We are seriously considering getting either a wood stove or a pellet stove to use as our primary source of heat, pandemic or no pandemic. The price of fossil fuels is insane. If we continue with oil this winter, we will spend about $3,000 on fuel. For about that same money, we could get a very good stove and about five to ten cords of wood or several tons of wood pellets.
I have no problem with the manual labor involved with handling wood, but the simplicity of using pellets is really appealing to me.
Does anyone on this list have a pellet stove? If so, would you please share your experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly—so that I and others may benefit from your experience? Would you do it again? Would you stick with good ol’ cord wood? Was your heat even?
For frame of reference, we’d be using this in New England and heating about 1800 s.f. on two floors. We’d still maintain the oil FHW as backup and for hot water.
Pellet stoves rely on electricity. You won’t have any heat source (pellet stove or furnace) if power goes out unless you have generator or battery backup. Is that a concern to you at all? It is one of the reasons I elected a wood stove instead, although the manual labor of just feeding the stove (which doesn’t hold much wood) gets tedious. Cost of wood went way up middle of last summer.
Are you sure about your numbers? I hope by “very good stove” you mean a new, EPA-approved stove. I don’t see how you can get a stove, properly installed, plus that much wood for $3K. (Are they full cords?) Congrats if this is real. I’m New England and it doesn’t sound right at all. Could you share on what you had in mind?
(My comment about EPA-approved applies to wood stoves. I don’t know if there are the same issues with a used pellet stove.)
edna - check my comments on the hand pump thread.
get a corn stove
Calico – at 14:53 Yup. For between $3,00–3,500 we can get a brand new Vermont Castings whole house wood stove installed and five dry or eight (ten was too high) green full cords of wood, cut, split and delivered. Your point about electricity for the pellet is huge. Are there no piezo electric start pellet stoves?
We have a highly efficient wood stove insert that can heat our whole house (except for the basement); firewood is readily available just about anywhere and the stove doesn’t require electricity (as mentioned by Calico).
Alsok, when I said oil FHW for backup, I meant under normal operating conditions, not power outages.
Edna Mode – at 14:47 The house we have is a 21 sq. ft manufactured home and we purchased a pellet stove for the house (currently have either propane or electric heat besides), but have only used it a few times toward the end of winter this year, but it heated the house nicely. We also do all those things to cut down needing heat, like wear a sweater etc. At the time of purchase the pellet stove seller told us, that he was notified by the pellet maker (in Arizona), that they would not be gauranteed of any pellets after August of 2006 due to the demand back east and down in the south.
Since then (and having a sewing, quilting and art building built now for the wife), we purchased another pellet stove for that building as that will be the only heat it will have during the winter. The building is a 10 X 20 building and the pellet stove will do quite well in that, and that was the smallest pellet stove we could get.
I had a wood stove when before retiring in Oregon and moving to the desert but down here wood is so expensive, pellets is by far the wiser choice. One thing I did also, is purchase an invertor from Harbor Frieght so that in case of power failure in the wintertime, I can still plug the pellet stove into the invertor (that is connected to a deep cycle 12 volt battery), and still have power to run the pellet screw and fans.
Your question was the heat even, I would say it is very similar to wood heat (basically that is what it is), and I would recommend it to anyone. Again the shortage of pellets may be a problem coming, so if one has a pellet stove or planning on buying one, get a couple of ton of pellets to carry you thru the year and beyond. Currently we have 3 ton (2 ton purchased and 1 ton free with a purchase of the pellet stove for the wifes playroom), so that will last us at least 3 to 5 years. The temperature can get down in the single digits out here in the high desert, but then in the daytime the sun warms up enough to walk outside in a tee shirt.
Hope this information helped.
Edna, I found this comment: “Many pellet burning stoves can be loaded to release pellets slowly so that manual tending of the stove’s heat is unnecessary. This can allow time-released pellets that maintain a steady temperature and ensure safe and steady combustion. Most wood pellet stoves require electricity to operate, however battery packs are available in case of power outages.” So, it may depend on how the pellet stove operates. Your source should be able to tell you. Frankly, the time-released feature would be important to me, one of the things that would distinguish it from a wood stove.
