Do you guys believe this story?

I just grazed the article its hard to understand math words I like graphs.

I will say this though. If you are only running a boiler/furnace for very short runs they are very inefficient. Think supplemental heat. Same goes for making hot water the load is too small if your not running your heat so its very inefficient. I used to curse at my wife when she would say she just wanted the upstairs a little bit warmer and would turn on the heat it would run for 8 minutes and shut off. Probably at about 30% efficiency for that run time.

johnnh said:

I don't know... I just can't see how one wouldn't save money, but what do I know. I know I have saved money.

http://www.courant.com/news/data/hc-is-a-woodburning-stove-worth-it-20140424,0,6278924.htmlstory

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Dud article because he has some things going on not calculated in. He is heating the downstairs with oil basically. And now with pellets he admits keeping the house much warmer. How much would it cost in oil alone to keep the house that warm I wonder ? He didn't say. He hit one thing dead on, it's nice to cozy up to that nice warm stove if that's the type you buy ! But ya, if your heat is cranking to keep your house at say 68 deg and you decide you want it to be 73 or 74, then compare oil prices. It goes up drastically when it's near 0F outside compared to say 34F or 40F.

I know that I didn't save anything this past winter over the winter before. Much colder this past winter, the stove went in late and we didn't buy the pellets right. But even so we would not have ever kept the house at 74 when it was +5F outside with oil alone, never. Secondly, this winter would have busted the budget on oil alone and then some. We burned some coal before the pellet stove went in too. But that first part of winter still did a number on the heating budget already, then we added pellet purchases to that. Next winter will be a better gauge for us. NOW watch oil prices come crashing down and warm winters return !

Yes, he repeated made comments that they are keeping the house much warmer and through an extremely harsh winter than they usually have in the past. His kids also has repeatedly left the thermostat on high.

It is a pretty opinionated piece but in reality that person probably isn't saving any money and that is a fact, but there are specific reasons why.

My first year investment for wood stove, chimney, install, chain saw, and other misc equipment was 4500$.

First delivery of wood was 5 cords log length at 600$ (or 120 a full cord). I have 1 cord left over.

My house is electric baseboard heating only. The year before it cost ~400$ a month to keep 2100sq feet at 62-64 and that wasn't even this bitterly cold winter we just had. I can easily factor 450-500$ monthly for 6 months to have kept our house this year from being frigid and unlivable.

I just ordered 11 cords log length at 104$ a cord. This will be ~3 years worth of wood.

I have calculated the cost. Our electric bill is about 100$ a month for hot water and electricity. So heating alone in winter costs about 350$ a month (450-100). @104$ average a cord and 4-5 cords burned a winter it is 520/6 month heating year or 86$ a month. Subtract the average savings of electric heat versus wood = 350-86 = 264$ savings. Divide that by the initial investment of 4500 and it will take 17 heating months to pay for the investment or just about 3 years. After that it is all gravy.

Thats MY story. I don't have any other heat besides electric baseboard. The wood stove even in -25 degree weather was able to keep my house above 65 degrees whereas baseboard heat couldn't do that the winter before in 10+ degree weather.

But sometimes and for some folks the numbers don't add up and they feel cheated.

I think he "over thunk" his numbers,which he did not provide.Also thinks stove is efficient because it only uses a bag a day.Anybody else see a problem with that statement?I waste pellets,run house much warmer when stove is on.When on propane I never run temp above 64,and that is only for a short time in am.Even with this waste my stove has saved me a fortune over the last 15 or so years.

In some cases this maybe close to the truth. Calculating the amount of fuel that you didn't consume is tricky and only an approximate number at best.
Degree days are a guide, if you have a windy conditions and extreme cold such as we had last year in this area then the numbers won't work for a fair comparison.
Also his number of $800 for 3 ton of pellets seems a bit on the high side since the stove was installed several years ago when pellets were a lot less expensive.

So in a word... Nope, just creative journalism.

