Well-nigh Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 by Dick.

Aww, Chip, we hardly knew ye!

Posted in Wordless, Heating Issues | 4 Comments »

Broke

Monday, March 28, 2011 by Dick.

Don got me thinking about fixing or tossing stuff (we call it “repair or replace” now, because that’s how we roll). I grabbed a long-favorite 10-year old shirt this morning and noticed the cuffs are fraying. I suppose racer tape will keep that from being too too noticeable but I need to find my roll with the pale red, blue, green and white stripes to keep peeps from remarking on the tape.

Anyway, I never bought a netbook but I do have a Palm Tungsten T and a pellet stove.

Both broke.

Even if I hadn’t lived in Vermont (motto: Bet ya can’t name two of our towns) for more years than anywhere else in my life, so far, I come from an old Quaker family that never threw anything away. My loft is living proof. When we moved here, I brought 30,000 pounds in two moving vans and still had to tow the race car behind my truck. When my parents and grandfather moved out of the family home, I got the rest of the family history.

New Vermont motto: If Harper can’t find it in the attic, you don’t need it.

When I “upgraded” to Windows 7, it immediately orphaned my Palm PDA. The Palm still works perfectly well but the Palm HotSync™ app won’t load and my calendar and address book sync doesn’t.

Real Vermonters, tinkerers all, really really used to believe in fixing things.

I have tried to “fix” the Palm. I still have some hope but it is on the shelf for now. Meanwhile, it got cold in here.

The pellet stove has been difficult all this heating season. It all started when Anne noticed the fire was “doming” in the firepot. The dome threatened to pus fire back into the pellet poop chute. Not a good thing. Pellet stoves put out very little ash and what ash this one did make seemed to form a dome instead of flying out of the firepot like good ash should. I was down to South Puffin at the time and couldn’t tell if our new pellet supplier caused the problem or that the forced combustion air system wasn’t forcing enough (or any) air. The combustion fan ran but Anne couldn’t detect any air going through the firebox. Trouble was, we had no way of knowing if that meant there wasn’t any air going through the firebox or just that Anne couldn’t detect any air moving.

I have tinkered with it, cleaned it, and even invented new parts for it for most of the past couple of months. The fire kept doming. On Friday, the automatic pellet feeder stopped feeding pellets. And I’ve washed my hands entirely too many times, although not of the stove.

Wood ash gets into everything. I should have remembered that.

I thought I was doing a good job cleaning the stove but I took it apart this weekend. Something was blocking the air flow and by golly I was going to find it. I found hideyholes I didn’t even know existed. And to find them, I disassembled things I wasn’t sure actually came apart. I even had to RTM.

That’s why I had to keep washing my hands. Wood ash and soot gets into everything.

The right “brick” — it’s actually cast iron — in the firebox hides a passage to the flue. The brick should come out by pulling it up and then towards the front of the stove. The peeps who designed this thing and wrote the manual obviously never worked on a stove after it had been in operation.

Got the brick out. Lots of dust and soot and ash buildup clogging everything. Lots.

I took a bucket load of the dust and soot and ash out of the stove, learned a bit more about how it works, and discovered that it goes back together a whole lot better when clean than it came apart when clogged.

On to the feed auger which was what started this entire exercise.

I cleaned out the feeder tube and the auger still didn’t turn. When I say “cleaned out the feeder tube” I ain’t whistling Dixie. Our vacuum cleaner apparently has an Express Mode on the hose operation which sucked a magnet off the refrigerator at 50 paces. It made short work of the pellets in the tube. Pretty simple operation that. Suck, let some fall past the screw, suck more. A quick look with a mirror showed shiny metal everywhere so I pushed the start button. Ignition and combustion air but no pellet feed. I could hear and feel the feed motor running.

Turns out I looked too quickly.

A better look with a mirror showed some pellets still hiding up in the northeast corner, sort of jammed between the screw and the square corner (square corner???) of the tube. Wiggling the screw didn’t move them and the gear motor made it impossible to turn the screw. I couldn’t even bend a tool up to them, including the ubiquitous coat hanger.

Real Vermonters, tinkerers all, are ingenious about finding solutions. I called Anne.

Anne fixed it.

I had given her bad instructions for disassembling the auger assembly back when we were trying to clear jams over the phone but she made ‘em work anyway. I asked her to show me what she had done to clear the feed tube jams. She wasn’t able to pull the motor-and-brackets-and-auger out of the tube but she unbolted it and could turn it through almost a full rotation and that cleared it.

We have fire thanks to our own ingenuity.

