This past fall, we had a pellet stove installed and we really like it. It’s an insert to our fireplace that burns small pellets made of compressed sawdust. It heats the living room and most of the downstairs very well. We still use our regular furnace and radiators, mainly for heating upstairs. But if you leave the stove running for several hours it does a pretty good job of heating the whole house.

We bought the pellet stove from Energy Unlimited in Wayland. I also expect that we’ll be buying fuel from them.

So far this year, the stove has been our primary heat source although we do use our gas furnace regularly. Our bills and gas consumption have gone down significantly– on the order of 30%. Of course, we’ve had to pay for pellet fuel which cost $300 for a ton and $50 for delivery.

We keep up the pallet in the our garage because the pellets need to stay dry. We’ve burned through the first ton and are ordering a second ton now.

In terms of labor, you have to carry the 40-pound bags of pellets in from outside, obviously, and pour them into the stove from the top. We have been emptying the ashes out every two weeks and using a vacuum to clean it out thoroughly. We throw the ashes on the compost. We’ll also have to get the chimney checked regularly and the stove cleaned professionally.

My biggest concern with the stove so far is getting the fuel. Pellets were not available around here last winter. And getting a second delivery from our supplier has been delayed a couple of times. Places like Home Depot also sell pellets, so that’s another option. I’m told that getting high-quality pellets are important.

The stove itself cost about $2200. Altogether, the stove, installation, and delivery of ton of pellets costs over $3000.

It gives off a dry heat, blown out with the fan and it’s really nice having a fire going. Before we rarely used the fireplace, because it was so wasteful, heat-wise. You can’t smell smoke outside when the stove is burning like you can when you burn wood in a fireplace.

In theory, wood pellets are a renewable resource, although I don’t know about ours for sure. We get them from a lumber company which has set up a subsidiary to make pellets from its sawdust. In general, it seems environmentalist give pellet stoves good marks as a heating option.

See more here at Grist.org.

In response to a question on composting on the Sustainable Arlington email list, Elizabeth Karpati writes:

You can compost any raw vegetable matter, from apple cores to grass clippings and leaves, and coffee grounds too. Leaves can be shredded with a lawnmower, or else they tend to mat down and take forever.

The Arlington Dept. of Public Works (located on Grove St.) has compost bins at reasonable prices, and information. I compost year-round — in winter I just throw my vegetable refuse on top of the heap in the bin and it sits there until the compost organisms wake up and go to work on it in the spring. I have also composted eggshells and even a few lobster shells, and they don’t seem to have hurt my compost. I have a plastic trash can next to my compost bins, and when the compost in the bottom part of a bin seems ready, I transfer any uncomposted stuff from the top part to the other bin and sift the compost from the bottom through “hardware cloth” with 1/2 inch mesh into the trash can so I have a ready supply of compost when I need it.

Martin LaMonica adds:

One of the first things we did when we moved to our house in Arlington was build a compost bin and it continues to serve us well. All vegetable matter goes in there–veggies, yard waste, etc.–and comes out compost a few months later. Be careful to keep any animal parts out (with the exception of egg shells and apparently lobster exo-skeletons, as noted above). It’s important to cover what you put in there with leaves or other non-food material. In the fall, we keep a yard waste bag full of leaves to pile on top of deposits during the winter. Also important is moving stuff around–a pitchfork does the trick–to help the composting process.

Links on composting:

Vegweb
Composters.com

Compost Guide
Grist advice column

Grist on composting weeds

Scott Smith shares his experience of an extensive energy-saving effort.

Spending our first winter in our "new" house, which was built in 1870, was a bit of a surprise.

While the house is generally in very good repair, and has been extensively renovated over the years, we were surprised how much we were spending on gas for heating. After receiving the Keyspan Gas bill for December, I knew something needed to be done. The house is about 20% larger than our previous house, but the gas bill seemed more like twice as large as we had been used to. Part of this is clearly the ever-increasing price of fuel.

