Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
As promised (almost), I drove down to the wood stove store today to check out the scene. I was having a little trouble with the price of the wood stove insert that I wanted and needed to see if there was anything less expensive. I also wanted to see what the free standing wood stoves looked like. We can easily put one of them in the fireplace.
When I got there, I did my typical “guy” stroll around to browse all the stoves and inserts. I see it every time. The guys walk in with their hands in the pockets making grunts and noises, like “hmmm” and “hmmph.” It’s so funny because I do it too. There is kind of a lot to take in. Good thing the sales guy walks out to put things in perspective. I must say, I really love wood stoves and stuff like that.
I saw the “Hampton HI300 Wood Insert” that I wanted. It’s just as nice as I thought it would be. If money wasn’t an issue, I would tell them to pack it up and bring it over. Since I really don’t want to drop that kind of coin, I am becoming more and more interested in a smaller free standing wood stove. Remember, we already have the pellet stove, so we don’t really need that much more heat. Just something to keep my toes warm, something that doesn’t use electricity and something that will burn all the wood I am cutting down so I don’t have to watch it rot in the woods.
The sales guy introduced me to the more “economical” line of DutchWest wood burning stoves. They are pretty good looking and don’t have a lot of frills. Here is a picture I just took from the brochure.
It’s cute, isn’t it? It’s also about $1000 less than the other one. A large part of the expense comes from the lining of the chimney and the installation. Heck, if all I needed was the stove, I could just run over there with the trailer and pick it up. That’s not the way it works anymore. Now, you need to have a 35 foot piece of insulated lining stuffed down the entire length of the very tall chimney and attached to the stove. All of that extra stuff actually costs more than the stove itself. At least I managed to drop the price somewhat.
I am hoping to have the stove stand on the stone outside the fireplace. The stove is 17 1/2 inches from front to back and the slab of stone is about 20 1/2. If we can do this, I can still access the side door to put longer (up to 19″) pieces of wood. That would be good. Otherwise, I will have to load shorter pieces through the front and cut about two inches off the stove legs so it fits inside the fireplace.
Anyway, I’ll get into all that stuff later if I decide to get this stove. I’ll make my decision by Saturday.
Related posts
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
This is terrible, just terrible. I think I have found myself walking down a very bad path.
Okay, so I already told you that I am taking some trees down in the woods next to the house. This is a good thing and it’s really starting to look nice over there. I actually took two more trees down today. I don’t like to do too many at a time because I would rather get used to the small changes I make and think about what I am doing before I go ahead and take down some more. Either way, I am building up next year’s supply of firewood.
This is where the problem starts. I still have about a cord of wood from the trees I cut down last summer. It’s is seasoning quite nicely and will make for some splendid firewood come this winter.
Now, I am almost positive that I have complained about the miserable (in)efficiency of a regular fireplace. We have one here and it does a really great job of sucking up what ever heat you already have in the house, out the chimney. Sure, the living room is warm, but you have to wear a snow suit in all the other rooms. Really, I don’t even use it much…just on those chilly spring or autumn evening when the pellet stove isn’t running.
So here I am, sitting on a cord of seasoned firewood and building up next year’s supply. What to do?
I am very happy with the pellet stove we got last year. It kicks butt when it comes to heating up about 3/4 of the house. To get that much heat, I need to keep it humming all winter. Last winter, I used four tons of pellets. I wouldn’t mind having a heat supplement helping out the pellet stove.
I am going to make a long whiny story short here. I really want a Hampton HI300 Wood Insert for the fireplace in the living room. Take a look at it:
http://www.hampton-fire.com/Wood/Inserts/HI300/index.php
It’s really nice, isn’t it?
I called the fellas down at the fireplace store today and told them what I wanted. He wrote up a quote and faxed it over to me. The thing is, it’s pricey. I know I’m not going to save any money by getting this little toy, so I’m iffy about the whole thing. To make matters worse, there is a tax credit that’s available called the “The U.S. Biomass Tax Credit.” It gives you back 30% of your purchase and installation price, up to $1500. That is just driving me crazy. You can learn about the tax credit here.
I know I am going to find myself in the car tomorrow or the next day driving down to the fireplace store. It’s bad, but I just want to feel that heat cranking out of that stove this winter. It even has a blower.
I’ll let you know what happens.
Related posts
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.