Im just mad he is calling a pellet stove "wood burning" I think we have all hit the nail on the head> I can keep my house at 62-64 with oil and not break the bank, but at 70- 72 the burn rate of oil is off the charts especially when the temp gets to below 10. I went through 450- 550 gallons of oil a winter keeping the house at 64. Last winter ..a cold winter my first floor never got below 70. the second floor with no heat on was at 63-64, but I have pipes in my crawl spaces so I have to run it. I used 250 gallons of oil, and the stove was not installed until December 22nd.

Af first glance I only cut my heat by 250-300 gallons, however my house wan not an icebox, and my Property looks alot better minus the dead trees. The x- factor in this is how warm you keep your house.

Its like the argument of if a hybrid car can save you money, it all comes down to how many miles you drive a year, and how long you keep the car.

And the Hartford Courant is a dishrag...lol i live outside of Hartford I could say that.

Enzo's Dad said:

Im just mad he is calling a pellet stove "wood burning" I think we have all hit the nail on the head> I can keep my house at 62-64 with oil and not break the bank, but at 70- 72 the burn rate of oil is off the charts especially when the temp gets to below 10. I went through 450- 550 gallons of oil a winter keeping the house at 64. Last winter ..a cold winter my first floor never got below 70. the second floor with no heat on was at 63-64, but I have pipes in my crawl spaces so I have to run it. I used 250 gallons of oil, and the stove was not installed until December 22nd.

Af first glance I only cut my heat by 250-300 gallons, however my house wan not an icebox, and my Property looks alot better minus the dead trees. The x- factor in this is how warm you keep your house.

Its like the argument of if a hybrid car can save you money, it all comes down to how many miles you drive a year, and how long you keep the car.

And the Hartford Courant is a dishrag...lol i live outside of Hartford I could say that.

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I think you covered it well.Every house has what I call a break point in heating.My little cabin is bad once it is -25 or colder,I don't even try to get it above 63-65.Which is why I have plans of removing 2 windows and adding a stove upstairs in living room.It's that age thing again!Also wind can kill almost any house heating,esp. with lots of windows.Even top of the line windows are holes to shovel money out.

That is possibly one of the greatest articles I have read in a long time. I don't burn pellets but... I heard there was a shortage and price gouging this past winter, perhaps the author of this article wanted to secure a steady supply of pellets for next winter by misinforming people that maybe on the fence with changing or finding a new heating solution. I burn wood and I definitely know I save $$$

bob bare said:

I think you covered it well.Every house has what I call a break point in heating.My little cabin is bad once it is -25 or colder,I don't even try to get it above 63-65.Which is why I have plans of removing 2 windows and adding a stove upstairs in living room.It's that age thing again!Also wind can kill almost any house heating,esp. with lots of windows.Even top of the line windows are holes to shovel money out.

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Absolutely and this winter past we had 40mph north winds blowing against the front of our house and the heat did not trip on for our side of the house with the pellet stove in. The tenants heat came on of course but he keeps it pretty low over there and it's only 500 sq ft of modern construction.. In our case I couldn't wait to get the stove in because the oil was killing us here through Dec and most of Jan. I think it was the third week in Jan the stove went in and the oil never came on except on stove cleaning days from then on all winter. The P61 does the whole 1800sq ft of not so tight construction. It will only get better from here as we tighten up ( still have 3 windows out of 18 that are not insulated new windows, the draft on each side of the fireplace, non insulated downstairs floors above the basement that need attention. Oh and no OAK yet).

And so, that's why I say we didn't save over last year ( a mild winter last year 2012-2013 winter) but imagine what it could have cost if we burned oil all winter this past winter. Around Christmas I lit up the old coal stove but had no convection blower, it took the curse off at keeping the house at 68 with a run here and there of the oil burner but the pellet stove with convection blower kept it at 73-74 with no oil heat running. Pretty happy with the P61 !

