Boycott Wood Pellets this Year

TimfromMA said:

No more auto ignition, thermostat control, 20+ hours of even heat before needing to reload, ease of storage....

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A Blaze King and a match will get all that done, except replace your 20 hours with 30 - 40 hours.

you would have to be paying $300 a ton to equal the $2.39/gal (assuming delivered, and BTU of 8,700 for pellets). So you can boycott but it will cost you more money to do so.. Just some hard numbers and food for thought. Speaking of food, i'm hungry

TimfromMA said:

No more auto ignition, thermostat control, 20+ hours of even heat before needing to reload, ease of storage....

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yeah.. who wants to put up with all that convenience...

TimfromMA said:

No more auto ignition, thermostat control, 20+ hours of even heat before needing to reload, ease of storage....

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For me the ability to have heat and cooking in the event of a power outage outweigh conveniences.

TimfromMA said:

No more auto ignition, thermostat control, 20+ hours of even heat before needing to reload, ease of storage....

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My woodstove has a thermostat and can burn for 30 hours. Zero noise, no power needed, cheaper fuel, .....

There have been many woodstove vs. pellet threads. They're fun!

Highbeam said:

My woodstove has a thermostat and can burn for 30 hours. Zero noise, no power needed, cheaper fuel, .....

There have been many woodstove vs. pellet threads. They're fun!

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Yeah, well my pellet stove can beat up your woodstove any day.

Woodstove vs Pellet stove LIVE on PPV next Sat night.

The bigger the house, the more you can potentially save with a pellet stove, even if you heat with gas. Because with pellets, you can just keep your living space warm and not heat entire house, especially rooms you don't use. Of course, this take the kind of family that doesn't mind cold bedrooms. This difference in amount of space heated gets overlooked in all the fuel calculators and others who are just multiplying price times BTUs.

John Ackerly said:

Of course, this take the kind of family that doesn't mind cold bedrooms.

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John, you don't necessarily have to think about it like that. I keep the t'stats cycling the oil-fired boiler just as I would without the wood stoves, keeping all corners of the house comfortably warm, but every BTU I pump into the envelope of my house from wood is one less BTU I must extract from oil.

Is there anyone who switched from pellets to wood and were glad they did?

Propain here currently running at $1.29. They figure gas and fuel having peaked right now and going down at least into next spring providing someone does not start throwing ordinance etc or a hurricane disrupts oil refineries and imports.
We have a standing pilot propane stove for backup and several camping stoves to cook on if the power goes out and cant get a genny up and running.

John Ackerly said:

The bigger the house, the more you can potentially save with a pellet stove, even if you heat with gas. Because with pellets, you can just keep your living space warm and not heat entire house, especially rooms you don't use. Of course, this take the kind of family that doesn't mind cold bedrooms. This difference in amount of space heated gets overlooked in all the fuel calculators and others who are just multiplying price times BTUs.

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This assuming that the house does not have zoned heat. If you have zones, then your bedroom heat is not on when you/the family are/is downstairs in main living room/area. And when you are upstairs in bedrooms the main living room area does not need to be heated.

I am not against stoves. But this explanation does not apply to a lot of houses, especially big ones -- if a house is big enough, and new enough, there is a good chance that they also have zoned heat. What you are proposing above works with zoned heat as well.

For me pellets are good up to Dec 1 and then April 1, in between HHO, too many 40 lb bags in the dead of winter

TheOscarGuy said:

This assuming that the house does not have zoned heat. If you have zones, then your bedroom heat is not on when you/the family are/is downstairs in main living room/area. And when you are upstairs in bedrooms the main living room area does not need to be heated.

I am not against stoves. But this explanation does not apply to a lot of houses, especially big ones -- if a house is big enough, and new enough, there is a good chance that they also have zoned heat. What you are proposing above works with zoned heat as well.

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It's also assuming you're not married. I have ten zones... and my wife is known to turn nearly all of them up at the same time.

