Anyone here heat with a pellet stove?

[Minerva]

What kind of stove are you running?
How many tons of pellets do you burn a season?
What brand of pellets do you prefer?
Hardwood/softwood/mixed/corn/etc.
Do you prefer it to cord wood heating despite it needing more cleanings, etc?

 

[janas19]

Go bio!

 

[sjwaste]

Very common in Maine. I don't use one yet, but I've done a lot of research.

A buddy of mine has a 1400 sq ft home, and he burns about 4 tons of pellets every year. Has oil as backup, but doesn't use it.

For pellets, you may need to try some different brands. Start with what the stove vendor recommends for it. If you're using a local company, they will have a good idea of what works with what stove. Depending on where you live, locally made pellets could be available and cheaper.

Hardwood is the most common I think. If you want to burn corn, coal or other stuff, you need a stove that specifically is dual fuel. A wood pellet stove otherwise doesn't do well with other stuff.

Keep in mind that if you go wood/corn, corn attracts other animals. Wood generally doesn't but must be kept dry (in the basement is what most people I know do). I recently met someone who uses a pea coal stove, and that works really well - they don't have to keep the fuel dry and nothing eats it. Also more energy density.

Most prefer it to cord wood because pellets are easier to handle and it's more efficient. You have to vac it out, but a good stove can go between a week and a month between ash vac'ing. The difference is, pellets are gradual heat. The stove itself isn't even always hot to the touch (touted as safer around small children for that reason). You can't cook on top of it like you might a cord wood stove/insert. You have to keep it going to heat with it, so for that reason, get the best stove you can afford for the size home you want to heat. Look at reviews - find something where the hopper feeds easily, maybe one with an auger. And lots of ash capacity with good reviews on the ash dumping out.

Most importantly, there are some european models coming over now. For the most part, pellet stoves in the US and Canada have just been the wood stove companies using the same basic design. The euros love this shit, so they've come up with some cool stuff. This company in Maine is offering a true end to end solution, but only in the local delivery area obviously:

http://www.maineenergysystems.com/Pellet-Boilers.htm

Check out their equipment, though. It's state of the art for pellets.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Only fallback I see is you become dependent on pellets and what their price is.

I use a wood fireplace to heat my home. It's pretty easy to look on Craigslist and find someone wanting to get rid of some trees. Just need a chainsaw and a truck and you're good to go. Best of all the wood has been 100% free. Electric bills have been pretty much nonexistent.

Say the price of pellets skyrockets? Then what? Also you're very much dependent on someone delivering tons of this stuff to you.
I guess maybe I have a weird mindset. Im self sufficient. If wood is needed its nothing to get in the truck and attach a trailer and go. I don't depend on someone bringing stuff to my door I do it myself for a 1/10 of the cost of what it'd cost if it was delivered.

 

[Modelworks]

Use wood not pellets unless you can get them really cheap. If you get a properly designed stove ,and you use wood that has had time to dry, you don't have to worry about cleaning much at all. Wood stoves burn very hot and newer models burn off the smoke byproducts before they go up the flu.

 

[Jeff7]

My parents had an Englander stove initially - 55-SPH10, pre-2004 model. It only had capacity for 40lbs of pellets, no electric starter, the motors were prone to failure, it needed to be cleaned out once or twice a day (no ash tray), and they didn't adequately allow for thermal cycling during design, as parts of the stove eventually started to buckle due to excessive stress caused by restrained thermal expansion.

They've now got a Kozi stove, from their KSH-120 line. It's got much better build quality, dual-auger design, electric start, >80lb pellet capacity, a dedicated ash tray, a more efficient heat exchanger, better gasketing, and it's quieter.


- Obviously the temperature has a big effect on pellet use. I think one season it was less than 2 tons, then another we were past 4.

- The first few batches of wood pellets, I believe they came from some well-named company, I think it was something like "Wood Pellet Co."
The local place we'd get pellets from stopped carrying them then, and switched to Lignetics. Now I think they've got yet another brand.

- Look for premium pellets with low ash content and a high BTU/lb rating, ideally with the Pellet Fuels Institute seal on them. (Well, maybe it'd be better to calculate the BTU/$.) Depending on the species, hardwood or softwood can produce more heat per pound.
The PFI sets standards for pellet fuels. For example, to qualify as "premium" the pellets must be within limits on levels of ash content, moisture content, density, and a few other things.

Only fallback I see is you become dependent on pellets and what their price is.