Pellets are quite a bit more expensive than cord wood)at about $26 per 1 Million BTUs at $300 a ton as stated in the article However most folks are paying only $200 per ton so that would be around $17 per 1M BTUS.
His oil is costing him somewhere north of $30 Per 1m BTUS so he is indeed saving money which is probably going back into the fuel that keeps his house much warmer than he used to keep it (according to his description)

First year with our pellet stove and we could not be happier. Wife says over and over how great the thing is and how we have never had such a warm house. We burned wood as a supplement, most of the last 21 years but the house was never as consistently warm as this past winter. Pellets beat burning wood easily, IMHO, Clean, easy to stack and just hit a button to start. ... Thanks to the pellet stove ,we only run the boiler for hot water and to exercise it on the coldest days, so were burning about 400 gallons a year. Today placed an order for 3- 60 bag pallets of Lacretes. Taking it up a notch. from what we burned last winter. .Crossing fingers anyways

I think we all see the bias displayed- no big surprise from that paper. I live in a house that has electric baseboard heating that I love, in 20 years I've never used it, being a wood burner with pellet supplementing, my electric bill is low in the winter. I just wished I could burn pellets and wood in the summer to supply my air conditioning and run my pool filter, so my electric bill wouldn't be so high..... I hope this guy sells his pellet stove to someone who "would be happy to save on his heating" and let himself be happy paying "no more for oil" than before he had his pellet stove installed. Some people....

1500.00 a year in oil and forced to keep your house at 65-66 degrees or,
1500.00 year in pellets to keep your house much warmer at 73-74 or higher?
Most would still go for the pellets to be warmer I think..

I believe in his case hes not really saving any money, but i also believe that is entirely his fault. Sounds like he has the stove in the wrong place, causing himself and his family to still burn too much oil to heat the other parts of the house that are too far from it. like downstairs. I'm also willing to bet he doesnt run his stove 24/7. Running it all the time works a lot better for me than turning it off and on all the time. It is more efficient to keep it on a low setting without turning off. My stove does great keeping the whole house up to temp, but actually does a bad job of playing "catch up". If i left it off say while i was at work, that would be a heating disaster by the time i got home. I'd have to run it on 9 for many hours to warm the house again, using more than if i had just left it on 2 or 3.
Sometimes this happens and I will use the stove + my backup kerosene heater to help with the catch up. If this guy spent as much time fine tuning his setup and educating his out of control family as he did with his calculator - he would save himself some money.
He said every day he had to lug 1 40 lbs bag to his stove. That tells you right there the stove isnt running 24/7 and hes only turning it on when hes around or the other family members feel like it.
I have no problem with his story, since he is proving pellets are not for everyone - and they arent. Reading the story can only convince someone who shouldnt be using pellets anyway not to try them. Its the people like us that will read the story and know better. Less people using pellets = more pellets for us! I also like this guy because people like him provide us with a great source of cheap used originally expensive pellet stoves. :-D

Dr.Faustus said:

I believe in his case hes not really saving any money, but i also believe that is entirely his fault. Sounds like he has the stove in the wrong place, causing himself and his family to still burn too much oil to heat the other parts of the house that are too far from it. like downstairs. I'm also willing to bet he doesnt run his stove 24/7. Running it all the time works a lot better for me than turning it off and on all the time. It is more efficient to keep it on a low setting without turning off. My stove does great keeping the whole house up to temp, but actually does a bad job of playing "catch up". If i left it off say while i was at work, that would be a heating disaster by the time i got home. I'd have to run it on 9 for many hours to warm the house again, using more than if i had just left it on 2 or 3.
Sometimes this happens and I will use the stove + my backup kerosene heater to help with the catch up. If this guy spent as much time fine tuning his setup and educating his out of control family as he did with his calculator - he would save himself some money.
He said every day he had to lug 1 40 lbs bag to his stove. That tells you right there the stove isnt running 24/7 and hes only turning it on when hes around or the other family members feel like it.
I have no problem with his story, since he is proving pellets are not for everyone - and they arent. Reading the story can only convince someone who shouldn't be using pellets anyway not to try them. Its the people like us that will read the story and know better. Less people using pellets = more pellets for us! I also like this guy because people like him provide us with a great source of cheap used originally expensive pellet stoves. :-D

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I would also add that split level houses are hard to find just the right spot to place a single stove. One of the first things I thought of in reading the article. But ya the single 40 lb bag is a big clue, I didn't get into that till the end of April or so. I do like you , burn 24/7 and in the cold weather it's in manual at what ever burn level it need to hold temp when I'm out of the house. Other times of the year I like auto ( P61a).

