# Heating with pellets



## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
Was walking into Costco this morning, and they had a pallet of 40 50lb bags of wood pellets (or was it 50 40 lb bags.
The package said 8500 BTU -- I am assuming this means 8500 BTU/lb of pellet.

When I worked through the numbers, it looks like the price per BTU is about half what we are paying for propane. Even if you allow for the gas furnace perhaps being more efficient than a pellet stove, it seems like a good saving. And, being a carbon freak, the carbon neutral aspect is appealing as well.

Don't know a thing about burning pellets.
Has anybody tried this or investigated? Pro/con?
Any brands to look at?

My wife is concerned about potential smell in the house as we visited one pellet stove heated house that did smell a lot -- maybe a badly installed or adjusted stove?

Gary


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## Pelenaka (Jul 27, 2007)

I can't comment on the smell of a pellet stove although I had never heard of that before. 

We didn't go with pellet because for a two reasons; possible supply shortages and the need for electricity to feed the pellets into the stove. 
Last week DH ran into a guy that said he had a pellet stove that was non-electric. The feed/hopper worked with gears or springs ? Hubby didn't get a brand or model from the guy. Vaguely remember an after market metal box that can fit in the firebox of a woodstove to convert it to pellet. 
Last year in our area there was a bit of a pellet shortage. Not sure why I think this but aren't pellets made from scrap lumber so since new home construction was down ...


~~ pelenaka ~~


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## travlnusa (Dec 12, 2004)

We have had our pellet stove for three years now, and will be adding a second, smaller, one in our finished basement. It heats our 1100 man floor and 1000 second floor. If your house is a long, streched out ranch style, it will be hard to get heat end to end. 

We love it. With our stove, there is a hint of a burning wood smell in the house. Not overpowering by any means.

You will have a touch more dust in the house. 

The key to a good working stove is keeping it clean.

We are lucky to have a local farmer who now manfactures pellets. Sells only in bulk. We take a gravity box over each fall and buy three ton and we are set til spring.

Had I to do it all over again I would have 1) done it much sooner, 2) bought a multi-fuel stove. 

We shopped a true wood stove, but without our own timber the cost/labor/storage, etc lead us the pellet route.

All pellets will make about the same BTU claims. The fact is your stove will burn best with THIS brand vs THAT brand. I suggest buying 10 bags of brand X before you jump into tons at a time.


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## Micheal (Jan 28, 2009)

BIL heats with a pellet stove, went through just over 2 ton of pellets last season. No I don't know if this is good or bad?
I know he got cold a couple of times; power went out therefore no auto-feeding of the stove and since no-one was home. Brrrrr.......
Do know he was complaining that it was going to cost him more this year as pellets were on sale and going for $250 a ton - not delivered.
As for smelling it in the house; I offer the same advice I gave my BIL - 

You should NEVER smell anything in the house - well at least wise concerning the stove - and if you do, something is WRONG - fix it before it kills you!!!!!

As a side note: I heat (supplemental) with wood and with what I've seen and heard there's no way would I consider a pellet stove; but hey that's just my opinion...


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

Hi Gary how's it going, 

We have been burning pellets for 6 years and love it although our supplier has raised their prices, used to be really cheap but now only a little cheaper then big stores.

we have ours in our bsement and it heats our wholes house (2500sf ranch) until it gets about 5 degrees out. 

If I remember from the web you have crawlspace and not a basement. If you have an area to put it the best would be buy a pellet boiler and hook into your infloor heat. I have a coworker that has one and only fills it every 3 days since it holds alot and only has to clean twice a year.

I have a harman brand (it's a better brand) and love it but have to fill twicw a day and empty ashes once a week. not much smell and only a little dust since they are closed units.... much less then fireplace but still is some

i used to buy bulk but bagged deliveried price has benn not too bad and easier but if prices keep going up may go back to bulk

gary reif


http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p91/garyreif/P1010014.jpg

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p91/garyreif/P1010013.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p91/garyreif/P1010015.jpg


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

If I lived out on the high plains of Montana, pellets might make sense. If I lived in a forested region, they wouldn't. 

There are no 'free range' pellets to be had anywhere... (you have to buy them). With regular wood, you might have to buy it, but there's always the option of collecting it yourself.

In an emergency, you could burn chair legs, furniture, books, pine cones, anything combustible.

You're pretty well set for power, so the grid down/no pellet stove scenario is nullified.

Of course the best of all worlds is to have a natural gas well nearby that you could tap into. They've been drilling out a lot of Montana/Wyoming over the last decade...


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

When I was looking at units at a store I was not happy with the fact that every time it comes on a 500 watt glo-bar is used to ignite the system . . . .I was told that the glow bar would be on for ten minutes.
Not so good for an off grid system.
Also the unit I was looking at seemed to be either fully on . . or off. . . No half way ----lower burn rate..........

So my conclusion was that that 500 watt glo-bar was going to chew up an awful lot of electric . . . . . .not good.

Would like to read about other 'models' that use less electrical energy...........................

my $0.03


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## Big Dreamer (Aug 6, 2010)

I had a pellet stove for awhile but the price of pellet went so high just after I bought that I sold it and bought a multi-fuel stove. I normally burn corn but it will burn about anything. I have tried cherry pits and wood pellets. Soybeans, wheat and other grains cost too much so I will stick with corn. I think that we get more heat out of the corn than with pellets and talking to other people they feel that same. The stove I have is not the top of the line but works very well and I never have it above the low setting. We are running around here in the winter with shorts on, it almost gets too hot in the house.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Thanks all -- great information.

We are going to have a look at what the local pellet place has in the way of stoves this week. 