One other point. The stove must vent. If you intend to use an existing flue, have you had it checked? I paid for a new one-piece liner in my chimney (for the insert in the livingroom, as opposed to the standalone on the 3-season porch) rather than deal with a very awkward removal of the stove every time it had to be cleaned. Also, having the stove will affect your house insurance so you want to be very sure to pull a permit and have it inspected upon installation.
also bags of pellets are 50 pounds each. You need to be able to store a LARGE amount of them somewhere IN your house. Personally, dragging around a 50 pound bag of pellets from wherever they are stored is unappealing. One of my girlfriends has one and her husband threw his back out once and was unable to lift more than 5 pounds all winter long.
Our woodstove is free-standing backup heat in the middle of stone enclosure in a stone wall in a 1000 square foot room, but we use it all winter long to heat a very large home. I could also cook on it and often will put a pot of beans on it to cook. You can roll potatoes in aluminum foil and bake them in the coals during blizzards. It is toasty and warm heat. The only problem is wood is dirty and you must vacuum and sweep more often and on a daily basis.
We harvest our own wood from our property. Chopping wood does wondrous things for middle-aged bosoms. If you have disc problems, it’s best to purchase wood. If you are going to buy 10 cords of wood, I would go visit the woodcutter and check out the quality of his wood before he/or she delivers it.
corn stoves dont need a full vent, just a simple through the wall dryer vent. easy as one, two, three with a 5″ hole saw. Your done. Presto.
Don’t rely on anything that requires electricity to operate, or otherwise, just don’t bother to do anything. A pellet stove, as I had it explained to me, in no way is comparable to a good woodstove. We put a small woodstove in our 2400 sq ft. house last winter . . . cost of stove about $1000, cost of updating chinney with liner another $1000, wood for two winters - $150. Peace of mind well worth it.
We have burned wood and coal for many years, but not pellets. My wife likes both for different reasons. She likes the smell of a wood fire but does not alway like tending it - it needs care more often than coal. She likes coal because you put a load in each morning and evening, shake the ashes out, and that’s it. Coal burns hotter and warms a house faster than wood, all other things being equal.
As far as hoisting 50 lb. bags go - you do not have to do it. When I am away, my wife can load coal into a coal hod (specially shaped bucket) with a coal shovel, which looks like a big, flat sugar scoop. It holds about 4 cups of coal. You could certainly scoop pellets too.
We heat a drafty 2000 sq. ft. farmhouse in NE Pa. with 3 ton of coal and 1 cord of wood. A cord costs about $130 delivered (but we cut our own) and coal costs $130/ton delivered.
You can also burn wood in a coal stove but the salesman is not allowed to tell you that according to EPA rules. No danger though, unless you’re a bureaucrat :)
You do not have to carry the entire bag- just fill your bucket and take it to the stove. (also our pellets come in 40 pound bags not 50)
Our stove can use either pellets or corn. It is just that with corn you have to clean it out at the end of the day - no biggie. But they do use electricity. However you can get ones that work on 12VDC or have batter backup. I just use an inverter off my solar array. Mine runs about 30 to 50 watts - that is for the blower fan and the feed.
I am told that “they” (?) have some stove that use corn, pellets or wood chips. But I just haven’t located any wood chip stoves.
You have to keep the pellets dry and you have to keep the corn from the critters. However the corn is often cheaper than the pellets and I figure I can also eat the corn if you really get hungry.
I also use the pellets (with a little peat moss) to grow mushrooms.
I should say I use it now only to heat my greenhouse since I now use propane.
One alternative is to use a regular wood stove or fireplace insert with compressed wastewood/sawdust logs (aka Presto logs). The cost is not much higher than cord wood when bought by the pallet, but the convenience, even heat, easy start, low emmisions, and low waste ash are a real plus. Your fuel is the same as pellets but you don’t need electricity to run the thing.
I was under the impression that you could get a stove that could burn either pellets or wood. Anybody know about this? I have a small place in the mountains (750 sq. ft.) that a friend is using. It gets cold up their (for Northern California - rarely gets below freezing) so having a wood stove seemed to make sense to me. I was thinking dual use - pellets or wood. So, am I mistaken? Thanks in advance.