I use a wood fireplace to heat my home. It's pretty easy to look on Craigslist and find someone wanting to get rid of some trees. Just need a chainsaw and a truck and you're good to go. Best of all the wood has been 100% free. Electric bills have been pretty much nonexistent.

Say the price of pellets skyrockets? Then what? Also you're very much dependent on someone delivering tons of this stuff to you.
I guess maybe I have a weird mindset. Im self sufficient. If wood is needed its nothing to get in the truck and attach a trailer and go. I don't depend on someone bringing stuff to my door I do it myself for a 1/10 of the cost of what it'd cost if it was delivered.

It's a valid concern. The pellet industry looks to sawmills to capture their waste sawdust. If additional sources are needed, or if the power generation industry wants to use pellets, that could be a big change, and could lead to higher prices, at least until the industry adapts.


Cord wood heating - unfortunately I can't weigh in on that very much. The chimney and flue at my parents' house was very poorly built, to the point that it produced a very strong downdraft, strong enough to blow out a match. Once a fire was going, it would create a weak but proper updraft. However, opening the stove to refuel would let smoke billow out into the house, so it didn't get used much at all. Fixing it would have been too expensive, mostly because of the legal problems associated with tracking down the original builders and repeatedly hitting them with large heavy objects. The pellet stove took care of the draft problem because of the its forced-air circulation system.

 

[Gothgar]

I installed one for a customer as part of a job a few months back. That is all I know about them.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I believe Dr. Pizza does in his garage that he's converting into a living space for his son.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Most importantly, there are some european models coming over now. For the most part, pellet stoves in the US and Canada have just been the wood stove companies using the same basic design. The euros love this shit, so they've come up with some cool stuff. This company in Maine is offering a true end to end solution, but only in the local delivery area obviously:

http://www.maineenergysystems.com/Pellet-Boilers.htm

Check out their equipment, though. It's state of the art for pellets.

I haven't done much homework on it but I remember reading that those wood burning boilers are very inefficient compared with traditional gas or oil boilers.

 

[DrPizza]

Only fallback I see is you become dependent on pellets and what their price is.

I use a wood fireplace to heat my home. It's pretty easy to look on Craigslist and find someone wanting to get rid of some trees. Just need a chainsaw and a truck and you're good to go. Best of all the wood has been 100% free. Electric bills have been pretty much nonexistent.

Say the price of pellets skyrockets? Then what? Also you're very much dependent on someone delivering tons of this stuff to you.
I guess maybe I have a weird mindset. Im self sufficient. If wood is needed its nothing to get in the truck and attach a trailer and go. I don't depend on someone bringing stuff to my door I do it myself for a 1/10 of the cost of what it'd cost if it was delivered.

That's somewhat ridiculous. If you're capable of hauling your own firewood, then you'd obviously be capable of hauling your own wood pellets. Otherwise, your logic is sound, but I'll improve upon your logic. You cut your own wood and get your own wood for free. Fine. That's wonderful. What happens if you get injured - hurt your back? Now, YOU'RE reliant on someone to bring you cord wood. Tell you what you could do: while it's free, continue to cut the cord wood, season it, and SELL it. Use the proceeds of the sale of the cord wood to pay for coal (or pellets) and take your wife out to dinner with the excess.

We heat with both - rice coal in the house, and wood pellets in the garage. Everyone has recommended that you use hardwood pellets in it. As far as maintenance, I kind of have mixed feelings. If you neglect taking the ashes out in the coal stove, then you inevitably create quite a bit of dust once the bin is overflowing and you attempt to take the ashes out. In the coldest weather, this means, every day. Not really a huge issue though. The pellet stove, on the other hand, requires less effort on a daily basis. But, about once every 2 weeks, I have to shut mine off temporarily while I vacuum out any ash that builds up. Overall, the pellet stove produces FAR less ash to deal with. Coal stove: it starts adding up. Then again, it's useful. We've been spreading the ash on our driveway - it packs down really solid. This winter, I'm widening the driveway, thanks to the ash pan. You can also use the ash in the garden. Thus, the daily maintenance of a coal stove is about the same as a cord wood stove.

One downside - if the power goes out, both the pellet stove & the coal stove are going to go out. They need power to operate. A wood stove, on the other hand, can operate without power. (I have a generator in case power goes out.) Of course, the wood stove won't have a blower to help distribute the heat without power, but you can get those suckers reallllly cranked up high until the stove pipe is glowing. Ahhhhh, those 100 degrees in the house, open up the windows days.

