Pellet Stoves?

Any fellow pellet stove owners out there? Just installed a Harmon pellet stove this weekend. Got sick of the crazy oil prices so we're now officially off the "grid". Seems to be heating the entire house so far...we'll see if I can finally say bye-bye to my oil guy.

Any feedback on pellets? I picked up a pallet of New England brand, which is supposed to burn very clean.

Regards,
Flavio

Don't those stoves depend on electric power? I don't see how to use one off-grid, and I'd worry about being left without heat in a power outage.

In general, wood does not burn very clean, and wood stoves are rarely equipped with any devices to clean up the chimney emissions. So overall I don't consider wood stoves all that environmentally friendly. But not that many folks are using them, so the overall effect is pretty small.

I'd be interested to know the cost per BTU of wood pellets compared with natural gas.

Here is a simple fuel cost comparison tool (BTU's)...

Fuel Cost Comparisons (wood, oil, natural gas, electricity, coal, etc.)

The newer wood stoves are supposed to be cleaner burning--and stoves with catalytic converters have been available for awhile...

EPA and Wood Stoves:

Probably still not as clean as natural gas, propane, or centrally produced electricity...

-Bill

I just installed a rather large Harman pellet stove in my house a month ago. It heats my house very well. And I spend only about $10 a week on pellets.

As for pellets, here they run about $3-4 for a 40 lb. bag. Also, there are many brands of pellets that are burn clean. On most bags there is a quality rating that looks like this:

The cleaner burning pellets have %0.25 or less ash.

My Mom's house has a Pellet Stove.

They've had it for 8 years or so and really enjoy it.

And no question that is easily keep the place warm.

BB said:

Here is a simple fuel cost comparison tool (BTU's)...

Fuel Cost Comparisons (wood, oil, natural gas, electricity, coal, etc.)

The newer wood stoves are supposed to be cleaner burning--and stoves with catalytic converters have been available for awhile...

EPA and Wood Stoves:

Probably still not as clean as natural gas, propane, or centrally produced electricity...

-Bill

Click to expand...

Just remember that a large portion of the US electicity grid is powered by coal fired plants.

This coming from a student who heats with an old fireplace insert

Living in the cold northeast I've been to several houses with pellets stoves. Although maybe not as intense as a wood stove really cranking, the heat seems much more even and consistant, is that a fair statement about them?

The only thing is and maybe just isolated bad luck, is that both my sister's and aunt's pellet stoves have broke down and my sister can't get anybody to come and fix hers.

switched to a custom wood burning fireplace insert last year. pilot has been off to main gas heater since then.

lots of cleaning burning wood stoves out there with catalytic converters and recently with secondary burn built-in.

an easy test to see if a wood stove/insert burns clean is to look at the chimney when going full tilt. you should see little to no smoke.

yes my wood insert uses electricity to run the forced air blower. but amount of power consumed is a fraction of what a central gas unit would use.

You can save on pellet consumption if you run a humidifier at the same time. It makes it feel warmer and cozier at any given temperature in your home. It's probably healthier, since your nasal passages and lungs are kept moister.

On the downside, you may see more condensation on the inside of your windows and mildew may develop on the window frames. I wouldn't suggest a cool mist unit, since it causes mineral dust to deposit on your furniture and inside surfaces. YMMV.

PhotonBoy said:

You can save on pellet consumption if you run a humidifier at the same time. It makes it feel warmer and cozier at any given temperature in your home. It's probably healthier, since your nasal passages and lungs are kept moister.

On the downside, you may see more condensation on the inside of your windows and mildew may develop on the window frames. I wouldn't suggest a cool mist unit, since it causes mineral dust to deposit on your furniture and inside surfaces. YMMV.

Click to expand...

You also have to weigh this with any allergies. If you suffer from "hay fever" that never quite goes away, a lot of people have dust/mold allergies. Humidity is bad for people like us

I've been using my pellet stove quite a bit; this will be my third winter with it. I bought 6 tons of New England pellets. I have been quite pleased with them.