But I AM™ ashamed to admit I replaced the Palm with an iPod Touch.

Posted in History, Heating Issues, Tech Toys, Random Access | 5 Comments »

ICE

Monday, March 14, 2011 by Dick.

Not U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Not the Internet Communications Engine.

Not criminally beautiful jewelry.

Not rocks.

Diamonds are forever but frozen water may last only until the Summer sun comes up.

Ice is simply water frozen into a solid state. Simple.

Except it is one of our more complex phenomena. It can be strong enough to drive a truck across and fragile enough to break under the weight of a twig. It is the only non-metallic liquid that expands when it freezes. It is slippery when wet. And it can be wet at most winter temps.

Ice is slippery because the surface ice molecules can’t bond properly with the molecules of the rest of the ice so they act just like liquid water. The lubrication they offer is nearly as effective as the 5W-30 in your car engine.

People all over these United States have complained about the ice this year. Here in Vermont, we’re in the middle of the third snowiest winter on record, thanks to the third largest snowfall that fell just last week. Here in North Puffin we added about 20 inches to our base; Jay Peak added feet. Snow is just puffy ice and when it hunkers down, that ice has stalled plow trucks and utility crews and made walking to the University Mall a trial. My own feet went out from under me once a few years ago as I carried a load of firewood in.

• Black ice is nearly invisible on macadam roads.
• Harbor ice crushes boats and stops commerce.
• Ice can change aircraft wings and control surfaces and puncture the fuel tanks of rockets.
• Ice can slow or stop a jet engines.
• Icebergs didn’t actually sink the Titanic (hubris did) but we know now a little frozen water can pry the bottom off a surface ship and the top off a submarine.
• Icing blocks the supply of air to a carbureted or fuel injected engine and cause it to fail.

My great-grandfather cut ice on Westtown Lake. He stored it through the summer in sawdust and ashes in a ten-sided ice house he built of cedar planks on a terrace above our home. That is the same technology Persian engineers used in 400 BC in the middle of the desert summer. Refrigeration made the cooling tunnel he built to store and separate milk — and ice collection and delivery — obsolete.

People around the world love ice, and not just to cool drinks or cool home made ice cream makers.

• Ice as a fire starter: carve it into a lens to focus sunlight on kindling.
• Ice as a musical instrument: ice drums are all over youtube; don’t lick your lips before blowing an ice horn though.
• Ice in medicine: it will decrease blood flow which reduces swelling and pain.
• Ice as a road: frozen rivers and lakes were once the easiest form of transportation; now they can be the only way to move supplies in the Arctic.

North Puffin sits directly on the shores of the no-longer-Great-but-still-pretty-darned-good-Lake-Champlain. Hard water out there, still. Ice is crucial to Vermont. Visitors come from around the world for our ice skating, ice hockey, ice fishing, ice climbing, curling, broomball and bobsled, luge, and skeleton racing. Not to mention skiing and boarding. And sugar on snow.

Burlington Harbor was still iced in as of Saturday evening but I saw open water in the Missisquoi River (upstream of the ice jams, of course) over the weekend. The plowed driveway here is largely clear and the only plowed lawn path that still has ice is the one at the bottom of the dooryard hill alongside the porch. It may not melt down in this cycle since melt water collects there and will freeze again and again and again.

Arguably the most famous ice in Vermont is the ice that isn’t. Joe’s Pond is still frozen today in West Danville but it will melt sometime in the next month or two.

Jules Chatot started the Joe’s Pond Ice-Out Contest as a cabin fever palliative in the 1980s. Mr. Chatot’s family and friends would “use his camp there as deer camp in the dead of winter, or spring break in deep snow with howling winds and muddy roads.” Sooner or later anyone there would start betting on when the ice will go out? at Hastings Store. Mr. Chatot kept track of the guesses in “a little notebook he kept in his pocket.”

A few hundred people bought tickets the first year. A couple of years later, a database replaced Mr. Chatot’s little notebook. The game has grown steadily; more than 12,000 people all around the world bought tickets last year. Ed Bird from West Danville won the first year (April 26 at 12:31 p.m.). April 16 has been the earliest and May 6, 1992, the latest. The Ice-Out Contest underwrites the free Independence Day Fireworks display.

That said, I’ll just be glad when I don’t have to warm my underwear in front of the fire before I put it on.

Posted in Heating Issues, Seasonal, Science (real), Random Access | 5 Comments »

Pelletized - IV

Monday, October 20, 2008 by Dick.

Wood pellet sellers are worse than plumbers. And surgeons.