Mike
Thanks everybody for the thoughts. I am going to have to look more into the electricity dependency of pellet stoves. If it’s strictly for the fan/air circulation, that’s not a problem. I can’t imagine that there is any other electric component, but I don’t know that for sure.
Storing the pellets wouldn’t be a problem. Storing corn would be given the critter factor.
The chimney liner issue is, thankfully, not an issue. We have a relatively new home with three lined flues, all of which are in excellent condition.
I am leaning more toward a traditional wood stove. The up front expense this year would be a drag, but once the stove is in, our heating costs would be about a third of what they’d be for oil. And costs aside, the independence of a wood stove is liberating.
Will – at 15:01 May I ask what make/model stove you use in your home?
Edna. get the new modern wood ovens that is “clean burning” less local polution and higher effeciceny of the wood. In norway they are now the only ovens you can buy. This is a norwegian and very solid producer..
http://www.jotul.com/Content/SiteCommon/StartPage____1978.aspx
remember that wood ovens are some work to maintaine. Pellets are the future for the convinient folks.. but I think burning a wood oven with a glass front is some of the worlds best things.. (it realy tells yous something about energy useage..)
Edna, I thought the main electrical feature of the pellet stove was to feed it more pellets over time, based on a thermostat perhaps. But there should be plenty of info out there on it.
Edna Mode – at 19:57 “If it’s strictly for the fan/air circulation, that’s not a problem”
Understand the fan is not for air circulation out of the stove, it is for the blower that feeds air to the burning pellets. It acts like a “blast furnace” or bellows to keep it burning. It isn’t just a stack of burning pellets. It is more like an incinerator.
Dont like pellet stoves besides all the aforementioned problems. They dont have the same abiance as a woodstove. Nothing like throwing in a log of applewood, the smell is heavenly! Make a woodbox it eliminates a lot of the mess of wood.
DennisC – at 20:43 “Understand the fan is not for air circulation out of the stove, it is for the blower that feeds air to the burning pellets. It acts like a “blast furnace” or bellows to keep it burning.”
Ooooooh. Got it.
urdar-Norge – at 20:09 and janetn – at 21:05
I agree. The ambiance of a wood stove is heaven. This thread has reminded me how much I love stoking the fire, watching the flames dance. It’s totally therapeutic. And Urdar-Norge, thanks for the refer to Jotul. I need to see how they stack up next to Vermont Castings (which we have had in the past and love). Jotuls are nice looking stoves as well.
We’ve got a Jotul Castine and love it. I opted for simplicity of operation vs the stoves with catalytic converters. You can’t beat the comfort of knowing you’ve got your heating needs covered. Stove was around $1,800 and the installation was another $1,000 with a full liner. You can go 1/2 liner into the smoke chamber, but when you have the stove cleaned they’ll need to take the whole thing out and likely charge you more.
Edna- “The chimney liner issue is, thankfully, not an issue. We have a relatively new home with three lined flues, all which are in excellent condition”
Liner condition is not the only issue- Size is, and the stove specs will tell you if what you have is what you need. If it calls for a smaller flue you’ll need the liner.
What a huge geographic variety in wood pricing. I live in eastern MA and the cost of a full cord is around $230
I wanted a pellet stove but went with wood based on the shear simplicity… I envisioned a worst case event and could not see myself burning furniture in a corn stove. Some of the newer wood burners incorporate a combuster which reduces the creosote and increases the efficiency.
We went with a Jotul as well. Before making any final decisions about a wood stove, be sure and talk to your homeowner’s insurance carrier to see how it will effect your policy. Our installation and chimney liner had to be approved by our insurer, or they had the right to cancel our policy.
When DH and I get a stove it will be a soapstone stove. I’ve checked into corn, pellet and coal. Soapstone has advantages over all the others. Another great thing about soapstone is you can cook right on top! Use it as a griddle even. The only problem I see in a soapstone stove is if you have little kids. The stove gets very hot on the outside (all stoves do but…) and stays hot for hours after the fire is out. It also need to be freestanding which can be a problem.
Pellet stoves use electricity to feed the pellets into the heating chamber and pellets are sometimes hard to come by and you can’t make your own. Same with corn. You will have to research and figure out which stove meets your needs.
