When we moved into the house here in southern NY, there was a pellet stove in what the previous owners used as a family room. It wasn’t functional at the time, mainly because there was no vent pipe outside the house. The vent through the wall was closed off on the outside. We planned to have it checked out and see if it could be made useful. But, what with moving, settling in, and the inevitable “stuff” that comes along with that, we hadn’t had the chance until recently.
Among all the appliance manuals and other things left here, we found the receipt for the initial installation of the stove. So we called the place that did it, and had a technician come out and check the stove out. He said it was in really good shape, and hadn’t been used much at all. So, he cleaned it up and vacuumed out the who-knows-how-old pellets that were in the hopper. The only thing he couldn’t do was start it up, because there was no vent. But we scheduled them to come out and fix that up. When that happened, the guy who put in the pipe couldn’t get it started. The blower kept shutting down, which isn’t a good thing. So, the other guy came back and it turned out, the control knobs were not working right. He probably didn’t catch that the first time since he couldn’t really get a fire going in there. Anyway, everything got fixed up and we now have a nice warm fire running in that room.
It keeps the downstairs pretty cozy, more than the furnace did. And enough heat gets upstairs that the hall and bath are not frigid when I get up in the middle of the night. We are still playing with the settings to find the sweet spot of keeping the house warm without burning through pellets too fast. And we are debating springing for a ton of pellets now since it’s hard to tell how long we’ll need to keep it running. At any rate, I love a nice fire. The heat is so different from the furnace- it feels nicer, even warmer somehow. And we haven’t had to run the furnace much at all in the last days. Next winter will be the real test of how economical it will be, but for now, we are all enjoying it, especially Amber and Lambeau.
Looks comfy, doesn’t she?
Coming in May 2022
“Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. Twelve Scifi and twelve fantasy short stories that can each be read in minutes
I have written science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy stories. There are novels, novellas, and shorter pieces to fit everyone’s reading time. There are even some free stories, both here on the site and in other places. You can go here to find out more about the books I have published. They are available at Amazon, Smashwords, and most ebook retailers. Thank You!
And So On... 