Our Project This Afternoon: Envi Blocks

Since Pete is off today, we figured we'd get some house projects done.  One of them is to move our third ton (yes, a ton) of Envi Blocks from the bulkhead area of our basement to the area where the other two tons are stacked.  We've got to move them for a couple of reasons: 1. They're in the way and 2. They're not on a pallet or anything so if water comes in through the bulkhead it will be bad news.  What is an Envi Block?  Why do we have them?  Well, Pete and I burn wood (about 6 - 7 cords) to heat our house in the winter.  My parents have 55 acres and the wood is free.  Burning wood is also carbon neutral (the amount of carbon dioxide a tree takes in during it's lifetime is released when burned).  We're not cleaning the air but we're certainly not adding pollutants to it either.  Anyway, we love burning wood but now that Pete is working 5 days a week instead of his 3 days, we're going to be gone from the house more.  I am gone for 9 hours a day during the school year and, without one of us home to feed the stove, it would be pretty chilly in here at 4:00 when I got in.  We have our furnace set to come on at 60 and we absolutely hate to hear it come on. The Envi Blocks are going to help us with that. They are made from compressed sawdust and wood pieces that are left over from sawmills. When 3 blocks are burned at the same time, they last for about 9 hours.  After we tested a few of them out this past spring, we decided to purchase a pallet (a ton) of them.  Each pallet holds 300 Envi Blocks.  We have since purchased two more pallets. Although we are paying for the Blocks ($260 per pallet) we are still saving money as our furnace hopefully won't have to fire up. Home heating oil is $4 something and we have a 250 gallon tank. Our first winter in the house we had to fill that baby up 4 times! So, once Pete gets up from his little cat nap, it's down to the basement with some gloves and our dolly!