Am I the First One Done?

41 for the low tonight, 57/39 tomorrow. By next weekend it is supposed to warm up.

I wouldn't have believed it a month ago, but my stove is still idling along at about 18-20 pounds per day. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, because when we heated with oil there were always a few nights into June that we needed to use the furnace. Most nights still are in the low 40's, days have been cloudy and often don't go above 65. A couple nights ago, by 9 pm, it was only 44 degrees with a stiff wind blowing, and it was nice being cozy without hearing the oil dollars whooshing up the chimney.

I have inlaws over from Florida, with nights in the 30's and days in the low 50's the heats been cranking. Thin blood I guess.

I finally said enough is enough! Turned the stove off this morning and cleaned the stove and the prefab chimney this afternoon. This was my first year of burning coal and it has worked out well with some good advice from this forum. Now it is my turn to offer a little advice. If you are using a prefab chimney I would suggest painting it when you put it up. My chimney is 304 stainless on the inside and it still looks great. The outer shell of my chimney and the cap is made of 430 stainless and the cap and about 8 inches down the chimney has taken on a brown color. I cleaned up the corrosion and washed it with baking soda water and gave it a paint job. Now it looks as good as new except it is now black. I am using a Selkirk supervent chimney that I bought unused at a garage sale for 250 bucks.

I shut down the stoker this morning because I am running out of coal. Once I make the run to Superior I'll be up and running again, I need to keep the oil-fired water heater from running as much as possible.