I wrote that “the highest [price] I’ve seen so far is $300″ for a ton of hardwood pellets. That was way back in August and early September, four or even five weeks ago when supplies were apparently plentiful.

So we bought a stove.

Then I tried to buy pellets for it.

Vermont has more than two dozen dealers. I found, listed, and called the 15 or so within 50 miles of North Puffin. The typical response has ranged from “Gee, Dick, we don’t have any in stock right now” to “We’re simply not accepting orders–try calling back in November.”

Urk.

My best local fuel dealer still says, “Soon.” One hardware chain told me they had “one pallet of softwood pellets. Do you want it?” Not for the $313 they planned to charge. Another store said they had none in stock but I could keep calling on Wednesdays when their delivery truck arrived. A farm a long hour away by truck offers a “softwood single species from the Midwest” but they were sold out and didn’t know when any more would arrive. An outdoor furnace rep is “searching for a Canadian supplier.” Unsuccessfully so far. A couple of lumber yards and a couple of stove dealers sold stoves but no pellets.

The Energy Coop sells stoves but no pellets and has no plans to sell pellets.

I finally found a stove dealer 50 miles away with “truckloads coming in every other day.” He sells a premium-hard/softwood mixed-low ash pellet from Canada for $235/ton. I asked for two pallets.

“Sure,” they said.

That seller may have the most disorganized store I have ever done business with. I borrowed a 7,000 pound flatbed trailer, hitched it to the truck and drove right down.

Me:	I called this morning for two skids. Where do you want me to park?
Them:	We don’t have any left. Where’d you call from?
Me:	North Puffin
Them:	You’re the woman who called from Petuniaville?

I just looked over my glasses at them.

Anyway, they had promised me three tons and the woman from Petuniaville four tons. They had two wrapped skids (1.5 tons each) and one already opened skid with about one more ton. I arrived first so I got one wrapped skid and the still wrapped bottom half of the second, leaving a wrapped skid and 25 loose bags for the woman from Petuniaville.

She’s a stove buyer so she is gonna be mad.

The boss was on the phone when I arrived. He yelled at his peeps and said that from now on, only one person takes phone orders. He didn’t identify the order taker and I ’spect nothing will change.

{shaking head}

I managed not to give them the benefit of my management expertise which is to say I carefully applied my management expertise not to give them the benefit of my thoughts.

I parked the pellet pallet porter and pickup by the porch where Anne and I pulled and pushed and packed 4,000 pounds in place.

I am pleased to report that the pellet stove just lit again. I am not pleased to report that I’ll have to do it all again in less than 100 days.

---

Running a new appliance means we accumulate some cost and usage info. I’ll post that next.

Posted in Heating Issues, Seasonal, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Pelletized - III

Monday, October 13, 2008 by Dick.

Oooh, my back is gonna hurt tonight.

We bought a Quadra Fire Santa Fe pellet stove in Massachusetts. Then we drove it home. Then we had to move our existing “heating appliances” around to make room. See, we already had a Vermont Castings Vigilant in the great room and a cast iron “Franklin” stove in the parlor.

I over-engineered moving the Vigilant and thought that might take care of setting a new stove in place as well: attach a couple of 2×4s under the body, rig a cable or chain cradle, rent a pneumatic-rubber tired engine hoist, and simply roll it into place.

Oops. The feet of the hoist have to go under the body and the raised hearth in the parlor knocked that idea out. Not to mention that engine hoists have solid wheels.

The good news is that I have an engine dolly that is strong enough for two stoves and is just about the right height. The coal stove sits on it, awaiting a buyer. Rocking the coal stove turned out to be pretty easy. I lifted one end (the light one) and our son-in-law blocked the feet. He lifted the heavy end while I blocked the other feet. And the dolly slid right out. First time I’ve seen it in 20 years.

I disconnected and moved the server tower to make room in the front hall. Moved some furniture out of the way. Rolled up the rugs.

The Franklin stove weighs about 400 pounds. We tipped it to take off its feet and lowered it on to a pair of “one-by” fir strips. Slid it across the fir onto the dolly. Rolled the dolly onto the front porch. Drove up in the tractor and just lifted it off the dolly and put it down in the barn. It was waaaaaaay easier than it had any right to be.

The Vigilant was already up on 8″ blocks, so we lifted it to add a 2×6 and a 1×6 under each pair of feet. That brought it even with the top of the dolly so we simply “walked it” over. Backed and filled a bit with the dolly to get to the parlor hearth which turned out to be exactly the same height as the dolly. This was also remarkably easy.

