Heating Budget

[DieselBound]

Wire-cages..... Having stacked wood, I like that approach. A lot.

Just do Us All a favour...... don't start a Wire-Cages in Fields thread on TBN, whatever you do !

Rgds, D.

This crate has been domesticated (no threat)! No violation as it's not in the field!

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[coobie]

We used to burn wood pellets for 12-15 years price was $99 per ton now the last few years $250 a ton.Propane in the last 2-4 years got down to 85 cents per gal(good choice at the time).in this part of the country now $2.09 per gal..Getting older not wanting to handle the 50 lbs bags of pellets we sold the wood pellet stove and went with a free standing 50,000 BTU propane stove for most of our heating needs.We have two 500 gal tanks that takes us most of the winter months.Might go back to wood pellets as a option.

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[Patrick Herd]

There are some really nice auger loading systems for wood pellets available in Europe. Literally dumped in with a truck, unload ash and heat at the other end.

Also +1 for keeping firewood in IBC cages, two winters here using the same method. All our friends are starting to see the merit of the idea too.

 

[3930dave]

We used to burn wood pellets for 12-15 years ago price was $99 per ton now the last few years $250 a ton.Propane in the last 2-4 years got down to 85 cents per gal(good choice at the time).in this part of the country now $2.09 per gal..Getting older not wanting to handle the 50 lbs bags of pellets we sold the wood pellet stove and went with a free standing 50,000 BTU propane stove for most of our heating needs.We have two 500 gal tanks that takes us most of the winter months.Might go back to wood pellets...

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Options.... nice to have options onsite.

Allows you to play the best pricing, and gives you some protection from specific shortages and equipment faults.

Rgds, D.

 

[Rustyiron]

100% firewood here, actually that is when the shop gets cold enough to run our indoor wood gasification boiler for the radiant heat that's in both the house and shop. A few years ago (for the shoulder seasons) we put in a ductless mini split heat pump and couldn't be happier with its performance heating and cooling and our electric bill is usually under $100 a month year round.
I stack right off the splitter into wood racks that hold about 90 c/f each, and like dieselbound it's basically only handled twice. All of this year's wood was cut well over a year ago and next year's (and probably part of the year after) is also in the racks. This winter I'll be c/s/s wood again for 24/25 season.
It's a source of great satisfaction for me and in December when we usually fire up the boiler for the season, another satisfying aspect is our hot water. That's from the boiler also and all the laundry is done with HOT water, wash and rinse. Normally 80* in the house in the summer is miserable to me, but in the winter, 80+* house, watching it snow, priceless

 

[3930dave]

There are some really nice auger loading systems for wood pellets available in Europe. Literally dumped in with a truck, unload ash and heat at the other end.

I've seen videos of some really slick Euro outdoor boilers, along those lines.

A while back (5+ years) I spent a bit of time looking at domestic sourced boilers. At the time, one of the best offerings I came across was from these guys out West here:

Portage & Main Outdoor Boilers - Ultimizer wood, coal models, auto-feed coal/pellet burners, automated wood chip burning systems , EPA approved gasification boilers

Noticed today, they now have a coal option too.....

Put simply, what I liked about their offering was really solid mechanical and thermal engineering, w/o a lot of what I'd call "bling".... just the way I like my major (or minor, for that matter) products.

Haven't bought one yet, but an electrician who used to get his truck serviced at my buddy's shop heard me talking about them, and checked them out. He built his retirement home in Northern Ontario and put in one of the P+M boilers - and really liked it.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

100% firewood here, actually that is when the shop gets cold enough to run our indoor wood gasification boiler for the radiant heat that's in both the house and shop.

That all sounds like a great setup Rusty .

Nothing like having a house full of kids/teens for going through hot water, but even with just a couple of adults, domestic hot water takes a fair # of btu's.

Rgds, D.

 

[Rustyiron]

I saw a pretty slick P&M boiler that burned green chips, the stuff the loggers make for biomass or pulp. It had a storage bin and auger (think grain bin) that fed the boiler. It's not as "domesticated" as 50# bags of pellets and it would seem to require a loader and a chip storage shed, but possibly only a weekly filling of the bin .
Maybe they have it figured out, but I'm pretty certain that a bunch of heat energy is lost pushing the water out of the green chips before it burns.
P&M has been at it a while and it looks like good stuff.

 

[zzvyb6]

Since dead people started to vote, the price of cold went down. Also you can burn all those extra mail-in votes if you need heat. Mail carrier brought us over 20 apiece last year. Called "Sample Ballots", they all apparently worked just fine.

 

[Rustyiron]

Since dead people started to vote, the price of cold went down.

You meant up right ?