Heat Source for Seasonal Camp - Pellet Stove or Heat Pump?

I brought a older Whitfield Quest to camp last fall to help heat a 16x24 party tent. Kept things livable when the rain and temps went down to the lower forties. Simple and being used was cheap.

1Dawn said:

Will a pellet stove be able to operate in those temperatures?

Click to expand...

yup , requires electricity , but definitely .

we have a camp up in Limerick . where's about are you ?

Im a big fan of heat pumps but if your just there for short periods of time I would lean towards a pellet stove and probably 3-4 hydronic electric baseboards. If you dont put in the baseboard Murphy's law will takeover and youll get there some weekend and freeze your ass off because the pellet stove is not working.

1Dawn said:

We have a seasonal camp and are looking for a heat source (it is currently unheated & we want to extend the time we can use the camp). We are considering either a ductless heat pump or a pellet stove. It is about 800 square feet of space, with most of the space in the great room. Which system will be able to heat the camp quickly when we are there and when temperatures are below freezing outdoors (and probably indoors)? We would not keep the camp heated, just heat it up when we are there. Recommendations? Will a pellet stove be able to operate in those temperatures? Thanks for your input!

Click to expand...

Heating a camp part time to me is crying wood stove actually. Very easy to heat 800 sq ft with any style stove though. The Pellet stove requires scheduled maintenance, a radiant only wood stove less so but more routine fillings. With pellets you need to store pellets someplace dry. With wood you stack some wood under a tarp keeping an air space.

The camps we go to in Maine use propane wall heaters and or stoves. One we stay in has a propane living room stove with ceramic wafers in it and it heats the cabin very very well which is not an insulated winter unit. Fall gets cold up there but they shut this cabin down over the mid winter. Actually we are staying in that cabin next week, can't wait to go ! I would consider propane for seasonal heating if I owned a cabin. It's expensive fuel but available and easy. For weekend stays or even a week at a time, who cares, it's not that expensive.

I have the luxury of having both in my seasonal home that is about 1100 sf. I often find that the heat pump (ductless mini split w/A/C) does the job quicker than the pellet stove. I use both but never at the same time unless it's the dead of winter and I walk in to 25 degrees.

Depending on how cold it is , it could be cheaper to use the heat pump on warmer days and both on cold days...the one I am looking at is the LG LS240hsv3 as it is the only heat pump that can output 18000 BTU on a -20C day and 27000 btu on a 8C day for a 2kw input only.

Fwiw. you can double the noted btu of a mini split, in terms of real feel. the better choice would be the mini split with a wood stove. You would then have AC as well and heat without power. We use our mini split all year around and would be lost (and broke) without it......

wsar10 said:

Fwiw. you can double the noted btu of a mini split, in terms of real feel. the better choice would be the mini split with a wood stove. You would then have AC as well and heat without power. We use our mini split all year around and would be lost (and broke) without it......

Click to expand...

I agree here you need to have both, never have only one source of heat............

I am curious as to why you are not considering a woodstove....I would have thought you'd have lots of fuel available at a camp??

I would use the heat pump with a wifi T stat. LG is the only unit that offers a dry contact so you can use a generic wifi T stat.

Well I like the new Wiseway cause it's 42,000 btu output super fast start and warm up , radiant simple to operate , will never let you down. Bummer it does need a vertical chimney of sorts

I'm still crunching heat pump data, I will tell you which LG model is the best for output vs power input vs temp.

I would think you want to go with a wood stove that does not depend on electricity. Falling tree limbs have a higher probability of an electric outage for camps. Pellets stoves can be expensive.

This wood stove is under $400 but may cost another $600 for the the stove pipe.

I would also go the woodstove route. Or, if you have gas at the area, get a big propane tank and use it for cooking and heat