Soapstone does not get hot enough to cook nearly as much as other types of wood stoves, so it is still a compromise.
just wondering, what is a corn stove? do you burn food in the US? or is it the chalks of mais corn you burn?
I work for a conservation organization in New England. We have a pellet buring fireplace in our conference room, and we rely mostly on a wood pellet boiler system to heat our large center. Both work very efficiently. To get more information on wood burning boiler systems/fireplaces, simply Google “pellet biurners”. You will find adequate, interesting sites to research.
More experience here…
Soapstone retains and disperses heat gradually. A metal stove heats up faster, throws out more heat faster, cools down faster…better for cooking on, less good for heating a house.
In my area, the cost of cordwood is less variable than the cost of pellets.
You can’t add a woodstove to a flue that already vents something. Once upon a time, yes; now, no.
lbb - I Couldn’t agree more. I’ve owned both. The soapstone takes longer to heat up, but retains heat hours longer. However,if you’re too hot it takes forever to cool off too. You’re also correct the external temp will not be adequate for cooking.
One more thing to consider. While the Porcelain enameled stoves are beautful to look at, the enamel can be easily damaged if you overfire the stove - (and it’s very easy to do if you’re not careful) If you plan on using the stove alot go with the standard black finish. Just my $.02
You all are a wealth of information!
After reading voraciously, I’m definitely going with a wood stove. The point is to not be reliant on outside fuel suppliers. Pellet supply can be sketchy around here according to a couple of distributors I’ve checked with.
We have three separate flues and are only using two of them. Flue size is OK for the stoves we are considering. May need an adapter for one, but otherwise, OK. And I will call my homeowners insurance co. We already had the fireplace, so I’m hoping adding the wood stove is not considered material.
Thank you all for the great info!
urdar-Norge – at 09:02 “just wondering, what is a corn stove? do you burn food in the US? or is it the chalks of mais corn you burn?”
Here in the midwest U.S., a lot of people use dry shelled corn to heat their homes. We are in the “corn belt” and my understanding is that this is the type of corn that would be used to feed animals, etc., not sweet corn. Perhaps someone who is a corn farmer could explain. Anyway, here’s some info on corn burning: http://tinyurl.com/8c684
I’ve seen some pretty units that put out a lot of heat and 50 lb of corn burns down to about 1 cup of ash. Now I’ve heard some people say it smells like popcorn, but I’ve never observed that.
Shelled corn is the corn typically grown by farmers for the feed market. The US grows about 280,000,000 tons of corn annually. About 20% is exported. The US has available farmland to grow 50% more corn than we do, but there is no use for it. Corn is a btu stable commodity and at current prices it is equivalent to buying heating oil for less than $1.00/gallon. Corn is clean and is renewable every 90 days. Tree’s on the other hand take a really long time to grow. Pellets dont always have the same heat content depending on whether the pellet is made from pine, oak or bark. For more information see
We got a Napoleon 1100C enameled cast iron woodburning stove last fall and we love it. Our stove cost $1200 (no sales tax in Montana). This does not include installation.
Napoleon’s woodburning stove website is:
Napoleon Woodstoves
Their woodburning stove brochure is at:
Napoleon woodstove brochure
The brochure will give you specifics on capacity, BTUs, etc.
Ours is a smallish size stove to heat a very small house, so the wood has to be cut into short lengths. Napoleon makes stoves that take much larger lengths and heat a large house.
A good place to read consumer ratings on woodstoves is Hearth.com. We bought the Napoleon brand because it had very high ratings and we liked the way it looked. It was also the least expensive enameled cast iron stove that we found. The enameling is gorgeous and has stayed in perfect shape.
The glass windows stay clear in this type stove IF the fire is hot, but they will get residue on them if you have to have a slow fire. I understand this happens with all glass door stoves. The residue burns off the next time you have a hot fire going. You can always see the fire through the glass, however, and it is lovely.
Our stove is so much better than a fireplace because it heats so much more efficiently and still has the same ambiance. The sides and the top of our stove stay cool enough to touch. Nearly all the heat comes out the front. It is possible to have this type of stove in an alcove if the alcove is of sufficient size. If you need to cook on it, you can remove the top cast iron piece (or this is what my husband tells me anyway.)