Related posts
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Okay, so listen to this. I received my Home Depot gift cards yesterday. I got a pretty decent amount’s worth. So basically, they have been burning a hole in my pocket ever since. So what did I do about it? Well, I ran over to Home Depot and picked up that RIGID 4 gallon wet/dry vac I was talking about. It’s going to be a big help during those “cleaning out the pellet stove” times.
RIGID 4 gallon wet/dry vac
Actually, I just cleaned out the pellet stove a few minutes ago. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was worried about ruining our regular house vacuum by sucking up ashes from the pellet stove. I mean, it’s not like there is a huge amount of them. I do empty the ash pan first, but there are still some remaining ashes hanging around. Those need to be vacuumed. I tried using the dust pan and brush, but that doesn’t have the best results on the floor tile grout. The ash kind of gets smeared in there.
The reason I got the 4 gallon wet/dry vac is because is was the smallest size RIGID makes. The reason I got RIGID, is because I like the brand. I have had decent luck with their other products. Also, this vac has wheels on it, so I can roll it around when I am vacuuming out the car and stuff like that.
The only thing I am worried about is the ash clumping up in the filter. After I used the vacuum a few minutes ago, I did notice the filter got a bit dirty. I banged it against the side of the vacuum and the dirt pretty much fell off the filter. I figure this is bound to happen with any type of vacuum I use, so I might as well use a wet/dry vac. Also, once the filter has been banged around for its last time, I can always pick up a replacement.
Now that I used up a little less than half of my gift cards, I think I am going to hold on to them until Home Depot starts selling trees and shrubs again. Then, I can head over there and go on a shopping spree.
Related posts
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
I was just downstairs filling up the pellet stove, when I heard the sound a British police car makes on the television…I am not even going to try to write the way it sounds here. I turned to Laura and said, “Can you guess the movie I am thinking of right now that has that same noise in it?” She guessed “The Patriot.” She didn’t guess correctly. I have to give her biggity props for guessing so fast though. The movie I was thinking of was “Time Bandits.” The siren was at the end of the movie.
That got me thinking of all the neat movies I used to watch when I was a kid. While downstairs, I thought that I would come back up here and post a few of the trailers on my blog. I found two…the third (Time Bandits) didn’t have a good trailer. The entire movie is on YouTube, but no good trailers.
Here are the trailers to The Dark Crystal and The Neverending Story.
have you seen these movies? Aren’t they the coolest?
Related posts
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
After I returned the humidifier yesterday, I had planned on picking up a little shop vac. I clean the pellet stove pretty regularly and am currently using the regular house vacuum cleaner to suck up all the stray ashes. I don’t think that’s a great idea, since ash is probably the world’s dirtiest thing. Well, ink is pretty dirty too. Okay, they are both dirty and both are fairly easy to make a serious mess with.
I walked around the Depot and couldn’t seem to locate the vacuum cleaners. I stopped to ask a guy who worked over near the floor tiles and he led me to a wall of various vacuums. I thanked him, walked over to the wall and took a look at what was available. Hmmm…I didn’t see any shop vacs.
I knew they were in the store, but figured that they were hidden over with the regular tools somewhere. After all, shop vacs aren’t really all that pretty and kind of deserve to be with the tools. They are more of a tool than a household appliance.
As I was making my way back to find what I was looking for, I came across a neatly situated aisle of air compressors. Now, I’ll tell you that I actually had two things on my list; a shop vac and an air compressor. I was going to get the shop vac because that would cost around $50, which is what the humidifier cost. My purchase would just cancel out the return. Simple algebra really.
I was going to walk right by the air compressors in an attempt to locate a Home Depot worker. I needed to find the shop vacs. I did almost get past the compressors, really I did. Then, I saw a little sign that said, “NEW LOWER PRICE – Was $149 – Now $89.99.” Wow, $89.99 didn’t really seem too bad for a nifty little Husky 6 gallon, 1.5 Hp, 135psi portable air compressor. I was forced to stop. I himmed and hawwed for a while and decided that it was in my best interest to get one of these cute little air compressors. I mean, there were about six of them in inventory and I knew that people were going to be running down the aisles soon to get one for themselves. I had to get one before they were all out.
I picked the box that I wanted. I usually go for the one way in the back because it’s not picked over by all the looky lous. I like a fresh box. I did notice that the package came with the compressor, an air hose and an attachment connector. I would need one of those joining connectors and a tire filler upper piece if I was going to be able to use the machine. I walked over and got the extra items. They were only a few bucks. I decided not to get the kit because that was around $20 and I didn’t feel that I needed all those extra pieces. I am a simple man with simple needs.
