Just dumped the last of the pellets from my first pallet, into the hopper of the Sante Fe. Been a real mild winter here.

I buy 4 ton every year, and it is lookin like I may end the season with 2 ton left over for next year. Been almost spring like here all winter so far, but Feb. and March can still be nasty.

Funny I just emptied my basement corn hopper. It is 4x8x6. The corn in there was about 4 years old. I have a bunch of ICB totes full, about 190 bushels. With the planned solar install I need to make my basement storage bin smaller to allow for water storage. I am trying to keep all my mechanicals in the basement in a 10x13 room. Corn boiler, furnace, water heater, well tank, corn storage, and water storage. Water tank is going to be 3x10x6, and corn storage is going to be 4x5x6. Everything is tightly packed in, leaving necessary code clearances......Brian

Sounds like you are going to be one busy bugger, B-Mod! Those are IBC'S. Intermediate Bulk Containers. I started up a plant here in Ga. in 1989 making those suckers! Mine were made of wire mesh and not tubular although now the company has bought a couple of tubular manufacturers too. I think every farmer and rancher around here has some sitting around. NO wonder we had inventory problems!!! ha ha. Even the fire companies have them for fighting brush fires. One of the local companies mounted two of them on the back of a jeep. I just shook my head and thought 'wait until they fill them up and realize they have 4000+ pounds hanging off the back of that jeep!

I just started my third pallet of pellets. I was figuring I would burn 5t, but I have downgraded now till probably only needing 4. I have a good sized house that I am keeping fairly warm mostly on the stove, so I would rather burn then pay the electric man. Pellets seem to be around 3.50 a bag here.

We only get that price if they are on sale. Usually 3.99 and up here.

tgh117 wrote:


I just posted this on Hearth and thought it would be relevant here since you guys are having a mild winter too. >

"What is your backup heat source? NG, oil, or other? In this mild weather, you might actually do some comparisons between what pellets are costing per day versus how much of your backup heating system costs you. In my home, I have heat pumps and I installed a whole house electric monitoring system. I have a good baseline of running the pellet stoves and using electric to feed all my other MANY electron sucking appliances and toys. I decided to do some experimenting and I’ve shut off my pellet stoves and let the heat pump keep my home at the same temps. I’m finding that with 65-70 days and 45-50 nights, it costs me about $2 extra a day. With pellets and no heat pumps at the same outside temps, I was using about 1 bag or $4 a day of pellets. Yesterday we had a high of 47 and 40 for a low. I used $3.50 electricity so that’s still less than a bag a day.. Now last night it was down to 37 and since midnight I’ve already used a lot more electricity than normal for this time in the morning. We’ll see what the final tally is at midnight. The object of the exercise is to see when MY heat pump becomes more of a burden than a money saver and when to turn on the pellet stoves.''

Natural gas here is .96 a therm. It is cheaper to use the furnace than burn pellets. But, the pellets are paid for. I started using both last year with a programmable thermostat on the furnace. Using both, saves me alot of coin.

The 224th bag of pellets went into hopper this AM. Used no other heat yet

Most of the snow we had has melted, just the drifts and sheltered areas and piles at parking lots. Yesterday I went about 45 miles to the southwest before I found snow cover on the ground.
I've been burning pellets on the lowest setting most of the winter and using the gas furnace to pick up the difference. The multi-fuel burner is more fun to sit by in the living room than going to the basement to watch the gas furnace.