Pellet stove electricity costs

Your manual should tell you something about energy usage.

My Mt. Vernon draws 5A on startup and 1.25A when running.

According to some posts I read on here, it's going to cost me $20/month or so to run it. I'll take that over my $550+ electric bill that I had for last January because my heat pumps were running balls out because it was so cold.

All depends on your electric rate. I looked up your stove and the name plate has an electric rating of 120volt, 3 amps. Multiply 120 by 3 and you get 360 watts. If you run it 24 hours a day for 30 days that would be 259,200 watt hours. Electric companies charge by the kilowatt hour plus any additional service fees. 259,200 watt hours divided by 1000 equals 259.2 kilowatt hours. If your price per kilowatt hour was 11 cents that would give you $28.51 per month plus additional fees that electric companies charge. Your stoves normal operating wattage is probably lower than the rating on the nameplate. And my calculation is based on running the stove 24 hours a day basically on full blast. Your bottom line will probably be lower than 259.2 kw hours a month.

John97 said:

Your manual should tell you something about energy usage.

My Mt. Vernon draws 5A on startup and 1.25A when running.

According to some posts I read on here, it's going to cost me $20/month or so to run it. I'll take that over my $550+ electric bill that I had for last January because my heat pumps were running balls out because it was so cold.

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Amen to that!!

Max Gearhead said:

Just wondering how much of an increase I'll see in my electric bill now that I have my pellet stove up and running. Can anyone shed some light on this as I don't want to be taking an ambulance ride to the hospital after getting and reading my next month's electric bill. :gulp:

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Not much..while running somewhere between 80 and 150 watts depending on convection fan. Startup can be around 400 but that is for a short time.

Try having electric heat...I don't care what it cost to runs the stove, it's cheaper!

My electric bill stayed the same when I switched to heating with the pellet stove. I assume the oil burner ate up a similar amount of juice. I guess it will all depend on what it is replacing for usage.

From a customer.

Harman Accentra 40,000 BTU Pellet Stove
AC Power Consumption as measured with P3 Kill-A-Watt power meter

Phase

1. Lifttoff – Ignitor ON, Combustion motor ON - 370 Watts.
2. Normal Operation
a. Ignitor OFF, Combustion motor ON, Room Distribution motor on HI – 140 Watts
b. Ignitor OFF, Combustion motor ON, Room Distribution motor on LO – 120 Watts
3. Cooldown
a. Ignitor OFF, Combustion motor ON, Room Distribution motor OFF (Room Distribution motor indicator light ON) – 56 Watts
b. Ignitor OFF, Combustion motor ON, Room Distribution motor OFF (Room Distribution motor indicator light OFF) – 47 Watts

I had bought one of these devices a few years ago to monitor appliances electricity usage. Haven't hooked it up to the stove yet. It works well.

P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor

I also use the Kill A Watt to find out local usage of appliances that are 110 volt. Unfortunately, you can't measure usage for 220 volt things like dryers, heat pumps, stoves, etc. For that I went one step further and got this > http://www.theenergydetective.com/ This hooks directly to your mains coming into your house and shows you exactly what your total usage is. It has its problems but once you put in ALL of the mystery rates and add-on fees from your wonderful electric company, it has been within a dollar or two of my actual bill for the last 6 months. It really shows you where you are wasting electricity and makes you very conscious of leaving those halogen lights on around the family room and turning on the hot water spigot but never waiting for the hot water! Grrrrrr. All that does is kick on the 5000 watt heater for 5 minutes or more.

Jack22 said:

All depends on your electric rate. I looked up your stove and the name plate has an electric rating of 120volt, 3 amps. Multiply 120 by 3 and you get 360 watts. If you run it 24 hours a day for 30 days that would be 259,200 watt hours. Electric companies charge by the kilowatt hour plus any additional service fees. 259,200 watt hours divided by 1000 equals 259.2 kilowatt hours. If your price per kilowatt hour was 11 cents that would give you $28.51 per month plus additional fees that electric companies charge. Your stoves normal operating wattage is probably lower than the rating on the nameplate. And my calculation is based on running the stove 24 hours a day basically on full blast. Your bottom line will probably be lower than 259.2 kw hours a month.