So, here are a few pics. Tell me what you think of her.
-
-
Husky portable air compressor – 6 gallon, 1.5 hp, 135 max psi
-
-
Husky air compressor control panel
Did anyone notice my new license plate? Thank you Photoshop.
Related posts
Sunday, January 18th, 2009
I hope you forgive me for typing this post with dirty hands. I just got finished cleaning out the St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove.
Actually, I gave it more than a regular cleaning, I gave it more like one of those seasonal cleanings that everyone says you should do, but no one does. I even took some pictures.
The reason for this post is really to follow up from a comment left by “Linda” over at my original pellet stove post.
Apparently, many fine pellet stove owners out there are having issues with their #2 light blinking. I received tons of great comments on my other post regarding this. We have all been looking for the answer. Linda offered a lot of insight, so I decided to give her ideas a try. I think the main point of her comment was to say that cleaning out behind the “ash clean out covers” is very important. I thought I had been doing that, but she mentioned that what I was doing, wasn’t enough.
Okay, so let’s get going. I am going to show you some pretty interesting photos in this post…photos that are hard to find. Sure, there are tons of good pellet stove shots out there, but usually when people start cleaning out their stoves, they forget all about the camera. Not me, my friends. Not me.
I first went downstairs and shut the stove down. When it cooled itself and shut all the way down, I unplugged it. That’s very important, so make sure you do it. After that, I gave it a quick once over to make sure there were no large piles of ash anywhere. I didn’t give it a good cleaning, because I just did that yesterday. It didn’t need to be done again. I did push some ash into the ash pan and empty it though.
What I want to show you here are those ash clean outs that the owner’s manual talks about so much. I just realized this morning that there are about 4 warnings to keep these things clean. I guess it’s pretty critical. I have been doing this every time I clean the stove, so I really didn’t think I needed to do it again. Linda mentioned that we should be cleaning these out with a bottle brush or something like that to really clean them well. Good thing I had bought one of the bottle brushes from Lowe’s a while back. It’s really made for a fireplace or stove, but I was using it to clean bottles for my home brew.
-
-
Left pellet stove clean out cover – closed
-
-
Left pellet stove clean out – open
-
-
Cleaning the pellet stove clean out with a bottle brush – straight up
-
-
Pushing bottle brush into pellet stove clean out – towards center
-
-
Right pellet stove clean out with ash showing
-
-
St. Croix Prescott EXL exhaust fan
-
-
Fan blades of a pellet stove exhaust fan
-
-
St. Croix Prescott pellet stove exhaust vent
Notice how there really isn’t too much ash in there? I’m talking about inside the hole. I just vacuumed this out yesterday, but I can imagine what it would look like if someone never cleaned these out. Probably like a packed wall of ash.
I didn’t take pictures of the right side, because it is identical to the left side.
By pushing the brush straight up, I didn’t get all that much ash to come out. There really wasn’t all that much up there. By pushing it sideways, I got a little bit more. I’ll show you in the next photo.
To get the pile of ash in the photo above, I basically pushed the bottle brush straight through, from the left side to the right side. I actually saw the brush coming through the right side.
I figured that was done, since I saw all that ash coming out. I decided to move on to clean out the exhaust fan. This is one of those things the book tells you to call the dealer for. It took me about 15 minutes to do the whole job, so it’s up to you.
To remove the fan, I took off the 6 nuts that surround the motor. I believe I used a 9mm 6-point tall socket. I also removed the vacuum hose and took off the vacuum switch wires as well as the fan wires. After everything was removed, the motor and fan popped right out.
With the fan in hand, it was easy to clean the blades (if you call them that). You can use an old paint brush or a rag or something like that. Just get the ash off the blades. The owner’s manual says this fan does not require oiling.
I also decided to take a photo of the rear part of the exhaust vent. This is one of those things we always wonder about, but unless you have taken a pellet stove apart, you will most likely will never see.
As you can see, there wasn’t really too much ash buildup on either the fan or the exhaust vent. I brushed them off and put everything back together. I lit the stove up and watched it burn for a while. I haven’t yet put the wires back on the vacuum switch. I still have them jumped. I’m not sure I have the heart to go through that again, since the stove has been running so wonderfully the way I have it now.