Gary -- we are part crawl and part basement, so could use the boiler approach. If I had put the solar heat storage tank in the basement instead of out in the Solar Shed I could have just added the pellet heat to that.
Had not thought of piles of pellets being a "sandpile" for the grandkids 

Gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

gary

could you add some valving to the infloor heat to shut off flow from solar shed and turn on flow from boiler when needed.

if you would put one in basement, if it is not fixed up basement less mess to worry about in the house

gary


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## Big Dreamer (Aug 6, 2010)

My question is Solar shed not working well?


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Big Dreamer said:


> My question is Solar shed not working well?


Hi Dreamer,
The Solar Shed works well -- it provides the equivalent of 330 gallons of propane a year -- about 30% of our heating needs.
We live in an 8100 heating degree day climate, and even though we have done a lot to improve the thermal envelope of the house, its a big house and just takes a lot of heat. If I could start over with a new house and design it from the ground up for low heat loss and low infiltration, I believe that I could get the % solar heating up to around 80+% with the same Solar Shed system.

The solar heating is actually up to meeting the full heat load of the house on a sunny day, but the winter is long, and there are a lot of not sunny days.
The nice thing about the solar is that all you have to do is turn it on in the fall -- no buying, hauling, loading pellets 

We are adding a bit more solar space heating this fall -- should help bring the solar fraction up a bit.

Gary


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

greif said:


> gary
> 
> could you add some valving to the infloor heat to shut off flow from solar shed and turn on flow from boiler when needed.
> 
> ...


Hi Gary,

Maybe so.
I like what Tom has done on his system with combined wood boiler and solar: 
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/TomLargeCol/TomCol.htm

But, he has the tank in the house.
As you say, maybe there is a way to feed direct from the boiler to the floor loops without having a storage tank. 

I guess another thought would be to have a wood boiler out in the Solar Shed where I could run it on cloudy days to heat the solar storage tank. 
I guess that the downside of this would be losing the heat that the boiler gives off to its direct surroundings when its running.

Dropped in the local pellet stove store yesterday, and I have to say they did about everything they could to un-sell me on pellet stoves -- not sure what their thinking is, but they really did not seem like they wanted to sell one. Still looking online.


Gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

Hi Gary

Wow I am suprized they tried to talk you out of one, I know lots of people with them and everyone is happy. we did the fireplace style because my wife wanted a fireplace in the basement and In did not wwant gas, it is nice and warm, only downfall is it has blower running so that make some noise and the filling and cleaning..... but a boiler or even furnace style would be real nice. Buy a good brand even though they cost more.

I will have to write up my solar system this fall for you to put up... 480 sf and 900 gallon tank. I still have to add pex under my floors to distribute the heat yet.

take care
gary


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## Big Dreamer (Aug 6, 2010)

Here is a add on that the company I bought my Multi-fuel stove from sells for a few of there other stoves to connect to the hot water heating. http://www.usstove.com/proddetail.php?prod=1124 
I was thinking of trying something like that with mine since i am building a hot water panel now. I think you would be happy with either a pellet or multi-fuel stove. I do not understand them trying to talk you out of them unless they know something we don't. I have had wood and they are both cleaner and easier than wood. However wood did work very well also. When setting my stove up I set it up for a wood stove so I could just pull out the current one and switch to wood if I needed. We have plenty of wood here where I live.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

greif said:


> Hi Gary
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Hi Gary,
Please do -- that would make a great article. 480 sqft!

Gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

not hijacking thread... just a preview


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## greif (May 31, 2009)




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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi Gary,
VERY nice.

Are those the Sunray absorber plates?

Gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

hi Gary

yes, for the cost it was not worth me building my own copper/aluminum plates.

gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

hi gary

http://www.harmanstoves.com/products/products.asp?cat=inserts&prd=pellet-inserts

http://www.quadrafire.com/

here are 2 top brands, I have harman and know lots of people with them and know one person with quadrafire and he is happy

they qualify for the tax credit if you do decide to do it.

gary


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## PastTense (Mar 22, 2010)

When you compared price per BTU for propane vs pellet you forgot one thing: part of the BTUs are going up the chimney. They make propane stoves which are 93% or so efficient--they don't make pellet stoves this efficient. So you need to take the relative efficiencies into consideration.

I see the issue are primarily a money vs time tradeoff: propane is flipping a switch, pelllets are carrying pellets in, cleaning out the stove, etc.

Note there is also a problem if you want to go away a week or two in the winter.
How do you heat the house then?

There are forums devoted to pellet stoves. You might look at:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

PastTense said:


> When you compared price per BTU for propane vs pellet you forgot one thing: part of the BTUs are going up the chimney. They make propane stoves which are 93% or so efficient--they don't make pellet stoves this efficient. So you need to take the relative efficiencies into consideration.
> 
> I see the issue are primarily a money vs time tradeoff: propane is flipping a switch, pelllets are carrying pellets in, cleaning out the stove, etc.
> 
> ...


Hi,
I did allow for some difference in efficiency -- we have and efficient, condensing propane furnace now -- supposed to be 90% efficient.
Everything that I read indicated that the pellet stoves are also pretty efficient, but no 90%. Still, the pellet price for the pellets I saw at Costco was so much less that it would still save a lot.
It also seems like if the pellet stove in placed in the living area, you don't have the heat losses associated with the duct system.
But, it does not look like we will get anything done for this heating season.


We would still have the propane furnace for winter vacations.
I've actually been working on trying to get the house to the point where we can just let it go cold when we leave -- seems like a real waste to be using fuel to heat an unoccupied building.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/VacationHome/PipeFreeze.htm


Gary


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