422 Efficiency

[FordMan59]

Since we just moved to our new home in late 2010 I haven't had an external tank put in yet so I've bought kerosene 5-10 gallons at a time and run the heater on the capsule tank this winter. At the beginning of the winter I started keeping track of the amount of kerosene I bought this winter. The winter was pretty mild this year, but we did have some pretty cold weather Dec. 2011-Feb.2012. I kept the heater thermostat set at 66* night and day over 90% of the winter occasionally going up to 68-70*. As of right now I've bought 85 gallons and still have a 5 gallon can in the garage and part of another one. I've heated about 1200 sf of our 1400 sf home for about $350 this winter while neighbors were paying $200-$400 per month using electricity in smaller homes.

[HayZee518]

they advertise the effieciency to be about 93% with that stat setting. the Btu's go slightly up when the heater switches into high speed.

[driz]

Since we just moved to our new home in late 2010 I haven't had an external tank put in yet so I've bought kerosene 5-10 gallons at a time and run the heater on the capsule tank this winter. At the beginning of the winter I started keeping track of the amount of kerosene I bought this winter. The winter was pretty mild this year, but we did have some pretty cold weather Dec. 2011-Feb.2012. I kept the heater thermostat set at 66* night and day over 90% of the winter occasionally going up to 68-70*. As of right now I've bought 85 gallons and still have a 5 gallon can in the garage and part of another one. I've heated about 1200 sf of our 1400 sf home for about $350 this winter while neighbors were paying $200-$400 per month using electricity in smaller homes.

I use a pellet stove to heat most of mine and supplement with simple small electric space heaters. It heats pretty much like a monitor does using the blower fan in similar fashion. Of course with any of these rigs in a typical ranch style house it's always hard to get heat to the distant rooms without blasting the heat way up where the stove is. How do you manage the far end of the house rooms issue?

[HayZee518]

distant rooms

since the monitor is heating a large space by forced air, heat stratifies towards the ceiling. for far reaching rooms, believe it or not, small computer pancake fans will move a quantity of heat if mounted in the upper portion of a door frame.

[FordMan59]

Heating other rooms

I have my Monitor located in the living room (center of the house) and the kitchen is an open area just off the living room so it heats both living room and kitchen very well. We spend 95% of our time in these areas except when we are in bed and even then the temperature doesn't fluctuate more than a few degrees. We also like it cooler in the bedrooms while trying to sleep so it works out good. If we have the Monitor set at 70* it makes it warmer in the bedrooms than we like. We do have one large bathroom (approximately 100 sf) off the rear of our bedroom that is a little bit cool when bathing so when we're bathing we sometimes start a 10K BTU portable kerosene heater to warm only that room during really cold weather. I think we used less than 2 gallons of kerosene in the portable all last winter.

[TechEditor]

In the wall between the Kitchen and the Living room where my Laser 73 resides, I cut a hole just below the ceiling. I de-mounted a 20" box fan, installed the fan. set it on low, installed a fan controller and set it on low to get the box fan down to 120 rpm. This whole affair is controlled by a Ranco ETC-111000 Cold Temperature Control, set to 1 deg F of Differential. This controller's sensor is placed in the Livingroom on the ceiling and the controller is programmed to 72 deg. F. Its 120V relay turns on the fan (and its speed controller) when the Livingroom ceiling reaches 72 deg. F.
The large blades of the 20" fan move a lot of air slowly (120 rpm) to push warm air thru out the other side of the house. And at 120 rpm, the fan is silent. The loudest sound is the 120V relay clicking to turn the fan on. Large square air intake grills cover both sides of the fan.
In other rooms I have created Clerestory vents above doorways to passively move heat.
Greg