off peak electric

I also have "off peak" heat and experience the same "shut off" hours. If I understood it correctly, the rate for "off peak" heat is not as attractive now as if was years ago. My suggestion to you is call your utility company and ask questions about the rates and if the savings on "off peak" justifies if it is actually worth it anymore. I'm guessing that it is not. Please comment back on your findings.

From what little I have learned so far, off peak even tho it isn't like it was years ago is still the cheapest way to go,now anton1965 I believe there is an option that a person can have and that is off peak cannot be off for more than 4 hrs. and not more then 8 in 24 hr period. This might be somewhat helpful for the elderly. Also I was told that the electric is not sold.Heating with wood is the best but now the wood is getting high per cord. I think the cheapest and easiest back up would be propane. With Cenex you can buy ahead at the summer rate and if it is lower when it comes to fill time they will give you the lowest rate. Great company to work with.

Glad to hear the power can only be off for the 4 hours. Dad really likes the convenience and from what he says the price is reasonable also. I think its to late for propane for the folks house and am trying to talk them into a pellet stove to keep the work and the smoke down for them. Checked their stove pipe from the wood furnace and the pipe is so clogged with creosote the damper won't turn but dad says he will look at it another day. Not easy to tell him what to do but it is a worry. I am now on natural gas in town but am installing a combo corn/pellet stove and plan on burning a mixture of pellets and wood chips. The wood chips I am planning on making myself from waste but have not tried it out yet. If anybody has tried burning wood chips in a pellet stove I would be interested in how successful this was.

I'll let the folks know about the 4hr deal. Have a question on the brick thing. Do you mean having a brick package installed in the corn/pellet stove worked noticably better? If thats the case then I'll buy the extra brick option for the stove also. I suspect these stoves don't actually produce as much heat as we might need up in this country but they are much cleaner and handier then wood stoves I think. The cost of pellets has increased so much in the last three years I figured a mixture of chips that I made myself, at no cost, might be an answer to the heating cost. I think the answer will be in the humidity level of the chips but we will see. If I can figure out how to make burning the chips work, that certainly would be the answer to heating costs up here as a small chipper machine costs about the same or less then a snow blower and the branches and tops of loggers trees would be essentially free.

Now what I found out is rather sketchy so one would hsve to research this themselves as an option. The brick is a storage unit that has a fan that kicks on when the electric goes off. These are very heavy and would have to be in a basement or if you heat with the floor heat it could be aet up there. They have central ones and individual room ones.They generate heat until your electic comes back on. Now I don't know how you buy them to put with your existing heat but could very easily found out. I don't know if you can shut off your existing heat and then turn the brick one on to heat with then turn heat back on to heat brick and house. If anyone knows would be great if you could share the info. Also Anton1965 if you had a kiln would that dry the wood out enough to use efficiently for heat?

Comparing costs, off peak electric heat is by far the cheapest type of heat you can have. Off peak is 3.9 cents a kw hour and 100 % efficient, this is through North Star Co-Op.
Yes, you have to have a back up, but it still is the cheapest if it available.

This is so very true. Even with it being off as much as it has been. Found out the no.'s today.

After reading the previous comments, it would seem to me whether the electricity was 3.9/kw or free, if it is still turned off, it is useless especially when it is needed. As far as the comments from roj2000, if he was in I Falls with all his hot air, there wouldn't be a need for heat!!!

I am not sure this is what happened to you but when this business got their free money from the famed KEDA, part of the agreement is the hiring of a number of employees. If they hire and keep them for a period of time and then let them go and rehire it keeps the quota where it is required by the KEDA. This is what happened at the previous call center that went under. I know of a number of people who were hired and let go after a trial period just to be replaced. This keeps the number that were employeed where it is supposed to be. Its hard to explain. This brings up another KEDA business, the new Fish Processing center that keeps asking for 30 employees and as of two weeks ago did not even have a building up and running. I know of several people who applied in November expecting a job before Christmas and I just saw on the work force site that they as of Nov 26 were still looking for 30 people. What gives. Is it hiring or not. I feel for the people who were expecting a job before Christmas. Is is operating or just playing a game. Maybe someone knows what is going on. You just have to go on with your life and figure everything happens for a reason. Good luck.