Though this stove is not catalytic, it is so efficient that we got a $500 tax credit from the state of Montana for installing it. From what I read you want to avoid the catalytic models.
corn as a ready made pellet.. hmm its a good idea.. its anyway a bio fuel and better than any fossil.. But the idea of burning food.. ? very american ;) If seeing this in a peak oil perspeketive my guess is that we will not have a lot of corn left for any other use than food. So prices will rocket… Wood is often from areas where its not grown food, and forrests have other values and uses as well.
Pellets will be a future big thing, and finding it will be alot more easy, the oilbarons of the future are the farmers :)
I’ll jump into the corn as fuel discussion. Corn is being used more and more in the US, both for direct heating (burning in a stove) and the production of ethanol. Corn may mature in 90 days, but it’s not renewable every 90 days, the weather limits a corn crop to one crop per year. Corn takes alot of water to grow, which is something that’s becoming in short supply over much of the “corn belt” (many aquifers across the midwest and west are drying up). I see corn as a small piece of the puzzle, not as the cure-all that some do, for these reasons and for the reasons urdar-Norge lists above.
My chimney sweep always gushes about my Lopi wood stove. It produces only very fine ash. Less chance of a chimney fire developing.
trying to drift more to crisis topic.. stone is a exelent heath storage. ovens with stone gives a more stabil heath, and less stress with continius feeding of the oven. But in solar heathing water is considered twise as good as stone as a heath storage. I do not recomend placing your water supply close to a oven if it a plastic barrel. But for thoose who have no alternative heating like a wood oven etc, putting the water storage in a room who is heated will give you some few extra days to keep warm in a blackout..
my dream wood oven is covered whith a big mass of stone with a glass front, it the perfekt mix, quick heath in front of the glass and long storage for keeping warm thru the cold nights. The old ones with glased stones are the old perfection of sirkulating the smoke thru long channels up and down. If i was rich I would get a old one and specially make a glass door, and insert a catalytich thing to increase the burning and reduce sooth. :D
Kim @ 7:36 Many aquifers across the midwest and west are drying up
Most of the corn crop in the main “corn belt” Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana are not irrigated, there is plenty of rain to supply the water needed to grow an over-abundance of corn. Most irrigation starts on the western edge of iowa near the Missouri river and continues westward. I know the Ogallala Aquifer in CO, NE, SD has shrunk considerably but the large aquifer most of the population of Eastern Iowa (that includes a lot of livestock as well) gets it’s water from is very full.
There is at least one business starting up within the next year to start pulling water out at 1 million gallons a day for sales to the OK, KS, and NE areas as “rural water”. The consultant from the state that examined the test well and the effect of pulling that much water out on the aquifer (since a main town well sits within 1 mile) said no problem for either well or the more shallow ones in the area.
As a corn farmer in Iowa it is one of our expectations to use corn as a heating source if necessary, current prices on a bushel of corn is $1.80 which I’m told will heat a 2500 sq ft house for a day. We just summer filled our LP tank for $1.30 a gallon and we typically use 1000 gallons in a winter (mid-october - early April the furnace runs)
Using these figures dry shelled corn at $2.00 bushel (56 lbs) is about 1/2 the price per BTU than LP at $1.00 gallon and about 1/3 the cost of using electricity (resistance heating).
Interesting article Eduk8or, there is also some interesting useages for hemp in such a picture, problem with groving fuel using fertilezers, pesticides etc is that you use a lot of fuel to create fuel. Forrest do the trick by them self, and hemp is claimed to be better than a lot of plant to withstand heath, dry and no fertilizer.. Well I am no farmer, and as Kim says, there is no single golden solution on the energy crises as well.. In Sweden they grow so called “enegy forrest” its fast growing Selje “Salix caprea” that is harvested every 5 years or so, and converted to pellets. Nice thing about it is that its grown in all the areas that is uneffecinet to grov food in. hills, small lands etc..
Udar Norge - corn is a member of the grass family. In fact it is solar energy stored in a chemical form. Calories for food or fuel is the same thing. We have to use solar energy in every way possible. Wind energy is derived from the sun, biomass is derived from the sun, etc. Think outside the box. Besides we dont eat feed corn, its used for animals, corn meal, bio plastics, corn oil, ethanol, etc. Corn is cheap, easy to grow, renewable, and already uses existing farm land. We wont have to deforest the land to heat our homes.
