Silly Me

I got up this morning and noted the house seemed like it was a cooler than normal. I went downstairs and as I got closer to the bottom of the steps it felt a little cooler still. I saw the coal stove in the corner of the dining room was humming along at a little above idle where I set it and the cat was asleep on the floor in front of it on the hearth rug. He looked at me with a look that only a cat can give which was "What do you want now?" I pondered what could be the reason for it feeling cooler in the house?

I checked the outside temperature; it was 40. Then I looked at the thermostat in the living room for the oil burner . The single thermostat in the house has become nothing more than a thermometer. I have the round Honeywell thermostat set at 40 because that's the lowest setting on the dial. The oil burning hot water boiler in the basement is now nothing more than a big domestic water heater. I fired it once for heat when we first moved in just to make sure all the pumps for the zones worked.

When I looked at the thermostat in the living room it showed 72. Then it dawned on me. We had been keeping the house at 74-78 and controlling the temps in the house with judicious use of the window stats. Us older folks like it a bit warmer don't you know? It was warm the last couple of days so I had turned the convection fan off and opened some window stats. Last night it was supposed to get to 39 so I closed the window stats but forgot to turn the convection fan on when I went to bed. Silly me!

So in order to remedy this rude situation, I turned the convection fan on and went to the kitchen and fixed a cup of coffee. It will soon be back up to the more accustomed 76.

Love my coal stove.

blrman07 wrote:The oil burning hot water boiler in the basement is now nothing more than a big domestic water heater.

Lots of standby heat loss in that arrangement. You might investigate installing an electric hot water tank.

rberq wrote:

blrman07 wrote:The oil burning hot water boiler in the basement is now nothing more than a big domestic water heater.

Lots of standby heat loss in that arrangement. You might investigate installing an electric hot water tank.

I was thinking the same check the cost per million BTU on electric and oil.. But it could be 6 of one, half a dozen of the other too since that standyby heat loss could be helping warm his house. Cost per million BTU on electric would need to be less than oil to make it a better water heating scenario, in my opinion

Already did the calculations. An electric water heater would save me about 20 a month. It would take almost 4 years to break even. I could put that same money ( about $850) into insulation and fixing air leaks in this drafty 1895 vintage box of a house and get a faster and bigger return using the same amount of money.

blrman07 wrote: The single thermostat in the house has become nothing more than a thermometer.

Love my coal stove.

I too have thermostats, 3 to be exact that all I do is use them to tell the time of day or the room temperature They have been turned off for 2 years now I do buy about 125 gallons of oil for the indirect hot water heater on the Buderus 115 The Keystoker 90 cannot heat my hot water and keep the family room "pretty" as my bride would choose. So I will buy the oil until the gas comes through, which should be in the next year. Do not get me wrong the gas will be heating hot water and ANTHRACITE will be heating the people of my house