The price of coal doesn't fluctuate a whole lot during the year. It's quite a bit cheaper to buy it in bulk, rather than bagged. But, I like the convenience of getting it already bagged. I could probably bag it myself; just have never been that ambitious (plus I'd have to pay for delivery.) The price of the wood pellets does vary more. Purchase them in the summer; they're cheaper. Storage can be a problem with the pellets though - you absolutely can't let them get wet.

Hmmm... other things.... I've seen a coal stove at the dealer that was so efficient that they could vent it with PVC. Not sure about the pellets. With cord wood, you've got to clean the chimney. Pretty much no issues with the chimney with coal or pellets. Although, with each, you still have to clean the venting at the end of the season & mid winter. The fly ash can build up in both a little bit. Another difference - lighting them. Wood stoves and pellet stoves are incredibly easy to light. Coal - it's taken me 5 years to get really good at it. Finally, I can toss a flame in there and walk away, knowing that I'm not going to have to play with it for 15 minutes to keep it lit. It's like a miracle that humans ever figured out that anthracite is flammable - the ignition temperature is quite high. I've even been unsuccessful attempting to light it with a propane torch.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably do it the same way. Though, I'm considering a wood stove to put down in the basement. I too have access to all the free hardwood I'd want. I figure I can get a cheap wood stove & just occasionally light it throughout the winter to help take the chill out of the basement (and hence, have warmer floors - no insulation between the basement & house, and basement drops down pretty close to freezing.

 

[DCal430]

Do you people not have natural gas piped into the house where you live?

 

[DrPizza]

No.

But, when I did, growing up, we still used a wood stove. Incredibly cheap to heat with in the cold climates. In the house I grew up in, presently it would run you about $600 a month to keep that house at a balmy 60 degrees. When we heated with wood, we'd have to keep windows open on occasion because it was too hot in the house. We cut our own wood, so it was free.

 

[caddlad]

I have a 6 ton bin next to my coal boiler. I was thinking of getting a wood boiler, but I'm not getting any younger and it's a year round commitment. Daily coal routine takes less than 10 minutes. Swap ash pans, empty the full one in the drive and add one or two spackle buckets of rice coal to the hopper. Done.

A friend burns around 6 tons of pellets a year, about the same amount of coal I use, but mine provides hot water as well. His unit is kind of temperamental, my boiler is bullet proof. I have a generator for power outages, but my fire has come back after more than a two hour outage. The fan kicked back on and the fire roared back to life.

Natural gas is for city dwellers as are municipal water, sewer and storm water drainage. Out in the sticks, you're on your own, just how we like it.

 

[NetWareHead]

I recently met someone who uses a pea coal stove, and that works really well - they don't have to keep the fuel dry and nothing eats it. Also more energy density.

Coal > wood pellets. Check to see if you can get a coal delivery to your area. Coal can sit around for years without bugs or rot. It can be burned wet whereas wood pellets disintegrate in moist/wet conditions. Coal provides more heat, burns for longer (requires less loading) and doesn't leave creosote deposits in a chimney like wood. If you are going to invest the time to load up and ash out a stove, do it with the better fuel.

 

[Jeff7]

Do you people not have natural gas piped into the house where you live?

I think you'll only get that in a city, where it's cost-effective to run pipes. Running a length of pipe that'll serve many thousands of customers is preferable to running a few miles of pipe to reach a small rural location with 15 paying customers who probably don't want to pay monthly bills of $2500 to offset the costs of the pipeline. It's the same reason you have rural areas without high-speed Internet.

 

[sjwaste]

Do you people not have natural gas piped into the house where you live?

No. We have bottled gas available, but no natural gas piping. Our population density wasn't high enough as the town built up to justify the cost of running out the main pipelines. We have a lot of rock ledge that would've required blasting. Or at least, that's what I'm told, I just moved here and I've had natural gas everywhere else that I've lived.

Even still, wood pellets are often cheaper to run than natural gas. Some folks also like the idea of a local fuel supply, or an arguably carbon-neutral source - up here in Maine, the supply would be locally made from our own trees.

 

[sjwaste]

Coal > wood pellets. Check to see if you can get a coal delivery to your area. Coal can sit around for years without bugs or rot. It can be burned wet whereas wood pellets disintegrate in moist/wet conditions. Coal provides more heat, burns for longer (requires less loading) and doesn't leave creosote deposits in a chimney like wood. If you are going to invest the time to load up and ash out a stove, do it with the better fuel.