Eduk8or – at 08:51 - I live in Western Illinois in the Sauk Valley, and commute to the Quad Cities every day. With the amount of rain we’ve received this season, I’ve seen very little irrigation going on and the corn crops are about the best I’ve seen in years. Do you predict a bumper crop? If so, perhaps the price of heating a home with corn will be even more advantageous this year? We’re thinking about getting one of the whole-house heating corn burners that would go in our basement and can also be hooked up to the hot water heater. Do you use a corn burner and, if so, what brand?
At the risk of this becoming a political discussion and being scolded by the mods, I’ll jump in again. True that windpower, solar power, all biomass comes from the sun. I disagree with okidokie that deforestation is a prerequisite for heating our homes, there is such a thing as sustainable forestry. There are also a huge variety of other forms of biomass (hay, straw, hemp, etc etc) that can be used to make ethanol besides corn. I stand by my statement that corn requires an immense amount of water (and fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides) to produce well and requires that a good amount of fuel be expended to produce it. At the risk of angering corn (and maybe other) farmers everywhere, I do object to the vast monocultures involved… thousands upon 1,000′s of contiguous, unbroken acres of a single crop is a recipe for disaster (insect & disease). I guess what concerns me most is putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak… instead of having just ONE form of fuel that EVERYONE uses, perhaps it makes more sense to have fuels that can be locally produced. If you’re a corn farmer, by all means burn corn. If you live on forested land, wood is the way to go. The Plains Indians burned buffalo chips (manure) because it was plentiful. In Montana they use forest slash (the brush left from forestry activities) to supply heat and energy to some of their schools. In cities some are using old french fry grease to power vehicles. There is no ONE answer to our energy problems, I guess is what I’m trying to say. And we should have learned this simple lesson by now, when we have to open our wallets to pay for gasoline and heating oil. It’s not fun to be dependant on the whims of some faraway ruler somewhere to keep your house warm or provide you with transportation.
I think this is a brilliant discussion. In a pandemic a independent heath source is essential. But many of them demands high investment, (chimney, piping for solar etc.. Buying a oven is also a innvestment for many years, (I got one right here intended for coal, its 100 years old and is a lousy and poluting wood burner. But very pretty and with hugh heat storage mass of cast iron). Pellets are made from wood from different industries, for instance when pruducing contruktion wood, all the leftovers are turned into pellets. No deforestation is needed ( in Norway the area of forrests are larger than it was some 100 years ago due to responsible forresting).
My point is that I belive the corn overpruduction is about to end in the long run. When fuels for machines, fertilicers and pesticides rice in price the land for growing food will be more valuble, (less use of fertilizer reduses the crops) so my guess is that all usefull land will be for food. Simple energy for burning will be that areas that is not as well suited for food prod. For ethanol and bidisesel the food areas ar probably the best, so this will also put presurse on this capacity.
Then i would ask myself, is it wise to innvest in a oven that only burns corn, or should I look for one that also is good for pellets or plain old firewood.? :)
One thing to realize is that in America, there are vast tracts of land where there ARE NO TREES. No wood. You’d need to truck in any wood you used for heating. Corn is local.
(Using wood from construction wouldn’t be feasible either as many of these areas in the plains states are experiencing very little growth, or even negative population growth.)
The best form of heating really depends on where you live … my house in the low deserts of Arizona really wouldn’t need heat at all; it freezes at night most winter nights but the house is well insulated and doesn’t get much below 50 if I leave the heat off. It heats up during the day to a comfortable temp. (I rarely run the heat in winter at night — that’s what blankets are for. For comfort’s sake, I might turn it on when I get up if I’m not going to work — i.e., a weekend — but I’d survive just fine without it.)
My father’s cabin in northern arizona is heated primarily with wood, though it also has a small propane furnace that’s there primarily to keep the pipes from freezing in winter when no on’s home!
