Multiple Pellet Stoves

... and double your number of "can't find pellets for sale," posts every March? Come over to the dark side: cord wood.

Lots of us burning multiple wood stoves in the Hearth Room.

Multiple stoves for when the polar vortex comes and multifuel. Corn here is around $150 ton after yesterdays market close. May have to top off the gravity box this spring to be ahead of the pellet transport shortage.

Or really get with it and come over to the "darker" side....coal and save a ton and be so warm you will be opening your windows in January and only need one stove..

There's a guy in here that runs three stoves in his house. I am sure he is salavating at the opportunity to chime in.

vgrund said:

I'm not signing up to handle coal. My wife would kill me. Plus there is the climate guilt.

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What does your wife object to? Affordable warmth, clean burning fuel?? And what "climate guilt"?? Its a well known "fact" that "anthracite coal" burns as clean as natural gas. Way more pollutants with wood and pellets. You could look at my stack 24/7 and see absolutely nothing coming out of it. The only time you see smoke coming out of my chimney is the one time in the fall when I start a wood fire to get the coal going.

And believe it or not pellets themselves are dirtier in the home than bagged coal. Bagged coal is pre washed. No dust/dirt in my house. Had pellet stove a long time ago and the dust from dumping them in was unreal
You could "write your name" in the dust on the tables if you didn't stay on top of it. LOL

I too been looking at getting a 2nd stove for upstairs, nothing to big.

I also been toying with the idea of converting our steam boiler over to a pellet boiler (cost about the same as setting up a new stove) - this most likely be my choice, I love the warmth of steam system when its running

vgrund said:

I'm seriously thinking of adding a second Mont Vernon AE to heat my large house. It has a somewhat sprawling "extended cape" layout, 3600 sq ft. The current stove is placed in an area where we spend a lot of time but that location is on one of the house, which makes it hard to heat the other end. The first stove made a major dent in our heating bill since 2009 but I'm still burning LP to heat part of the house. Anyway, the goal here would be to reduce LP burning as much as possible. I'm certain a second stove would help balance the heat and allow me to run both stoves at a lower setting versus one stove pushing medium-high or high all of the time trying to force convection to far ends of the house. Are there other owners of multiple pellet stoves on this forum or am I the only nutcase?

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Before considering a 2nd pellet stove, could you replace the LP furnace/boiler with a pellet furnace/boiler? Then you could remove your other pellet stove as well.

Yup yup

Drooooooooooooooooooling.

First off, Li'll O'l meeeeee is of the fair sex, sorry, no guy here.

We do indeed run three stoves.

We run two Whitfields, one large, one small and feed them a diet of nut shells.

We heat a 2400 ft ranch style home.

The third stove is a Quadrafire 1000 of 1993 vintage. It gets pellets only as the auger will not deliver the shells to the drop tube.

We keep the Quad stoked and ready to go, and the stat set about 65 F and if we are in real cold weather, or need to leave for the weekend ??? the Quad can keep the house comfy.

Been doing the pellet stove thing since 1992 and am a firm believer in the more is better idea, well at least to a point.

Size your second stove so it can handle the extended area of the house, and or if the worst case scenario pops up, your main fails, you can get by while repairs are effected.

We swap stoves out during cold weather cleanings, by keeping one running and giving the other time to cool out well.

More stove = "MORE GOODER" HAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ms Snowy

When it comes to DUST ARRRRRGH
The shells we burn leave a fine gray ash, and it gets on everything.

Buttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt, with our entire heating cost for the season averaging about $100 I am not gonna whine about a spot of dust.

The nut shells are a waste product that has to be disposed of, and I only have to drive about 5 miles to get it.

WE use a 3 yard dumpster to haul it, and use about 2-1/2 loads per season, with the balance stored to start the fall with.

We have been doing this since 92, and this was the reason we got into the pellet stove thing in the first place.

Had a 1300 ft house in town, and could heat it for $65 per season.

There are solutions besides pellets, and fossil fuels.

Biomass fuels are plentiful and most are renewable products, such as the shells that come every year.

It takes us a total of 3 days to do the labor of getting, handling and storing, and this is for the entire season.

Usually we pick a day that's going to have good weather, then before breakfast we go get the shells.
once home we drag out all the storage barrels, load them and get them back inside.

Takes 4-6 hours total to complete this.

Not at all bad.

Then every 5 gallon pail full must be screened through a screen bottom bucket to assure no sticks etc.

We pack up 3-4 pails full a day during cold weather.

All in a days work.

Look a biomass, it can be a savings.

We have used standard 3" pellet vent and never had any issues.

We heat totally with the nut burners, as the house has electric heat.

Electric is like burning $100 bills in the fireplace

One could use the corn vent I suppose, but we have just used the regular stuff.

We run two pellet stoves and two wood stoves. Haven't touched a drop of oil in three years. Wouldn't have it any other way!

I especially like having several sources of fuel: pellets, corn, nut shells (have not tried yet!), and wood. I can almost always find something to burn without too much stress!

Now your talking.

We have thought about adding a wood stove to the troop, just have not done it yet.

Snowy that's awesome! Never saw the nut shells around my area.

Polar Bear said:

There's a guy in here that runs three stoves in his house. I am sure he is salavating at the opportunity to chime in.

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That's BrowningBAR, coincidentally local to me. He's working hard at sealing up his drafty old farm house, hoping to get back down to two stoves by next year. I think he works mostly from home, which probably helps with keeping three stoves going.

Counting the chimneys, it appears my place was set up with five or six stoves, for most of its history. Can't imagine feeding five old non-EPA stoves, but when it's your only option...

We live in the North end of the Willamette valley (25 MILES south of Portland Oregon) which is the heart of Hazelnut country.

There are many processing plants in the area, and they all have to get rid of the shell waste.

The shells are washed and dried prior to cracking, and once the shell is off its very nice for burning.

There is also a smattering of broken nut meats that come through as well, and this adds some BTU as well.

Most any nut shells are great fuel

Hazelnut, Walnut and many others.
As long as the stuff is broken up well it feeds dandy through the auger system on most stoves.

The harman bottom feeders do real well with it.

Snowy

We run 2 stoves most of the winter. The Harman is run on low for about 15 hours a day and the Quad Mt Vernon is run on the lowest speed 24/7. We use about 3 bags a day. Works well for us.

The problem with coal, at least in my eyes is what takes place to get it out of the ground. Conditions are not good and never have been. How many lives are lost each year?

Yeah.
Coal mining is a nasty business.

We bring the shells up in 5 gallon pails after screening, and they weigh about 22 pounds per pail.

The little stove will use a pail a day and the big stove will use slightly more.

The stoves are both set on the lowest setting which is about a pound per hour. (that was pellet rating)

Bkins said:

The problem with coal, at least in my eyes is what takes place to get it out of the ground. Conditions are not good and never have been. How many lives are lost each year?

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I see you're in NJ. Where's your electric come from?

Jersey Central Power & Light. Are you having power issues?