Yes, the heat is even and constant. With my Avalon stove, I empty the ash pan once/ton, or even less.

My stove is in a very difficult to heat room, an add-on. A real big add-on with two oil heat vents in the ceiling, and that's it. The room's dimensions are 28x22 with a 24ft ceiling and loft. Lotsa glass, two sets of glass french doors, etc. The stove keeps it toasty (something my oil furnace cannot accomplish) and saves lotsa $$$. I run it 24/7, stopping it once per day to clean it with a small paint brush. It takes under 5 mins to do.

I have a pellet stove to deal with during the winter and I hate the damned thing. My house is constantly full of dust, it's impossible to keep it clean. I have to carry a bag of pellets in every day during the winter, and infact sometimes two if it gets terribly cold. Cleaning the thing is a pain in the *** too.

I would much rather have a natural gas heater, even though it costs more to feed, but my condo isnt plumbed for it.

True...A pellet stove is not completely off the grid since it does require electricity to operate it. In an emergency situation you can either use a back-up generator or backup battery system. As mentinoed you only get about a small shoebox worth of ash per ton of pellets burned as long as you burn quality pellets.

The room it's currently in has 16ft ceilings and most of the hot air goes up so I may need to install a ceiling fan to push it back down.

I went with Harmon because of all the positive reviews they received.


Regards,
Flavio

I have a battery backup for mine with an uninteruptible device that provides power for over 8 hrs.

Don't compare the pellet stove to a gas boiler; compare it to a wood burning stove or fireplace. It's far more efficient, tons cleaner both in fuel and in smoke/creosote. Lots easier to start and stop, too.

Everybody around here is really pushing the corn stove. I guess being in the Midwest and everywhere you look is a corn field, that makes sense. Anyone have any experience with those?

We have a spot in our basement that ties into a chimney. We already have a fireplace upstairs. We are trying to decide between a fireplace when we finish our basement, or a corn stove.

We have a lumber mill in town that we can get ends of trees they don't use very cheap, all we have to do is split it. I suppose because of that cost, the fireplace makes more sense.

Regardless which we go with, I hope to put in a cold air return right above it so we can force the air through the rest of the house.

I would suggest that you are sure that the lumber mill will be around for a decade or two... The way mills are closing around the US, I would not count on it unless the mill is well fed by private timber lands.

And even around our place (near SF, CA), we have so many Wild-Lands, state bonds, and conservation organizations, that the private lands/forests/farms are being bought up and placed in government hands and/or non-profit groups--ends up killing us three times--costs of the bonds, of managing new park lands (with little revenue) and loss of taxes as the lands are taken off of the property tax roles.

-Bill

We have a Jotul Oslo wood burner. I went that route over corn or pellets for cost of consumables and availability of consumables. Our stove was expensive, but burns clean and is EPA approved, it does that second burn of gas thing, very cool to see in action and is supposed to be in the high 70's to low 80's for efficiency. Anyway it is cheaper to buy wood around here then corn or pellets, not they corn or pellets are expensive, but not as cheap as wood for us anyway. Also we have quite a few trees on our property and our land adjoins a wooded hilly farming property and the farmer said we can take any trees that have fallen by themselves or pay him $20 if we cut standing ones ourselves before they fall.

Another reason we went with a regular stove was the electricity thing. Even though I have 3 gensets and 24kw of batteries and 5 kw of inverters and solar panels I like the idea I can start a fire and let it burn. My wife feels comfortable enough to throw logs in if I get them down next to the burner for her.

I did add an additional 8 inch air return with a boost fan above the burner to the main furnace where there used to be only one 6 inch return in that room. It has helped a lot move the heat to the rest of the house. I can heat our house, about 4500 sq feet with just wood to about 5-10F with a light wind. I don't start burning continuously until it gets below 30 or it gets to warm in the house, until then we just use the good old 95% efficient natural gas furnace.