Questions, comments, concerns?
Related posts
Monday, January 12th, 2009
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to purchase a humidifier? Well, it’s not hard to purchase one, the difficulty lies in going over all the different selections online. Oh, and the reviews…THE REVIEWS. If there were no online reviews, things would be a heck of a lot easier. Trying to decifer between the real ones, the fake ones, the ones placed by the company itself and the ones placed by its competitors…it’s simply exhausting.
Okay, here is what has been happening: Lately, I have been finding it more challenging to feel the heat the pellet stove has been producing. It’s like I have to keep cranking it up more and more, just to get what we used to get out of it. The unit is running fine and is blowing out hot air, but I am finding myself getting cold easier and faster.
I know it’s colder outside than it has been, but that isn’t causing my little, “can’t get warm inside” dilemma. The temperature indoors has been remaining virtually the same as it has been over the past few weeks. I had a feeling I knew what the problem was, so I acted.
I did a little reading online and found that dryer air is more difficult to heat (or to feel the heat in). If moisture is added, the air feels warmer. If you know anything about this and I am sound strange, please correct me. I am merely a novice consumer and am always looking for more information on this type of stuff.
As a matter of fact, dry winter air does more than make you feel cold, it causes chapped lips, itchy skin and frequent nose bleeds. I also read somewhere that it dries out the wood in your house. That’s good enough reason for me to get going with the moisture. Oh yeah, one more thing…that good ol’ static. Can’t forget about that.
After getting all sorts of discouraged from looking at humidifiers online, I decided to go to Home Depot, close my eyes and grab one off the shelf. Good thing I grabbed the best one there.
For the uninitiated, there are all sorts of humidifiers; warm mist, cool mist and everything in between. Some cool mist humidifiers have spinners on the inside and shoot water in the air, otherwise known as vaporizing the water (vaporizers). Other cool mist humidifiers use “wicks” or filters to absorb the water in the holding tank. The fan in the unit basically evaporates the water from the wick. I really don’t like either of these types of humidifiers because I have had them both. The vaporizers leave “white dust” from the minerals in the water all over the place and the wick humidifiers have to have their filters changed relatively frequently. They get cruddy quite fast. The last type of cool mist humidifier I know of is the ionic mist humidifier. I have no idea how these work, but I do know many people are happy with this type and they cost more. That’s about it.
I favor the warm mist humidifiers. Simply put, these humidifiers boil the water and steam it out of the top of the unit. Some people don’t like these types of units because they cost more to run by using more electricity and leave the mineral trace in the unit, which requires cleaning every so often. Personally, I think that these types of humidifiers are the less of four evils, so I got one. If someone has other suggestions for me, I welcome them, because we will most likely need another unit.
I picked up the Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier. The box says it can put four gallons of moisture in the air per day, which I found satisfactory. I was tempted to get the 14 gallon per day humidifier, but then again, my bubble was burst by looking at the $20 box of filters (or wicks) I would have to buy every few weeks. Here are some photos and a video of the unit I purchased today:
Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier
Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier
Honeywell HWM-450 4 Gallon Humidifier
After I brought this unit back to the house and ran it for a while, I decided to search for what people were saying about it online. I found one website where they had five reviews. Some people loved it, some people hated it. So far, I really like it, but then I have only had it for about three hours.
It does push a lot of moisture out into the air. The only way I figured I could show you, is to take a video of it in action. I know that I would have watched this video before I made the purchase, so maybe there are a few folks out there who would appreciate this like I would have.
Related posts
Monday, November 24th, 2008
As I mentioned earlier in the season, we had a St. Croix Prescott EXL pellet stove installed in the basement.
Before the Winter season really began, I had my doubts on whether or not the pellet stove would heat the entire house. I was worried that it’s location would hinder the airflow to all the rooms upstairs. Well, I am happy to inform you that the stove does heat the entire house. I mean, if we keep the master bedroom door shut, it does. The master bedroom is over the garage and the furthest room from the stove. It’s also the coldest room, which is why we keep the door shut. When the time hits 10:30PM, the new digital thermostat cranks the heat in that room up to 65 degrees. That’s good enough for me.