I immediately scheduled an energy audit from Keyspan. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones becoming sensitized to the high cost of staying warm in the winter, so the auditor was not available until March 8. In the meantime, I started doing some research, and found several projects to take on in the meantime. Here’s a list of things that I did:

1. Insulate heating pipes - My basement has probably 300 feet of copper and iron pipe carrying hot water to the radiators throughout the house. Almost none were insulated. I began to start wrapping them.

2. Weather strip doors - The two doors on the front of my house were not well sealed. I sealed them with various kinds of weather stripping.

3. adjust storm windows - They are almost brand new, but were not well adjusted, such that large (several mm) gaps were present at the bottom side of many of them.

4. mortite windows - I sealed the gaps around all of the older windows with mortite, a kind of rope caulk made for this purpose.

5. gaskets on outlets and switches - Outlets and switches on outside walls can leak cold air into your house. Foam gaskets can be easily put in to reduce this flow dramatically.

6. turn down thermostats to 55 at night - Nobody (including my always-cold wife or 3 and 5 year old daughters) complained when I adjusted the thermostat downward at night. A programmable thermostat can be used to warm the house automatically before you get up.

7. seal cracks in foundation and around basement windows - This helps keep the basement warmer, and reduce the cold air coming up through any cracks in the floor and along the walls.

8. close rooms that aren’t in use - Our dining room isn’t used all the much (and never at night) so we began closing off the room when it’s not in use. This room tends to be a bit colder due to lots of windows, so closing the doors keeps the rest of the house warmer.

9. turn down water heater to "warm" - Our water heater was turned up much too high. The warm setting on most HW heaters will provide water at 115-120 degrees, which is fine for our needs.

10. reflectors behind radiators on exterior walls - Radiators that are installed on outside walls should have reflectors along the wall to ensure that the heat goes into the room rather than heating the wall. These can be made from aluminum roll insulation available at places like Home Depot.

Although it’s difficult to be sure due to weather variability, these actions seem to have cut our bills by about 15%. Given that most of these actions need only be done once, their cost ($400-500) will be recouped in the first year. After that it’s money in the pocket.

On March 8, the auditor arrived. This particular auditor, though contracted by Keyspan, works for Honeywell. He doesn’t sell anything, so I believed that he could be objective, and nearly everything he said seemed quite logical and reasonable. He was pleased to see all the actions that I had been already taken.

However, the big stuff remains, which the auditor dutifully discovered. Specifically:

* He found an opening along the wall in the second floor ceiling that allowed warm air to go directly to the attic. He recommended sealing it with expanding foam. He also estimated that this crack was costing me $300/year! Wow.

* He pointed out that the chimney damper was open (behind glass doors) and recommended closing the damper and/or blocking the flue with an inflatable device. An open or leaky damper is like an open or very leaky window.

* He checked all walls for insulation, finding that only about 25% had any insulation at all. Blowing insulation into the walls would cost $2000-$3000, but would cut my heating costs by more than $800/year, he estimated.

* He recommended adding electronic ignition to my boiler, rather than relying upon a pilot light. This would cost $300, save $124/year.

* He recommended considering a tankless water heater, which are more efficient as well as having other virtues.

* He recommended that I insulate my basement ceiling and attic floor. Cost: $700, savings $380/year.

* He recommended that I finish insulating my hot water pipes. He quoted a figure of $1.50 per foot/season for 1" copper pipes, and for 2" iron, $2.50-3.00. That adds up fast.

* Keyspan rebates/Federal Tax Credits:

$300 for tankless HW + $300 tax credit
Up to $750 for weatherization measures (including insulation)
Up to $500 for high-efficiency heating system
Up to $50 for programmable thermostat

There are also loan programs, at no and low (3%) interest available for making these sort of improvements, so you really shouldn’t miss these opportunities, even if the bank account is presently a bit low.

Overall, I highly recommend getting an energy audit. If you don’t heat with gas, I believe you may be able to get one from N-Star. It’s a great way to learn about your home and what you can do to improve its efficiency. You’ll save money, be
more comfortable, and quite possibly help save the world!