Posted: 2/13/2016 3:08:40 AM EDT
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I'm looking at pellet stoves for supplemental heat. I can buy a new stove with 1 ton of pellets for about $1000.00
I'm getting too old, fat, and slow to be cutting firewood... |
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I've been in places that have free standing pellet stoves that threw off a ton of heat. One was in a house that was probably 4k sq ft and it did a pretty good job of heating the much of the house.
I have a fireplace insert pellet stove, that frankly just sucks. It will warm my place up if the outside temp is no lower than 40dg or so, but below that it's not really effective. On the coldest and windiest that you get later in winter also it's completely useless. Cons I can think of: Noisy Dirty, needs fairly routine cleaning (but if you have a wood stove you'd be used to that). There have been shortages of pellets in the past. Honestly, I'd stick with wood. If you can't cut it yourself just by it pre-split. |
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Quoted:
I've been in places that have free standing pellet stoves that threw off a ton of heat. One was in a house that was probably 4k sq ft and it did a pretty good job of heating the much of the house. I have a fireplace insert pellet stove, that frankly just sucks. It will warm my place up if the outside temp is no lower than 40dg or so, but below that it's not really effective. On the coldest and windiest that you get later in winter also it's completely useless. Cons I can think of: Noisy Dirty, needs fairly routine cleaning (but if you have a wood stove you'd be used to that). There have been shortages of pellets in the past. Honestly, I'd stick with wood. If you can't cut it yourself just by it pre-split. If I'm buying firewood, I might as well pay the utility company while setting on the couch... Pellets seem to be cheap and plentiful in July... |
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Gravity feed stove, no power needed link
I bet that think radiates some heat Link edited |
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I use a Breckwell Big E pellet stove as the primary heat source in my house. Back up is a wood stove, third is a propane furnace.
House is just about 3000 sq feet, basement and main level. Pellet stove located in the basement. Burn about 5 tons of pellets a year. Colorado winter, so we start burning pellets in Oct, burn until May. I also replace every blower, every season. I have lived in the house since Apr, 2013 and have replaced every part in the stove multiple times ( except for the control board ). Now I keep spare blowers / motors at the house, so when it shits the bed I can just swap in a new one. A ton of premium pellets runs about 240 or so. I intend to dump the Breckwell (aka Break-well) and replace with a Napoleon or Harman stove at some point. It does require a fair amount of maintenance, scoop out every couple of days, with a thorough cleaning every 7-10 days for best performance. DO NOT BUY A CHEAP STOVE. That's penny wise and pound foolish. The cheap stove will take a crap when its 10 below outside. Mine has, multiple times. |
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i heat with a woodstove at my house.
dealt with two pellet stoves at the last place i worked. pellet stoves aren't for me. the first year we had them they ran great. after that they were a pain. i thought they required way to much maintenance for what you are getting out of them. just buy an extra blower and a couple of igniters with your stove. one winter they kept shutting down every couple of days. dealer came out and to diagnose. he told us the pellets we got were to long and were jamming up the auger. 
an once you give up on replacing igniters. set it to manual. soak some pellets in mineral spirits. throw them in the burn pot and light with a propane torch. that is what we ended up doing. yeah i didn't have a good experience with them. i'm starting my journey down the old and fat road myself. i plan on biting the bullet and going with a propane back up some day. |
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Sitting next to a US Stove 6039 right now. Been in service since 2006 burning both corn and wood pellets. My biggest complaint is being loud. I have an apc 5000 from a computer datacenter next to it that has run it for 4 hours and used about 40% of the battery (longest I've been without power). Now I have a whole house genny. On average I burn 3 tons of pellets and a ton of corn so my Wisconsin winter heating cost is less than $1k seasonally. I grew up with coal then wood and prefer the constant heat. This stove doesn't self ignite but I heat the entire house so it pretty much never shuts off except for cleaning from November to March. I vacuum it out a couple times a week and clean the glass with the fire burning and shut it down once a month for a thorough cleaning. Sweep the chimney and remove the fireboard to clean the exhaust passage from the firebox. I don't mind the maint part. Thorough cleaning takes 20 minutes.