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Your math is a little bit off. The power company's meter calculates wattage by the amps being used times 230 volts.

Also, the name plate rating is not the actual continueous load amps being used.

superchips said:

Jack22 said:

All depends on your electric rate. I looked up your stove and the name plate has an electric rating of 120volt, 3 amps. Multiply 120 by 3 and you get 360 watts. If you run it 24 hours a day for 30 days that would be 259,200 watt hours. Electric companies charge by the kilowatt hour plus any additional service fees. 259,200 watt hours divided by 1000 equals 259.2 kilowatt hours. If your price per kilowatt hour was 11 cents that would give you $28.51 per month plus additional fees that electric companies charge. Your stoves normal operating wattage is probably lower than the rating on the nameplate. And my calculation is based on running the stove 24 hours a day basically on full blast. Your bottom line will probably be lower than 259.2 kw hours a month.

Click to expand...

Your math is a little bit off. The power company's meter calculates wattage by the amps being used times 230 volts.

Also, the name plate rating is not the actual continueous load amps being used.

Click to expand...

Yea, the Kill a Watt gives you a very accurate reading of usage over how ever long you let it connected.

Easy way to know if you're going to be shocked by your electric bill is to go out and do a meter reading yourself. Subtract the number you're showing now from what is on your utility bill (assuming the reading is on there) and multiply by your electric rate (usage, supply and other charges per kW). I did this when we started running an electric space heater in the house to figure out that our usage went from 20 to 30 kW per day in Dec and and at $0.13 per kWh our bill will thus go up by about $40 per month.. Just takes a few minutes. I also took the wife outside to show her how fast the meter spins when the clothes dryer is on but she still wants to wash my jeans after every time I wear them.

about $20 per month for me.

Echo the previous comments. The electricity you're paying for a pellet stove to run is very minimal. $20/mo sounds about right to me. Not running your heat pump or baseboard electric or oil or gas (whatever you're supplementing) will save you far more money than the tiny amount of electricity the pellet stove is costing you.

Max Gearhead said:

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that running it won't break the bank. :coolsmile:

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My Winter electric bill dropped about 15.00 a month when I stopped using my York high efficiency LP furnace and started using my P43 pellet stove. I was really happy with that!

Huh?, my Whit is using l60-80 watt's, auger coming on jumps it to 80 watt's, a friggin light bulb!!, pennies per month!

All I know is my electric bill goes way down in the winter.As an average of $58.00-$63.00 a month--not Scientific but I'II take the savings.PLUS with the heat pump I freeze my a$$ off,with the Harman I'm toasty...

Last year electric bills were between $500 - $600 per month (2 electric heat pumps) This year with 100% pellet stove bills are between $175 - $225 per month. Maybe the electric company will come out and replace my meter soon wondering why its not working properly

I was shocked when I did a comparison to last years usage of electric. Then I was heating with fuel oil
and now 100% pellet.
Well me usage is less than 1/2 of what last years was and I keep it going 24/7 and like it WARM(85* in stove room, 72*bedroom,70 kitchen,
68*-70*bathroom).

15-20

$6

Energy Charge Cents Per Kwh 8.971¢

WOW 8.97 cents / kw - I pay 18.5 cents in Massachusetts

lecomte38 said:

WOW 8.97 cents / kw - I pay 18.5 cents in Massachusetts

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15.5 cents here in SW NH. Our electric bill is pretty consist at around $100 per month, summer and winter. It goes up a bit in August when we need to run the AC window unit. I have not noticed any major increase in the monthly bill when running the pellet stove 24/7. It's not much different then forgetting to turn the lights of in a closet for a day.