[TheForge] Winter is coming (was: sure is quiet)

[Dave Brown]

At 21:09 10/26/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Anybody home?

Well, I'm home, but have been away from the computer for most of the day.

Winter is coming and we've had a taste of it these last few days with 
temperatures dropping into the mid 20'sF.

In past years I heated the shop with propane.  It got mighty expensive at 
times, to the point that I'd stay out of the shop because it was cheaper to 
pass up a job than it was to heat the shop.  So this year I started looking 
around at alternative heat furnaces.  I had headed off in the direction of 
corn burner furnaces.  Corn has a big BTU value and looked promising.  In 
keeping with my coal forge, a corn burner produces a clinker that must be 
fished out of the firepot daily.  At one shop out in the middle of farm 
country the dealer took me through the pros and cons of corn vs 
pellets.  Basically it came down to the pellets being cheaper to burn than 
corn unless, that is, you get your corn for free or you burn the low BTU 
and high cost pellets at Fleet Farm or similar "BORG" (big box) stores.

I ran into a good deal on some slightly damaged pellet stoves by Whitfield 
(Lennox) at a touch under half of the usual price.  Pellet stoves are not 
cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but at half price for a stove 
designed to heat a structure more than twice the footage of my shop .... 
well it was too good to pass up.

It's direct vent, so no stack to run and it pulls the combustion air in 
from outside.  This last bit isn't all that important since my shop is so 
drafty in the first place.  But it reduces the heat loss a wee bit, so I 
won't complain.

It's running out there now and if anyone is interested I'll keep them 
posted on how it performs for me.

Dave Brown
Heritage Smithing
Green Bay, WI
ABANA, UMBA, GoM, MODA, ARG