He had 36 oil fills in 8 years, that is 4.5 Oil tank fills per year. That is way too much oil if he is really using pellets the way he should! We have 2 oil fills per year at the very most!
Why is he still buying so much oil?

Good thing the idiot does not have a wood stove,he would really be complaining!

He is indeed saving money. He is comparing expenses at 2 different temperatures. If he kept that higher household temperature on 100% oil he would spend even more.

Seasoned Oak said:

He is indeed saving money. He is comparing expenses at 2 different temperatures. If he kept that higher household on 100% oil he would spend even more.

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As I posted before,
using oil we kept the temps at mid 60's and wore heavier clothes to keep oil bill below 2,000.00 yr. [above 70 would have used more in not well insulated structure here.]
now with pellets we can keep it at 74 degrees with 4 tons pellets. Heating cost= under 1,000.00 yr.

Seasoned Oak said:

Pellets are quite a bit more expensive than cord wood)at about $26 per 1 Million BTUs at $300 a ton as stated in the article However most folks are paying only $200 per ton so that would be around $17 per 1M BTUS.
His oil is costing him somewhere north of $30 Per 1m BTUS so he is indeed saving money which is probably going back into the fuel that keeps his house much warmer than he used to keep it (according to his description)

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Ultimately, I think that is the way you have to look at it. $ per BTU x efficiency of the appliance. The picture gets clouded when you start going through heating degree days, trying to figure based on past bills, now much heat you used or didn't use, etc. One other thing which shouldn't be underestimated is the amount of energy heating water... especially the difference between summer and winter. My gas usage nearly doubles summer to winter... just on the difference of heating the relatively warm tap water of summer vs the colder tap water of winter.

In my opinion a lot of this boils down to running your boiler to supplement. If your not running a heating unit full out its very inefficient.

If anyone is interested in the math.. It costs approx 3% more for each degree warmer.
So if you heat an extra 4 degrees warmer like I do then that would add 12% onto my heating bill !

Arti said:

If anyone is interested in the math.. It costs approx 3% more for each degree warmer.
So if you heat an extra 4 degrees warmer like I do then that would add 12% onto my heating bill !

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My house would cost 15% more at that rate but last winter was not only colder than average but we had pelting N and NW winds at 35 and 40 MPH a lot, and 3 NE blizzards with sustained winds of 35-40mph, with wind gusts up to 50-55 in two and 60mph in one of them. It was just one nasty winter that I bet cost an extra 10% in heating over average in itself. It went long too, I bet we were into 1-2 extra oil deliveries last winter that did not occur with the P61 in place. In fact we had one less deliver than a normal winter and we started burning late in the season . We skipped the Feb-early March delivery we would have gotten if not using the stove and filled up in April, to which it is still full ! We will go into next heating season with a basically full tank of oil, very pleased with that ( usually it sits around the 3/8 mark till Sept or Oct)..

The article was biased towards failure for what ever reason. The author couldn't have done any more to make it fail, short of leaving all the doors and windows open ! Considering he needs child proof controls on his heating system the open door thing isn't such a stretch at that. As I said earlier splits are hard to heat with a single stove but you surely won't do it from the top floor. Heat will not travel down the stairs to the lower floor. The info in the article is absurd.

alternativeheat said:

As I said earlier splits are hard to heat with a single stove but you surely won't do it from the top floor. Heat will not travel down the stairs to the lower floor. The info in the article is absurd.

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I agree. I would have that stove on the first floor. It would be cheaper to supplement a few cold rooms at the farthest point on the second floor than the whole downstairs. I heat 3 floors from the basement with a single stove and no xtra heat need on the 3rd floor.