Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I received a message this morning from the heating fuel oil company we use. The person who left the message was inquiring about the low quantity of oil that we used throughout the year and wanted to update their system with whether or not we were burning wood or some other source of alternative energy. I gave a call back to fill her in.
When I called her back, I told the lady that we did, in fact, have a pellet stove. I said that the oil was primarily burned for hot water and to heat one bedroom during the winter. She praised me on my intelligence for getting a pellet stove. I asked her how much oil we burned in the last year (they just came to fill the tank a few days ago). She replied with 256.6 gallons. I thought that was pretty good for a year.
That got me thinking…since the pellet stove was pretty expensive and the pellets themselves were an additional cost on top of the stove, was it worth it to get the pellet stove and pellets, or should we just have burned oil to heat the house for the whole year? I can’t remember the price per gallon of oil last year, when they wanted to lock me into that foolish contract, but I swear it was over $4 a gallon. Since I can’t remember, I did some quick research online to see what oil prices were last year at this time and I came across this website. It shows last year’s oil prices vs. this year’s oil prices in New York. Close enough. At this time last year, oil prices were $3.93 per gallon. Last year, the oil delivery company estimated that we would burn approximately 1000 gallons of oil for the year. That was based on other, similarly sized houses in the area.
Let’s do a little math.
If I signed the oil contract and burned the estimated amount of fuel oil, we would have paid $3930 for the year’s worth of oil.
Since I didn’t sign the contract and since we burned much less oil than the oil company’s estimate (because we used an alternative form of energy), we only paid $638.93 for the oil we burned. That number is from the oil prices on the receipts I kept.
Even if we didn’t sign the contract, but still burned the estimated amount of oil, we still would have paid $2490 for the year’s worth of oil.
Let’s see…I paid about $1100 for the four tons of pellets that we used for the season. We paid about $2500 for the pellet stove and installation. That equals $3600 for the pellet stove and one year’s worth of pellets.
I am going to go out on a limb here and imagine that I was feeling the same way a lot of people were feeling last year at this time and went ahead and signed that oil price contract. If I had signed it and never got the pellet stove, I would have $330 less in my bank account right now.
I know there is some more delicate math involved here, such as the actual price paid for the oil that was already in the tank before we moved in, but I am going to ignore that. This post has already almost put me to sleep. I just thought it was my duty to write it.
That’s the point? Well, I would say that even at today’s lower oil prices, it’s still worth it to get a pellet stove. The payback period is very short and you won’t cringe every time you hear the boiler kick on.
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Thursday, January 29th, 2009
If there is one thing that I have noticed during this winter, it’s that the bathroom is really cold in the morning. I keep the door closed because I want to concentrate the heat, so that might be the reason. Either way, the whole thing got me thinking.
Can bathroom exhaust vents cause your house to lose heat? I am thinking yes. I did a Google search on this and came across a good article on “Ask The Builder” entitled, “Bathroom Exhaust Fan Leaks Cold Air.” It pretty much covered what I was thinking.
Basically, a bathroom exhaust fan is simply a fan attached to a hose that leads outside. The fan pushes the moist air you create from taking a shower outside, so you don’t rot everything in your bathroom. Some of the fancy fans have lights in them and I am told that the fans vary in quality. I guess they are supposed to have flaps in them too. The flaps stop the cold outside air from leaking directly into your bathroom and house.
I just walked into the bathroom to see if any cold air was leaking through the fan. I put my hand up to the vent and didn’t feel any cold air. Since that felt okay, I pulled down the attic door and went upstairs to see what that looked like. I saw both bathroom vent hoses leading outside. Nothing seemed too out of place.
Now that I am downstairs, I am thinking that I didn’t really do much to see if there was a problem. I mean, I still have to take the vent cover off to see if the vent flap is closing nice and snug. If not, I have to fix that. Then, I would like to cover the exposed vent hoses with insulation. An exposed vent hose in a cold attic can cause the air in the hose to get cold. That air can enter the house if the vent flap isn’t working correctly. Do you see where I am heading with this? I guess it doesn’t help that the boiler is kicking on and off all night, creating a vacuum in the house. Cold air is probably being pulled in through those vents.
I might need to do some more exploration to see if there is some sort of a “makeup air intake port” anywhere around. If not, I probably need to put one in.
Now, I admit, I am no expert at this. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
When we first moved in, there was a slight chill in the air. I guess it was early May or something, when it still gets chilly at night. I am not too good with the cold, so I got a fire going in the fireplace.
As the fire was burning in the fireplace, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, I wonder when the last time this chimney was cleaned out.” Now, if I was my father, I would be up in the roof looking down it with a flashlight. Since I am me, I let the fire burn and thought about it again a few months later.
It has been a few months. A while back, I got a postcard in the mail from Safeside Chimney out of East Hartford. It included a $20 a chimney cleaning coupon. I decided to call them for a chimney cleaning.
