Another Sign of the Season

It’s hard to believe that it’s this time already, but we came home today to find 2 ton of pellets sitting in our driveway.

Yup, it’s another sign that the seasons are changing. Burning pellets in a pellet stove is our primary form of heating. We do have the capacity for electric heat, but we use it very rarely. The only time last winter that we used anything other than our pellet stove for heating was at Christmas time, to heat the bedroom up for our little guy when he was visiting, and in April when we went away on vacation. Other than that, our electric heat was completely turned off.

 

Besides adding a pleasant ambiance to the room on a cold winter’s day, using the pellet stove is much more economical. We always start a winter with at least 3 ton of pellets. Last year we had a somewhat mild winter, and it also warmed up earlier than usual. I think by early April, we had already turned the heat off. So we have over a ton left, maybe even close to a ton and a half. If we have another mild winter, we may really luck out and only have to order 1 ton next year. But even at 2 ton, it’s not too bad, considering we use it for our only type of heating. We paid $575 for the two ton. If this is a normal year, we will start using heat sometime in mid-October and we will need to use it until mid-April. That’s an average of about $96/month for heat. And it’s already paid for, so the only impact on our bill will be the electricity that the pellet stove uses, which isn’t bad.

He’s fast! In the time it took me to write this post, Harry has almost half of the pellets moved into the garage.

The other thing that arrived today was our new debit cards. So we are all set to implement our new spending plan come Monday!