John Warren Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Considering putting one into our living room fireplace. Do any of you have experience wth them? pros/cons. Looking at units capable of heating 1800 sq. ft. Salesman says fill hopper twice a day. Purchase pellets by ton (4x4x4ft shrink wrapped pallet). TIA, jw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garymd Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 John, We just bought a house in Delaware and the heat is propane. A few of our neighbors who live there year-round recently converted their propane fireplaces to wood pellet due to the high cost of propane. We plan to do the same at some point. One couple saved $1800 in heating costs last winter using the pellet stove although I have no idea what it cost to install. Their house is about 3,000 sq feet. I plan to get more info this weekend and I'll pass along anything that seems to be of value. However from what I've been told, you could easily heat 1,800 sq feet very efficiently with the average pellet stove. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Well, sort of experience. I used to buy the pellets for use as rabbit litter and talked to the guy who sells them. A lot. This guy is a real talker. For where I live the cost of the pellets to heat the house over the winter was basically the same as the cost to heat it with my existing heat pump/ac electrical unit. Your mileage may vary. They are neat units though. are you talking about the kind that burn so completely that they don't need to be vented? It's a great idea depending on your situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 John, I looked into them for last winter but ended up going with a traditional wood stove fireplace insert. When you look into the pellet stove also carefully look into the cost of installation. With a pellet stove your chimeny must be relined with a doubled walled 4" vent pipe as the pellet stoves don't have enough draft for a full chimney. The double walled pipe is expensive. It almost doubles the cost of just the stove itself. How often you have to fill the hopper will depend upon how much heating and the size of the hopper in the unit. For a pellet insert they will stick out of your fireplace somewhat. Depending upon the size of your fireplace a wood stove may be able to be a flush fit. Check into pellet availability during the winter months. Some places run out of them and not everyone has enough free/dry space to store enough pellets to last all winter. Pellet stove require AC power to work (hopper, ignitor, heat fans and exhaust fan) so in a blackout if you don't have a generator you have no heat. They are of course more complex (more to fail). They are almost as easy as regular heat since you mount a thermostat on the wall and it turns on/off as needed. I would assume you get heat out of a pellet stove considerably quicker then a wood stove too. With the wood stove after you first start it it takes a good hour or two before it really gets up to temperature and putting out the heat. During the coldest months though you never stop burning so this is really more of an issue in the late fall/spring when temperatures vary so much. With a traditional wood stove you aren't required to put in a reline (single wall 6" pipe) but it is a good idea to make it safer and *much* easier to clean. To clean a chimney without the reline you have to basically pull out the wood stove, brush it clean then reinstall the stove. With the reline you can just brush the stove and the soot/ashes just fall into the stove itself. I put in a Napoleon 1401 (only stove that would fit my small fireplace) and did not reline the chimney. I did a block off plate and a length of pipe to go from the stove to above the plate. I am planning on relining the chimney before this burning season though for the ease of cleaning. Obviously more work keeping the stove burning compared to the pellets as it has to be reloaded every few hours and there is more creosote buildup then pellets, esp. if wet wood. In 4 weeks last winter we burned about 200 gallons of oil (on demand hot water furnace which also supplies baseboard heat) at the time at around $2.70 a gallon, it was $4.60 a gallon yesterday. The next oil delivery was 6 weeks later(colder 6 weeks) and for 4 weeks of that we were using the wood stove alone to heat the house. (2 story, around 1700 square feet) That delivery was about 110 gallons of oil so it obviously made a large difference in our oil consumption. With the skyrocketing oil prices it will cost me roughly the same to heat the house all winter with wood then it would for one month of oil. I built a wood shed this spring which holds 4+ cords. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 We had one that came with our house. We eventually took it out. A Breckwell (sp?). Two negatives: It was awfully noisy, so it might bother you're listening experiences, and don't count on using it during a power failure (unless you have a back-up generator). Other than that, it was fine for heating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted July 22, 2008 Moderators Share Posted July 22, 2008 No wood pellets, just a "old style'' wood burning stove here. We use about 2 cords of wood or less per winter for 2000 SF. You have to also consider what kind of winters we have here, I have to try to keep the heat output as low as possible for most days. The heater puts out about 3 times the BTU's that the house requires so it must be dampened down unless it has just been lit, we have used it for about 9 years now. Inconvenient yes, but very cheap to heat 2000SF. We have a lot of open space and two of the bedrooms are upstairs which helps because the warm air rises up the stairs, the two bedroom doors have to stay closed most of the time or it would get to hot up there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Have you priced Pellets THIS year yet ???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garymd Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Have you priced Pellets THIS year yet ???? As of June 13, 2008, the average price for a ton was $200 according to an article I just read. The article estimated for heating purposes that a ton of pellets equates to approximately 170 gallons of propane or 120 gallons of heating oil. 170 gallons of propane currently costs me about $520. The math is easy. Still, you have to buy a pellet stove, make sure your lining is up to snuff, they can be noisy as Fini stated, etc., etc., etc. Edit: Looking at other sites, a ton is closer to $300 these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Neighbor has Pellet Stove, he tells me the only way it works for him, is he buys a whole tractor trailer full, forget how many pallets it is, only draw back , you need forklift to unload. He has forks for his tractor, that's how he does it ........... to buy pellets at store and transport home, not saving anything ! Just another way of looking at it ............. what was less-expensive last year, will make up for it this year ............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 " what was less-expensive last year, will make up for it this year ............" Not for me. Last year a hardwood cord in season was $250 delivered (split/seasoned), this season it is $275. I bought offseason at $225 delivered. Four cords should cover the entire season so the heating cost increase would have been $100 this year if I bought in season. The cost of heating by oil has increased by over $1000. Last year in season oil was $2.70 a gallon. Now in the offseason it is already $4.59 and will likely be much higher during the heating season. What I will save in heating costs this season alone at the $4.59 per gallon rate pays for the stove. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Last year a hardwood cord in season was $250 delivered (split/seasoned), Two Years ago it was $100. delivered, ................ There is no way to heat cheap ............. More insulation, and lower temperature settings, and wearing a sweater, that's a start ............. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted July 23, 2008 Author Share Posted July 23, 2008 Lots of very good feedback here. Like a few of you I'm looking at oil alternatives. I have a very large firplace in the living room and I could stuff either a gas insert or wood pellet insert. The noise is an issue, I've heard a few of them and they are not all that quite. Also, a bud of mine has a pellet insert and his house does smell like wood burning which is ok as long as that sort of thing doesn't bother allergies. The gas inserts are also attractive and there is no smell, noise and they include a liner (stainless hose) they run up the chimney. Today gas in the Boston area is about $1.40/THERM (100,000 BTU) which is very attractive compared to a $4.30/gal of No. 2 (137,000 BTU). The gas winter rates are out in September and everyone is expecting a big increase so who knows. Historically, I believe gas has always been a bit higher until last year. Also-Pellets in the Boston area range for $280 to $360/ton. Shortages have occurred too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edroom Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 I have a pellet stove, it is not noisy, looks great as you have a visible flame burning all the time, I put in 1 bag a day and save about 1000 dollars a year vs oil alone. the major drawbacks are yes it is work lugging the bags, stacking tons of em and pouring them in every day, also altough it is A LOT cleaner than burning wood, you still have to clean it out about once a week. Personaly I love it, Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IB Slammin Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 Well, sort of experience. I used to buy the pellets for use as rabbit litter and talked to the guy who sells them. A lot. This guy is a real talker. For where I live the cost of the pellets to heat the house over the winter was basically the same as the cost to heat it with my existing heat pump/ac electrical unit. Your mileage may vary. They are neat units though. are you talking about the kind that burn so completely that they don't need to be vented? It's a great idea depending on your situation. OT, Old Dallas boy here. Denton? Are you kidding me? You heat your home for about, what.... six weeks a year? You need a pellet unit that will power A/C and a dehumidifier[] tc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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