Wood is THE way to go in Northern Arizona. We’re having issues here with bark beetles killing trees in large swaths. A permit to cut up to 11 cords of dead juniper or oak from the national forest was $25. Ponderosa permits were free and unlimited. (Though you shouldn’t burn ponderosa inside.) So for $25, plus gas for the chainsaw and vehicles, you can get a winter’s wood of wood in a few days worth of hard work. Can’t beat that. ;)
Just depends on where you live …
Edna,I have heated my 2400sf house in new england for 25 years.Last year I bought a pellet stove insert($1700) which fits in my fireplace.Unlike a wood stove, you don’t lose heat with an insert because it operates more like a furnace than radiant heat.I used 3 tons(pallets) to heat my house last winter($600).Two ton stack nicely along a 15ft wall in my basement.I have a bad back and carrying bags is no biggy but I use two coal type hods when my back is not good.I bought a generator for power back up($300)which also powers other things like refrigerators tvs etc.Buy your pellets in the summer and never worry about supply.My wife is a clean freak and loves the pellet stove vs.the wood stove.A great investment.
My neighbor has a pellet stove insert in his fireplace. I chatted with him the other day and he said pellets are in short supply this year and he is not sure that he will be able to get enough.
I use a wood furnace to supplememt my natural gas furnace and so far I have had no trouble getting firewood.
We have a woodstove in the basement of a 3000 sqft house. This is what we use to heat the house with all winter. The only draw back is that to get full use of the woodstove we have to have electricity to run the fan. When the power goes out we take the door off the stove and we keep the fire smaller so as not to burn the fan up. Anyone have any better suggestions?
Carrey in VA remember that the electricity not only runs the fan, it also runs the “feed” for the pellets. So when the power goes off the fire will burn itself out fairly quickly.
OH, yes, the pellets are great for the kitty litter- they soak up both most of the smell and the liquids. You also can use the oak ones for growing mushrooms.
Ours is a normal wood burning stove, not a pellet stove.
It’s double walled with a blower in the back that blows air through the chamber and out the front of the stove.
Carrey in VA – at 10:22
Carrey, I’m assuming the fan just circulates the air in the immediate vicinity and it actually gravity feeds to the rest of the house? Do you have floor grates to facilitate that?
The fan blows hot air out the front of the stove from the chamber around the fire box. Basically pumping more heat out into the room so less waste up the chimney. We do have grates to allow the heat to rise through the house. When the power is on, we also use fans to help move the heat more efficently. We will probably just close the door at the top of the basement stairs and live down thier while the power is out.
That is probably your best strategy. The only other thing you may want to consider is asking someone at a local stove shop about the placement of your floor grates. I never knew this until recently, but if your floor grates are incorrectly placed, they can actually interfere with the convection effect of the air circulation.
You always here that cold air falls, hot air rises. That’s true, but under certain circumstances, the cold won’t compete with the heat, creating kind of a gridlock that prevents the heat from circulating as best it could.
We are having a wood burning insert installed tomorrow in our fire place (not for pandemic, although it’ll come in handy, but to beat oil prices). We were advised where to install a floor grate to ensure the best circulation of the cold air/hot air cycle.
Doh! Should have been “hear” not “here.”
Now that is something I would be interested in knowing. I just assumed that you would want grates right above the stove, and then another set of grates opposite the stove.
Carrey in VA – at 11:21
Depending on the layout of your rooms, that may be the perfect grate placement for your purposes. That’s why you need to talk to someone who knows what they’re doing and who knows your floorplan or for whom you can sketch your floorplan.
I have a pellet stove and love it. You pour the bag in and set the temp for what you would like the house to stay it. It heats the house comfortably and much less mess then wood. We put several pallets of pellets in the shop since the price is suppose to significantly increase in the fall. BUT I would probally put the wood stove in now since finding this board I view things in a whole new light. As long as you have wood you will always have heat.
bump
“Oregon mom – at 13:05 As long as you have wood you will always have heat. “
Does your pellet stove allow for manual opperation when the electricity is out? If so, what kind do you have?