We took one enclosure panel off, backed up the truck to the porch, and lifted the new-to-us Quadra Fire Santa Fe pellet stove down off the tailgate. I opted not to carry it in, so I did get to use my brand new, pneumatic tired hand truck. (As an aside, if you know who has my old red hand truck, let me know. I stole it fair and square 30 years ago and I want it back.) I rolled the stove right around the great room furniture and Bob’s yer uncle. It is sitting on the hearth right now.

We have moved all the furniture back that we moved out of the way and reconnected the server tower.

The next decision point was whether to sit it directly on the hearth or raise it another 8″ so its vent will go straight in to the chimney thimble. It was a looks v. convenience v. efficiency question. We opted for floor height and connected it up. It looks and works just fine.

I lied, though. My back already hurts.

Know anybody who wants to buy a nice Franklin stove or an even nicer Home Comfort coal stove?

---

Next up: Buying pellets. That turns out to be a trip in itself.

Posted in Heating Issues, Seasonal, Random Access | 1 Comment »

Pelletized - II

Monday, September 22, 2008 by Dick.

Who ever thought we would celebrate oil going through $100? Crude prices have dropped close to 40 percent since shooting the moon at prices near $150 a barrel on July 11. In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 7.12 cents to $2.72 a gallon, while gasoline prices dropped 10.04 cents to $2.461 a gallon. Natural gas for October delivery fell 8.7 cents to $7.29 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Anne’s hot flashes are so bad that she thought Global Warming was her fault and Al Gore keeps following her around.

I rather wish we could bottle that.

Oil is still waaaaay too expensive to burn.

We also have no cattle barn from which to bottle methane. The ground water heat pump presents too many obstacles to install this year. Coal is too difficult to use here. An outdoor wood furnace gives up too much heat to the outdoors and makes us slog through the snow in the middle of the night. That means we’ve decided to buy something that burns wood pellets.

Is a pellet stove really cheaper to run?

Pellets cost not less than $199/ton. The average is about $250 and the highest I’ve seen so far is $300. Pellets give up 24,500,000 BTU/ton. Most pellet stove makers advertise 75-80% efficiency although I used 70% in the spreadsheet last week. The numbers work even at 60% .

Oil will still be there as a fully automated backup, right?

Oh, yeah.

No matter what we do, I’ll either leave the existing oil fired boiler or upgrade the oil fired boiler. A pellet boiler would either be an add-on or have its own oil burner as a backup. The heat pump is more difficult because I can’t reliably get its transfer liquid hot enough to run our baseboards and its power draw would be more than I have generator capacity for during a power outage.

There must be a catch.

The downside to a pellet stove or furnace is its need for electricity. Unlike the wood stoves we rely on now, a pellet stove has two or even three fans and an auger without which there is no fire. If the power goes out today, we can crank up the wood stoves and keep from freezing, If the power goes out when we have a pellet something and an oil-fired boiler or an electric heat pump, we lose all our heat.

There is also the little matter of loading pellets by the ton.

What’s the Bottom Line?

I don’t know how to justify a pellet furnace on cost alone. The models I’ve found would heat the entire house at a capital cost two to four times that of a pellet stove and the savings fall in the diminishing returns category.

So. We’ll continue using the oil furnace as back up. The Vigilant, a wood stove now in the great room, will move to the living room. A pellet stove gets installed in the great room. Just as soon as I find one.

I narrowed the pellet burning field down to a few reliable products with automatic operation that runs on a thermostat, multiple heat settings, and cast iron construction. I have investigated Brosley, EKO-Vimar, Harman, Pinnacle, Viessman, and Woodmaster pellet furnaces as well pellet “parlor” stoves from American Energy, Bixby, Bob England’s Stove Works, Enviro, Harman, Hearth and Home Technologies, Pelpro, Thelin, and Whitfield.

The Harman PB-105 furnace or Harman Accentra stove at the top of my list are sold out until late next Spring.

I’ve chased stoves and furnaces from dealers in places wood burning appliances don’t sell nearly as well as they do here in New England. That search has yielded no furnaces and darned few stoves. I thought about going a little farther afield, like Florida or Arizona except Florida and Arizona probably don’t burn coal or wood because they think the economics of transporting the solid fuel is against them.

That brings us to an interesting fact.

Last year, we burned about 5 tons (10,000 pounds) of oil plus a couple of tons of firewood. If we switch to coal, pellets, or chunk wood, we will burn about 7 tons of coal, or 7 tons of pellets, or 7 tons of firewood.

Next time, I’ll tell you all about which pellet stove we bought and how I installed it.

Posted in Heating Issues, Seasonal, Random Access | 5 Comments »