I'll look into it. I know of one other person using coal to heat, so I know it's doable in the Portland, Maine "metro" area. The house we bought is disclosed to be using just under 900 gallons of oil a year - at current prices, that's around $3000. Even adjusting for the fact that we don't really need air conditioning here, that's still almost $300/mo. Lame.

Assuming I could heat and get hot water out of 4 tons of coal a year (2000 sq ft house with 2 people plus a baby on the way), that's $1200-1600 a year (assuming $3-400 a pallet/ton). Huge savings.

Do you know, offhand, if a coal boiler can be a direct replacement for the oil boiler in a forced hot water system? Or do I need to redo the plumbing, circulation pumps, electronics, etc? Also, are coal boilers "cold start" or do I need to keep it warm all summer? I have propane at the house, so I was thinking of getting a dedicated water heater for domestic hot water.

 

[caddlad]

Do you know, offhand, if a coal boiler can be a direct replacement for the oil boiler in a forced hot water system? Or do I need to redo the plumbing, circulation pumps, electronics, etc? Also, are coal boilers "cold start" or do I need to keep it warm all summer? I have propane at the house, so I was thinking of getting a dedicated water heater for domestic hot water.

Thats what I did, except I installed the coal boiler in addition to the oil burner. I simply tied it into the existing manifold as if it were another run. Each of my zones has its own pump, plus the circulator on the coal "zone". This way if the coal burner goes out the aquastat on the oil burner will kick it on when the water temp falls low enough.
Mines a substantial unit so space considerations come into play. I installed in my garage so the bin and ash stay outside. They make a smaller model but I upsized one for the extra BTU and it's a beefier unit.
6 tons @ 240 each, Here's the gorey details.

 

[sjwaste]

Thats what I did, except I installed the coal boiler in addition to the oil burner. I simply tied it into the existing manifold as if it were another run. Each of my zones has its own pump, plus the circulator on the coal "zone". This way if the coal burner goes out the aquastat on the oil burner will kick it on when the water temp falls low enough.
Mines a substantial unit so space considerations come into play. I installed in my garage so the bin and ash stay outside. They make a smaller model but I upsized one for the extra BTU and it's a beefier unit.
6 tons @ 240 each, Here's the gorey details.

Very cool. I don't think I have room in the basement next to where the oil boiler is situated, nor do I have an extra flue to vent from. I never thought of putting it in the back of the garage plumbed in as another zone. I could put a chimney right out the top.

My oil boiler is not a cold start unit, so I assume I'll either have to burn some oil or some coal year round - probably the same fuel I use for hot water.

Are you heating your domestic hot water with coal or oil? Or neither?

 

[Imp]

My parents had an Englander stove initially - 55-SPH10, pre-2004 model. It only had capacity for 40lbs of pellets, no electric starter, the motors were prone to failure, it needed to be cleaned out once or twice a day (no ash tray), and they didn't adequately allow for thermal cycling during design, as parts of the stove eventually started to buckle due to excessive stress caused by restrained thermal expansion.

Ugh... I helped size an Englander stove for someone's cabin over the summer. Don't trust the sq.ft. rating from their brochures, or any, manufacturer. The amount of heat loss (insulation) in your house matters. A perfectly insulated house could be adequately heated by a match - okay, not really, but it matters.

 

[caddlad]

Are you heating your domestic hot water with coal or oil? Or neither?

DHW is tied to the same system so which ever boiler is fired handles it. My oil burner won't light up until May. I have to jump the TT poles on the aquastat to force it to hand off to the coal boiler.

Keystoker makes a great boiler, basically the same unit they've been building for decades, they're built like a tank. Check your codes for garage installation. It might require some knee walls. I just had to ensure the firebox was >28" above the deck.

 

[Ticky]

Good god it's insane how much you people spend on climate control. Move to a civilized climate.

 

[Imp]

Good god it's insane how much you people spend on climate control. Move to a civilized climate.

How's that A/C going in AZ?

 

[Ticky]

Not bad at all. $300 is the worst I've ever seen on a month, usually far less. Most months (9) we spend almost nothing. AC is cheap when you get used to 80 degree room temps.

Edit: Also swamp is hella cheap. And some of us don't use AC at all.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Not bad at all. $300 is the worst I've ever seen on a month, usually far less. Most months (9) we spend almost nothing. AC is cheap when you get used to 80 degree room temps.

Edit: Also swamp is hella cheap. And some of us don't use AC at all.

Maybe you should consider moving to a more civilized climate. Most of us prefer a temperate environment in our homes.