We finally had to fire up the wood pellet stove. Once the temperatures hit below 40 degrees on a consistent basis we have to start up the wood pellet stove. We usually get by until around the first of November.

Like our neighbors, family and many others here in Upstate New York we get ready for the cold months ahead. Winter prep includes getting your heat source taken care of. For us we went to Wood Pellet heating about 3 years ago. We are so glad we did.

As I wrote in an earlier post we have a Harman Wood Pellet stove P38. This was the smallest and best made at that time. We have a rather small house so we didn’t need anything large or more heat producing.

As it is, we have to open a window a little to take off some of the heat until the temperatures get to below 0. But having the fresh air is kinda nice. The only thing we have to worry about it that because we keep the stove on the lowest setting we have to turn it up and run it on full blast to clean it out a little.

We still are only spending about $50 a month on our heat. How great is that? I mean the pellets are made out of wood waste for the most part, shavings, wood scraps and saw dust from lumber companies.

Once the house hits 60 degrees inside and the weather is forecast to stay in 40s or lower I fire up the stove. Other wise I just wear warmer clothes. But, it was definitely time. I went to load the fire box with pellets and fire starter gel to start it up and low and behold… we are out of gel. We usually by a large bottle of it to last the whole season and it is rather pricey if you ask me (more than $10 a bottle). One thing here once you start the stove you don’t usually have to restart too many times after that until it warms up in the spring.

Well, one thing we have plenty of around here is oil lamps and lamp oil. I always thought that if worse comes to worse and we ran out of the gel and needed something fast I could use that. My husband said to use the “hand sanitizer” we have in every room of the house. Just squirt some of that on the pellets you load into the firebox. I really didn’t believe this was going to work. I thought that it would cause a flair up that would only last a few seconds. So, I squirted some in the firebox before I loaded it with pellets and lit it. I was amazed at how long it took it to burn. This actually does a better job than the gel we were using.

So, if you have access to a cheap hand sanitizer that has alcohol in it then you can start the stove up. I asked my husband how he knew that would work and he told me that he used it once at camp to start the campfire when all the start up was a little damp.

Right now we have Dollar Stores that we can still get a good size bottle of the hand sanitizer so we have been stocking up. I know with the flu scare this is probably not going to last and the price will go up or in the case of the Dollar Store they are going to a smaller bottle to sell. But, for now it is cheaper and it can be used in a pinch for great fire starter.

So, here’s hoping we all stay warm and have a mild winter. If you have a tip to share please leave it in the comments. We all have things to share!

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