The end is near

wsherrick wrote:I will be heating well into May.

This, unless it will hit the 60's during the day and 50's at night.

I can barely afford heating until April. I just pray for warm weather. If not, we suffer for a few weeks. Hopefully the coal boiler changes that ....

I'll be heating into may. The Kaa-2 will idle along just to keep the dampness out. Ya just can't beat a stoker boiler them times of the year. It will put just the right amount of heat exactly where it needs to be. Oliver

I'll keep her burning till may 1st. I could shut down for a small stretch of warm weather in the mean time. I can idle her down to 25 pounds a day otherwise.

Shortbus, I bet you see huge daily gains of daylight where you are

Unless something changes, I'll go until the end of April.

I'll be running all four seasons, unless boiler becomes a pain to keep idling.

I tend to my boiler every Sunday. Fill the hopper, empty the ashes. If it's summertime I don't have to shovel the 2nd ash pan full.

I expect to heat the house through the first week of May, and possibly the second. Then the thermostats go off and the boiler only provides DHW. My coal bin will likely go empty sometime in late April, but I have 2 supersacks (2 tons) of Blaschak coal in reserve for when the bin runs empty.

I'm thinking I need to go until the last frost date in Pennsylvania which is about May 15th. The Pocono's can still be kind of chilly all of April. I'll probably need to restart around October 1st. For me it's now all about using no oil whenever possible.

SMITTY wrote:I can barely afford heating until April. I just pray for warm weather. If not, we suffer for a few weeks. Hopefully the coal boiler changes that ....

What kind of coal boiler are you putting in?

April, probably. After that we'll just use wood, or for those "shoulder" days when we just need to take the chill off the house until the sun comes up, *gasp* propane!!

In south central PA it varies a lot from one year to the next. Once the weather starts calling for consistent daytime temps of high 50s or better, I shut down. Some years that's early March, others it's mid to late April. On average, I'd say first or second week of April.

Being my first spring with the DS I want to see how well I can throttle it back when we're getting 50+ days but still chilly nights. I can't restart it in an hour like I could with the old stove, so I probably won't be shutting down and restarting if we get a short warm spell.

My coal use from here on out will determine next year's coal order. Starting the season with 2 tons for my old stove let me burn from early November to early April if need be. But the DS has burned 40-50 pounds a day during the coldest temps, so 2 tons won't get me through a whole season. This year's two ton pile went down fast the last 6 weeks.

About window-stats...on warm spring days, we have to do this in the room above the stove. The rest of the house is usually cooler. I'd rather lose a little heat from one room during the afternoon than shut down the stove, then have to run the heat pump a couple weeks. Not to mention the electric baseboard toasters in our basement room.

Well it is this way for me:Just the mention of a planned system shutdown will bring an immediate and unwanted response.That response will definately include the time in 1976 that I took my wife on opening day of trout season [april 15]. It happened to be windy and 18 degrees that morning.I got my limit and my wife got a cold,miserable story that can be used indefinitely as required.I will snap the switch off when I am told to snap the switch off. Mike

And a WISE man you are

freetown fred wrote:And a WISE man you are

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