AVanarts- No my pellet stove does not allow for manual opperation. I wish it did. We have a wood stove in the shop that we can move in the house if we have to.
i bought and installed a wood stove after losing power in 1998 for a week due to an ice storm in the northeast. the next year i bought the wood stove. BEST THING I EVER DID! it’s allready paid for itself a couple times over. not only have i been able to reduce my propane bill by about 2/3 in winter but i can and do burn all my scape paper, cardboard, food boxes, newspapers, wood pallets, construction wood (not pressure treated or plywood ) it’s all free btu’s !!! and i am thinking about making a “grid” for holding scoops of wood pellets and or coal. so they will burn in the wood stove. it’s just a matter of allowing proper air flow around the pellets so they dont smother out. coal stoves traditionaly have to be made differantly to handle the much more intence heat that coal delivers but if used in moderation just as a suppliment to the coal bed made from the wood it burns a little longer and hoter and a “small” scoop or coal just before bed i’ve heard is as good as an “all nighter” log. coal is much dirtier also. i have allso been reading about how they are now making pellets out of grass and hay and corn for cheap fule for stoves. i kinnda have a problem with burning “food” but the grass thing is cool. i cook on the wood stove too ! some cast iron pans and your good to go !! and a couple of pressure cookers and you can tenderize an old boot in about an hour, !! yup,,, cant beat a wood stove man. I HIGHLY recommened them. the only problem i had was once i fired up my wood stove the first time i found out exactly where all the cold drafts were in my home,,,, and you will too !! the flue of a wood fire sucks alot of air in to breath. i solved the problem by running a 1 inch pipe through the outside wall near my stove for a fresh air intake,,, i even put a valve on it to close it during summer. , hav’nt had a problem since ;). good luck.
spiritaxe – at 12:28 --- Be very careful with the amount of paper products you burn in your woodstove. They can create a lot of creosote in the chimney, and that needs to cleaned out at least once a year. Also, have a good chimney screen on the top of the chimney to catch floating, burning paper…
i brush my stack every three months regaurdless.. never had a crosote problem in 7 years now. i even burn softwoods ,,pine and such. notorious for creosote but smell great!!! i have never had a problem. and i bang off the top screen regularly . you pretty much have to ,,,, if the screen gets clogged the flue is nill and the stove is worthless unless you feel the need to fumigate your livingroom with woodsmoke. .. been there done that :)
Ill bet that no one realizes that corn “IS” a grass. Corn is the best natural fuel out their. I bet you cant buy pellets for $125/ton or less. Dont be silly with the “i have a problem burning food” its not food. It a solar derived fuel in a chemical form. This is all about economics. Last year, half the people I knew couldnt even find pellets due to the distribution channel issue. I was cozy warm cause my farmer down the road had plenty of surplus.
When we were living in New Mexico DH worked for a pellet plant. In the off season the company sold pellets really cheap around $125/ton biggest problem is that you need to transport them yourself to keep costs down.There was one group from CO that would buy a semi load and split the cost of moving them. Most pellet plants will sell to private buyers in the off season, once the season gets going though all their product is most likely already sold to suppliers. Also the pellet stove we used would burn corn and crushed nut shells without having to adjust the feed rate.
well with that burn corn mentality why not burn cotton and wheat???? we should really consider hemp,,,, it grows real fast ,it would be at least half again cheaper than corn to grow,,, it’s not eaten by livestock or humans,,,,and the surplus oil from the seeds can be used to fuel other mechanizms. but nooooooooo. just because you found a way to save yourself some bucks dont make it right dude. there are still hungry people on this planet. just because your nieghbor has extra is not a reason to burn it. especialy when there are better alternatives. it’s greed thats going to kill this country and it’s allready sick as i see it,,,,,, bird flu notwithstanding. …. but thats just me. good luck corn boy. :).
Here’s a good site with losts of general & specific info on the whole topic.
And check out this site for stoves, I bought & installed the CUMBERLAND GAP model last fall and would not trade it for anything. This co also has pellet stoves that will burn either pellets or corn - not all do.
a test !!!,,,, a test for corn boy,,,,,, put a peck of corn and a peck of wood next to his wood stove,,,,,, now sit him down and make him linger for a month without eating,,,,, now he says he was toasty warm burning the corn,,,,, but what will he choose to eat at the end of the month? i rest my case. termites we are not.
a test !!!,,,, a test for corn boy,,,,,, put a peck of corn and a peck of wood next to his wood stove,,,,,, now sit him down and make him linger for a month without eating,,,,, now he says he was toasty warm burning the corn,,,,, but what will he choose to eat at the end of the month? i rest my case. termites we are not.
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