Quality of pellets is huge I'm using Somerset premium right now and have been for 4 years. I used to shop around for the cheapest I could find and that was a mistake. Corn I get for free and only burn it in the coldest weather it's hard on the exhaust pipe but the " at duct" temperature output is 24 degrees warmer than pellets. I had a metal worker friend build a hopper extension so I can put 80 pounds of fuel in. Over the course of service I have replaced a "firebrick" firepot agitator and agitator motor and the blower fan. Newest version Warm ash vac |
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Got an Englander 25-PDV. Was in the house when I bought the place. It is in the basement (finished), which is not the optimum place to heat the entire house, but I run it on a lower setting and use a fan to blow the heat up the stairs. Burn about 5 bags every seven days. Propane guy said I use a lot less propane than the rest of the people around me. Burn about 2 tons a year, if I run it continuously throughout the winter.
They do require frequent cleaning in the burn pot area and once a month I clean the area behind the plates inside the stove, think it is an exhaust type heat exchange area. Annually I clean out the stack, lots of ash in there every year. In five years I had to replace a motor. There is two of these same motors, the fan drive and the auger drive (I think). Anyway, one went bad, so I bought two new ones. The old one that was still good is now an emergency spare. |
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IMO FPNI
I have a Harmon insert and once it gets below about 25 outside, it becomes ambience. It's nice to have to take a little chill out, but no way it's heating the house. Free standing is definitely the way to go. Much better heat output and some form of radiant heat you don't get with the insert. With oil as cheap as its been, the pellet stove has been off all winter. Was spending about $6 a day with pellets for mediocre heat. Now, $6 gives me much more heat using oil. It also provides more "even" heat throughout the house. There's always a few cold spots when running the pellets. |
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We have a Harmon , it's been a great stove and puts out a shit load of heat. My advice is, bu a quality stove and get it cleaned every year by the retailer. I also clean mine out myself every month or so, empty the ash bucket as needed, and buy quality pellets. I keep a spread sheet on how much pellets I buy, the cost, the brand, and weather I would purchase that brand again or not. This is my third winter with the pellet stove and we love it! |
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Heat the whole house (+/- 1300 sq ft) with a Harmon Accentra. As others have said get a quality stove and quality pellets, we usually go thru about 4 tons per winter, a little less this year because it has been so warm. We have a local company that makes some of the best softwood pellets we have ever used, burn really hot and are unbelievably clean. I usually only have to empty the ash bucket 3 times per winter, burn some cheap HD type pellets.......once per week at least.
Had to replace the igniter about 3 years ago, only real maintenance other than a mid winter clean out and final year end cleaning, this is our 6th year on the stove. They are loud but you get used to it and your power bill will go up a little, and just make sure you have a dry area to store your pellets. The girls fight to sit on top of it when they get back from skiing, the looser usually sulks off to the hot tub, the dog lives in front of the thing all winter. |
| I've been using an old Jamestown to heat my 800 sq.ft garage for years. I don't run it too often during the day unless I need to, but I do run it nearly every night from December through March and use a half ton to 1500 lbs. of pellets a year. I clean the thing thoroughly every other week and clean the ash out every couple days. I have a few spare parts on hand just in case due to it's age but have not had a mechanical failure yet. At the lowest feed rate it keeps the garage right around 70° even when it reaches the single digits, at the highest feed rate I need to keep one of the doors open to work out there so I rarely turn it above it's lowest setting. IMO it's the perfect way to heat a garage and would make a great supplemental heat source for a house. |
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I looked at one of those when the local woodstove dealer had an open house a few weeks ago. Interesting idea, especially the portability. The sales guy said he sells lots of them to guys who use them as shop heaters and also take them to their deer camp. I imagine one would certainly keep a two car garage or a cabin of similar size comfortable to the same level as a torpedo heater. |
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Quoted:
If I'm buying firewood, I might as well pay the utility company while setting on the couch... Pellets seem to be cheap and plentiful in July... Quoted:
Quoted:
Honestly, I'd stick with wood. If you can't cut it yourself just by it pre-split. If I'm buying firewood, I might as well pay the utility company while setting on the couch... Pellets seem to be cheap and plentiful in July... Bringing in firewood, reloading every few hours, removing ash gets old. Pellets seem like a good way to go but I have never used one. |