much faster then our fixed income we decided to install a small pellet stove on the opposite side of the house from the Blaze King. I installed it about 10 days ago now and wasn’t real sure I’d be happy with it. But it’s a small model about half the btu’s of the Blaze King. Well I’m going to report that it’s looking like a winner! I can’t fire up the wood stove till temperatures get down below freezing during the day and preferably into the teens. So with that in mind the boiler would be used, burning $$$. Now pellets are not free so I’m not trying to fool myself, but heating the fringe seasons, spring and fall, without using oil except for heating domestic hot water is a certain savings.
At current heating oil prices it’s about $24 a day with just the boiler. When we get into heavy winter with day time below zero or colder, for the high temperatures, the price can go to $35 - $40 per day.
So the hopes are to use this little pellet stove and be able to reduce the amount of heat from the wood stove for more even heating and further reduce oil consumption. Pellets will cost about $6.50 per day and the firewood is free at the expense of my back and body. So I’m hoping to get the heating cost with some oil consumption down to about $11 to $14 a day.
My shop which is a separate building has been divide into 1/3 - 2/3’s with the big side heated with another Blaze King when heat is needed. The smaller side, which is a 2 car garage size, 24x24, is heated with a Toyo oil heater. It heats pretty easily. I’m furring down the ceiling with 2x2’s and installing ridged foam insulation for a tighter ceiling/roof. The old roof insulation has been bugged up by squirrels. But with the new insulation and only heating to about 46 degrees it heats fairly easy.
And for your information electricity is currently $.315 per kilowatt. It’s also expected to go up again. So anything electric is out.