We have had some nights already where the temperature has been in the 20s. I think that’s Winter and enough to tell me that the heating situation is going to be okay. I did try burning a fire in the regular fireplace a few times while running the pellet stove. The fireplace actually made things worse. It sucked so much air out of the house, all the rooms dropped a few degrees. Fireplaces are remarkably inefficient and really shouldn’t be used, in my humble opinion. If you want to run something in your fireplace, run a free standing wood stove or a wood stove insert. Even burning a fireplace for aesthetics on a cold day will freeze out the rest of your house. Nuff said.
Okay, we are having a little issue with the pellet stove.
A few nights ago, I tried to start it up. The start up procedure really isn’t very difficult on the Prescott. It basically consists of pushing the “on” button. Once the “on” button is pushed, the room blower turns on for about 10 seconds and the auger turns until the burn pot is approximately half way full of pellets. As the auger is turning, the ignitor kicks on and the pellets light up. It’s fun to watch and I sit there almost every time I light the stove doing just that. I smile when I see that flame dancing around inside that pellet stove.
Back to a few nights ago…when I tried to light the stove this particular time, I pushed the button. The fan turned on for about 10 seconds and then the stove just shut off. I am not sure if the auger ever turned to drop pellets into the burn pot.
I tried to light the stove a few more times when I noticed the #2 light blinking on the control board. I thought this was a little strange, since I had never seen that light blink before. I pulled out the owner’s manual and looked up that error code. Apparently, a lack of negative pressure causes the stove not to light and the #2 light to blink.
What can cause a lack of negative pressure? Well, a really windy day can do it, an open pellet stove door, a fireplace burning upstairs perhaps, a clogged air feed pipe or a clogged exhaust vent pipe. I am sure there are others, but these are the ones I remember.
Since I had a fire already going upstairs in the fireplace, I chalked the whole thing up to that. I got the pellet stove going in this instance by pulling the rubber tube off the vacuum switch and lightly sucking on it. When I heard a little “click,” I pushed the on button again. From here, things were fine. I held the crimped hose for a few minutes and then I hooked it back up the proper way.
Well, I tried to light the stove again the next night. The same thing happened. Since we had no fire going in the fireplace, I thought perhaps there was a clogged area in the stove somewhere that is causing the lack of vacuum, or negative pressure.
Let’s make a really long and boring story a bit shorter and to the point.
I cleaned out the entire stove about 10 times and nothing has changed. Every night, I suck on that hose to get the stove up and running. I have been reading the owner’s manual as well as some websites that deal with this kind of situation, but nothing has helped. One website said that a clogged exhaust vent is the sure-fire problem. I got excited and took off the clean-out cap. A little pile of ashed dropped out, but nothing changed.
This afternoon, I called the pellet stove dealer. I told them that I had pretty much narrowed the problem down to a faulty pellet stove vacuum switch and that I would need the tech to come out and take a look. Before we swap out the switch, I want him to hook up a vacuum gauge to see if there is proper negative pressure. If there is, we can replace the switch…if not, we have to do a bit more digging.
I keep going downstairs to investigate this issue. It is in my blood that I try to diagnose this problem myself. The only things I don’t have are a vacuum gauge or a new vacuum switch. I guess I need those things to solve the problem.
If you have ever experienced something like this with your pellet stove, please let me know. I am racing against time here. I want to beat the repair guy and figure this out myself.
Related posts
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
The pellets were delivered yesterday, all four tons of them. That’s 8,000 pounds.
What did I do with all 8,000 pounds of pellets? I moved all 8,000 pounds of pellets downstairs, alone. I did that all by myself in about an hour and a half. I don’t mean to brag about my feats of strength, I really don’t.
This feat was really nothing for me, moving all 8,000 pounds of pellets, I mean. It was annoying, because the wheelbarrow had a tire that was half flat and it was dark outside, but otherwise, everything was OK. I also had to navigate through the little doggy land mines, but I mostly made it.
Wood pellets by the ton
I put between 7 and 8 bags of pellets in each wheelbarrow load. At times, things got a little hairy going down the slight hill into the backyard, but again, this was but a minor challenge. When you have as much training in this type of thing as I do, it’s really simple.
Can someone please pat me on the back?
Of course I had to get a fire going in the pellet stove last night. The stove works really great, but I have to seal up the pipes again, just like the old stove. They leak slightly, which kind of stinks. I’ll get it.
The cool part is that when I am standing on the stairs between the basement and the main floor, I can feel a breeze going down, when I put my hand down towards the stairs and a breeze going up, when I put my hand up near the ceiling.
I think it’s going to work out just fine.
Related posts
