Guy's any info would be great . We are thinking of getting a pellet stove & want to know the pros & cons of them. Do they heat up your whole house or only half do you have to clean it a lot. Any other info would be great.
Need some info on pellet stoves
Shawnm
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For all you guys with the stoves in the basement, how are you venting to get the heat up the levels in your homes? Simple floor registers or is it hooked up to and air handeling system? Does anyone use one to heat a coil for baseboard hot water?
Thanks, I have been debating on a pellet /corn or one of the outside wood stoves for a couple years.
-dan
Thanks, I have been debating on a pellet /corn or one of the outside wood stoves for a couple years.
-dan
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9,173 Posts
I have a wood furnace in my new/old house.. Has a blower built in and is connected to house duct work that my oil hot air furnace is connected to. I think it is way more efficient then wood stove if you have 2 story house. I bought slab wood from a local saw mill wich are all over the place where I live in NY now. It was 250 bucks for a dump truck load. about 4-5 cords. No need to split and they are cut into longer log lengths that fit nicely into the giant fire box the wood furnace has. However it is alot of work and a pain in the ass to get up in the night to reload it.. I am going to keep it for emergency but looking into doing some rework of heat system myself. Alot of people up here use pellets they are 220 a ton if you buy them early. When I got the load of woood this year we stacked it in basement.. Pain in the ass.. But it would be more of a pain in the ass to carry it down daily.. I think if you can have one and afford one the outdoor furnace is the best. Probably half the homes in my area have one.. You can burn any kind of wood so it makes it cheap and the mess is outside. Just dump the wood right next to it. Also they are big so you don't have to fill them so many times each day. Plus if you get a chimney fire who cares let it burn itelf out.
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No mess from bark with a pellet stove also no bugs. I used to have a wood burner switched to pellet about 6 years ago. I used to get the fire wood for free but remember there is no such thing as free wood I had to put alot of work into it. The pellets store nice in the garage or a shed and the wife can even work the pellet stove she never liked the wood burner.
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292 Posts
Is it true if you loose power your sol with the pellet stove. That would make my mind up. Last winter we lost power after a big snow, my house got cold quick!
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637 Posts
I have a cheap Corn Flame corn stove for aabout 6 years. It paid for itself the first year. I have a drafty old house and the corn stove provides about 75 percent of my heat ... surely would be 100 percent if I sealed and insulated more ... Ido a little more each year.
I plan to replace the stove next year with a much better multi-fuel with a 45K btu output. the corn stove is rated at 30K but in reality I don't think much more than 25K.
Corn has gone way up this year as the year went on. Next year don't look much better. Six years ago I was getting corn $3.50/50 ... now $7.50/50. Pellets on the other hand have gone down. Buy NOW for next year or early spring ... Home Depot last week had closeout at $180 ton.
Old stove has been much better then the wood stove it replaced. Too old to deal with the wood anymore. Did that for 25 years.
Only time the furnace runs now is in the morning when the thermostat goes from setback to morning heat up ... corn the rest of the day or if the temp. goes down below 20 it may run just a little.
Note that the pellet/corn stoves do not chang house temp fast ... ie morning heat up ... they are a much more even heat .... tunr mine way down at night as I like it cold.
I clean my stove daily and manually start it but the new Harmon multifuel starts automatically and runs off a thermostat and they claim the ash pan only has to be cleaning weekly ... it automatically augers the burn pot into an ash pan.
Do your research well .... so the unit you pick fits you.
BTW ... my house is set up well and the stove in my living room heats the whole house except the kitchen which we don;t care about ... if we are using it then the stove will warm it up .... a few throough vents cut between floors keeps it all pretty even.
I plan to replace the stove next year with a much better multi-fuel with a 45K btu output. the corn stove is rated at 30K but in reality I don't think much more than 25K.
Corn has gone way up this year as the year went on. Next year don't look much better. Six years ago I was getting corn $3.50/50 ... now $7.50/50. Pellets on the other hand have gone down. Buy NOW for next year or early spring ... Home Depot last week had closeout at $180 ton.
Old stove has been much better then the wood stove it replaced. Too old to deal with the wood anymore. Did that for 25 years.
Only time the furnace runs now is in the morning when the thermostat goes from setback to morning heat up ... corn the rest of the day or if the temp. goes down below 20 it may run just a little.
Note that the pellet/corn stoves do not chang house temp fast ... ie morning heat up ... they are a much more even heat .... tunr mine way down at night as I like it cold.
I clean my stove daily and manually start it but the new Harmon multifuel starts automatically and runs off a thermostat and they claim the ash pan only has to be cleaning weekly ... it automatically augers the burn pot into an ash pan.
Do your research well .... so the unit you pick fits you.
BTW ... my house is set up well and the stove in my living room heats the whole house except the kitchen which we don;t care about ... if we are using it then the stove will warm it up .... a few throough vents cut between floors keeps it all pretty even.
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637 Posts
As for power outage .... my corn stove runs on about 350 watts for feed auger and blower. I have a 400 watt constant 800 watt peak power inverter and the marine battery out of my trailer setting next to the stove. Power went out once and I pluged in adn repowered before the fire was out and no problem ... little smoke ... ran for about 2 hours before power came back on. I have a generator for longer backup or just steal a battery from the car or truck if needed. Make sure to check what size inverter you will need ... also some can be run all teh time so there is no cut over loss ... depends what you want to spend ... I'm cheap.
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Do you have natural gas? Thats what I use. Has a remote thermostat and your good. Also have a wood stove so dont call me any names!
Check PMs
Check PMs
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I have a pellet stove in my detached garage. It is great!!! Was originally going to go with a wood stove, but it would leave me with no control over the temp. I wanted to keep things from freezing. The pellet stove has a thermostat and it does its purpose. On the low setting it keeps it 55-60. Even when it was in the teens outside. Which is perfect for what I needed. Tractor Supply has the pellets for $189 a ton. A 40 lb. bag of pellets last about 24 hrs on the low setting. As far as cleaning you vacume it out every 3 days or so. Any questions drop me a line. If your in the Jackson area you can even swing by and see it in action.
Shaun, I've had a Castile style pellet stove made by Quadrafire. A 3 speed blower and about 35000btu pellet n corn stove for 5yrs now. Burn 24 7, use about 4 tons a season. Heats a 1100sq. Ft. Ranch with ease. Clean it every 4 days. Tried corn 1st year but couldn't deal with the moths that came from the corn. It did burn hot, but the mice were also tearing the bags up in the garage and it was getting messy. I put it in my fireplace as an insert. Love it.
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Thats not a small shop either.
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