As a side note, if you are thinking about buying a house and keeping it nice, it can cost a fortune. Ok, I said it.
Anyway, yesterday, the chimney guys came. They were scheduled to clean both the chimney flue as well as the boiler flue. I thought this was a pretty good idea to get done in the Summer, since we are not using them all too much. I will admit that we almost overlooked this chore. If this company didn’t send me the coupon, I am not sure I would’ve called. It is quite important to keep these things clean, as they can cause big problems if you don’t.
Man sweeping chimney.
Now, when I told my father that I had a company come over to sweep the chimney, he said, “So, you don’t want to get a sweeper and a few pipes and do it yourself?” That’s the house I (thankfully) grew up in. We did it ourselves and learned the entire time. This time is a little different. First of all, I keep thinking that I am not as limber as I used to be. Second of all, I am probably not as strong as I used to be and third of all, there ain’t no way I am going up on this steep roof to clean out this chimney. You tell me if you would do it…
Looking up the side of the chimney from the outside.
No %$^& way I am going up there. You should’ve seen the guy trying to get down. It would’ve been easier for him to jump into one of the big air things the cops use when someone is getting ready to jump off a building.
The good news is that the chimney was cleaned. The bad news is that he found a crack in the chimney crown while he was up there. To prove this, he brought up the company digital camera. When he got down, he showed me. I believed him, but I still went inside to get the binoculars, just to make sure he wasn’t pulling a fast one. I didn’t know if he was showing me the same photo he shows everyone. Well, come to find out, there is a crack in the chimney crown. Luckily, it is an easy, but expensive repair.
He wrote me up an estimate to repair the chimney crown as well as to install a stainless steel chimney cap. There wasn’t a chimney cap installed. He said that by doing this, water wouldn’t make the crack worse and eventually lead to popping the bricks out of the chimney and doing more extensive damage to the house. Whatever…I just signed the estimate and told them to call me to set up a time to fix it. I will tell you that repairing the top of a chimney was not on my list of priorities.
Here are some photos of the cleaned chimney, from the inside.
Looking inside the cleaned fireplace.
Looking up past the fireplace damper.
Looking up the chimney flue.
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Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
A few days ago, I took at look through Amazon and MakeBeer.net to see if the Coopers Irish Stout I have been waiting for was back in stock. It has been unavailable since before St. Patrick’s Day. I guess all the Irish scooped it up.
Guess what? I was in luck. A new shipment of ingredients had arrived from Australia. I quickly ordered the Irish Stout kit and it arrived today. This is just in the nick of time, because I am running really low on my existing batch of regular Stout.
I am pretty excited about this upcoming batch. The ingredients include some extra malt for some reason. It says that it gives the beer a better head retention and something else…I forget. Whatever…if it makes the beer better, I’m on board.
I mixed everything togther tonight and placed the jug downstairs near the boiler. It’s a warmer, constant temperature down there. The brew has to stay between 70 and 80 degrees.
Here, I took some pics…
It’s pretty hard to take pictures in the dark. I had to turn on the flash, which I hate to do.
This was going to be my favorite shot, but it came out a little blurry. I tried to clean it up in Photoshop.
Here is that familiar jug we have all gotten used to by this point.
I really hope this batch comes out good because I have been waiting for it for a long time.
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Monday, September 18th, 2006
When we first moved into our house, the boiler was turned off. We had no idea why. The home inspector told us that it was turned off during inspection, so therefore he could not comment on the operation of it. What a great inspector! I guess it was too far of a reach for him to lean over on the wall and flick the little red switch on. Oh well…the boiler was only 3 years old, so we gave it the benefit of the doubt.
The first day we moved in, I went downstairs and turned the red switch to the “On” position. In about 5 seconds, I heard it kick on and start right up. The thing worked great, but that is not what this post is about. This is a helpful post to all those poor innocent souls who have been told that they should keep their boilers on all summer long to avoid rust on the inside. Let me explain.
Once I turned the boiler on in the middle of August, I questioned the operation of it during the hottest months of the summer. It only provided heat for the house, since we are using an electric hot water heater for everything else. I asked a few people if I needed to keep the boiler running all summer and I got the same response: “Yes, it will rust if you don’t.” I didn’t ask too many questions because this same response came from a few different sources. Well, today, Paul and I were having a conversation about how I already spent $150 this summer from just keeping the boiler warm. He said, “Well, that’s from heating up your water to use upstairs.” I told him that we have an electric hot water heater for that. He asked why I don’t just shut off the boiler then. He gave me a small chuckle, the way only Paul knows how to do, and explained that the boiler won’t rust unless…well something about oxygen in the lines. He said it would be fine. I didn’t believe him, so I called my oil company, Porco Energy. A woman answered the phone and I explained to her my concern. She then told me the exact thing Paul just told me, that I could turn the boiler off during the summer!
Guess what I am doing when I get home tonight. I really wish someone told me this in May.
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