Being the owners of Falls Florist & Greenhouse, Jerry and Lisa Laatch are all about green. But when the couple saw so much green leaving compared with what they were growing, they decided to look into ways to reduce heating costs.
The Black River Falls business was on a payment plan to deal with a natural gas bill that had reached $18,000 a year.
“Our heating bills were astronomical,” Jerry said. “As the billpayers, Lisa and I took a good, hard look at how we could cut those costs. We looked at how we could deal with the high costs.”
After looking into alternative forms of energy, the Laatches decided to install a pellet- and corn-burning heating unit in November. It worked so well that they
didn’t even get a gas bill one month.
“We had actually built up a credit,” Lisa said.
Jerry and Lisa have owned Falls Florist for 17 years. The Main Street business was established in 1929 and, amid name changes, has only seen four different owners; the Laatches bought the business from Lisa’s parents.
Falls Florist is actually four businesses in one: a retailer, a greenhouse, a gift shop and a delivery service. As such, the business stays open year-round — and with Wisconsin winters, that means there’s a need to keep the plants warm.
The business has 12,000 square feet of greenhouse space. Although Jerry said he is able to shut down four of the five greenhouses during the colder months, they still have to keep the main greenhouse open. And greenhouses, which need to be 55 to 60 degrees to keep the plants alive, don’t retain heat well during the winter.
“Greenhouses have the worst insulation,” Jerry said. “They need light, so you can’t block that out, and we lose a lot of heat (during the winter). It’s a no-win situation.”
Higher natural gas prices in recent years haven’t helped, and the Laatches have seen their hearting bills double in four years. Falls Florist has two wood stoves to help heat the business, but even after burning 50 to 60 chords a year, the Laatches still had to budget about $1,400 a month to pay for a year’s worth of heating.
They needed to find alternative sources of energy.
“Who knew where it was going to go?” Jerry said. “How were we going to handle our business in 10 years or more?”
The couple began investigating and talked to other greenhouses. Older pipes and space limitations were a factor for Falls Florist when considering some heating units, like a boiler, but a non-commercial pellet stove — which can burn sawdust pellets and corn — seemed to be the best fit.
The $4,000 unit, which has a 210-pound pellet capacity, was installed in November, and the Laatches began to see savings right away. From installation through April, which typically is the highest heating month with March because all five greenhouses are open, Jerry said they saved about $1,500 on natural gas costs. Because of the quick savings and because they had continued to pay on their most recent payment schedule, Falls Florist actually didn’t receive a gas bill in January.
Jerry said the business reduced its therms by 1,000, and that’s even considering the fact that temperatures this past winter were 2 degrees colder than the average.
“Now that’s telling me something,” he said.
Jerry said it will take a year to fully know the true cost-savings, but he noted it has the potential to be much higher. When buying the 9 tons of pellets and corn this last heating season, he had done so when demand was high and paid $4.70 to $5 a bag; if pre-booked before winter, bags might cost about $3 each.
Of the 9 tons burned this past heating season, seven were pellets and two were corn. Jerry said he will likely stick with the pellets as they were cleaner burning and more efficient.
“You’re burning sawdust; you can’t get much more economical than that,” he said.
The Laatches said they might add more pellet units in the future, especially because they might need to replace one of their wood furnaces.
Lisa said that’s only a plus when it comes to being conscious of the earth’s resources.
“I think if we can avoid using fossil fuels and become less dependent on fossil fuels, that only benefits us all,” she said.
Jerry agreed.
“We’re in the green industry, and we’re all about being conservative,” he said. “If we’re not buying the gas, it’s there for someone else further down the road.
“I can see the ecological benefit in the sense that if we’re not using as much gas, it’s just going to be able to heat someone else’s house.”
source....
No comments:
Post a Comment