I usually burn w/e I can find the cheapest. The pellets i been running (orfords) shot up 60$, so i'll be buying more from lowes/tsc/depot this year (unless someone from Maine has a supplier my way...wink wink)

John Ackerly said:

The bigger the house, the more you can potentially save with a pellet stove, even if you heat with gas. Because with pellets, you can just keep your living space warm and not heat entire house, especially rooms you don't use. Of course, this take the kind of family that doesn't mind cold bedrooms. This difference in amount of space heated gets overlooked in all the fuel calculators and others who are just multiplying price times BTUs.

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Why buy a bigger house then if you cant afford to heat all of it? You could just live in your bedroom with a space heater then and save even more money.

TheOscarGuy said:

This assuming that the house does not have zoned heat. If you have zones, then your bedroom heat is not on when you/the family are/is downstairs in main living room/area. And when you are upstairs in bedrooms the main living room area does not need to be heated.

I am not against stoves. But this explanation does not apply to a lot of houses, especially big ones -- if a house is big enough, and new enough, there is a good chance that they also have zoned heat. What you are proposing above works with zoned heat as well.

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Heating systems are sized for all zones to be running or nearly all. If your only heating a fraction of your house your central heat is operating inefficiently its probably short cycling.

snocross1985 said:

Despite any possible price increase I will be burning pellets next season. My only other option is to turn on the electric baseboards. With electric rates around $0.19/kWh I shudder to think of what my heating cost would be.

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.0699 here, live free or die, there is screwin you over....you pay no tax but get (bleeped) other way's

Jesus, wish my elec was that [email protected] here

moey said:

Why buy a bigger house then if you cant afford to heat all of it? You could just live in your bedroom with a space heater then and save even more money.

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Don't mix up what one can afford, with their choices in how they spend their money. Some find fun in being frugal.

bogieb said:

Do whatever makes you happy. As a recent pellet stove convert (Jan 2013) I've never known cheaper pellets, so it makes no never-mind to me. Plus, I don't have an oil burner, so oil prices aren't a consideration.

I have done the math and pellets could go up to about $525/ton before I start paying more for pellets than for propane (using the lock-in price I was just offered last week). And at that, the basement wouldn't be heated so I would have electric heaters set up to keep pipes next to the garage from freezing.

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+1 on that and propane here is a bit cheaper. Of course I alternatively have corn to roast too.

20+ years ago when it wasn't 'mainstream' to heat with a pellet burner and I was 'that hippie farmer on the dirt road' that heated my house with weird looking stuff that smelled like wood and looked like some kind of cereal, pellets were around $125.00 a ton, howevere, there was no selection to speak of (I used Fiber Products in White Pigeon, Michigan) back then or Lignetics, those were my choices and I had to order them through a retail outlet well in advance, like in June for a September delivery.

I realize (because I subscribe to all the industry magazines( that there is a huge uptick in pellet production, with most of the product going to Europe to fuel their biomass power generation units, but those pellets aren't the same thing that you buy at your local retailer and they are sold in bulk, by the shipload, not skidded and bagged for residential use.

This old hippie has lost most of his hair but I'm still young at heart. I just like to sleep more now.....

It may be the first year in 30 years of burning wood then pellets that I may pass on burning pellets, might buy a few tons for the coldest days, last summer I was all set to switch to NG, had the latest 98% efficent Lennox furnace all set, called Yankee Gas, on there website says FREE hookup from street, well once I told them I live on a state road they changed there tune real fast and said due to thicker asphalt, special permit and police directing traffic it would cost $6k...F That!
I have a noisy 20 yr old forced air system now, I hate it because my bedroom is right above the furnace and the duct is the first on the tree and is very loud....WHOOOSH!!, Anyone here is into ductwork please contact me.

Mpodesta said:

I usually burn w/e I can find the cheapest. The pellets i been running (orfords) shot up 60$, so i'll be buying more from lowes/tsc/depot this year (unless someone from Maine has a supplier my way...wink wink)

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TimfromMA said:

Is there anyone who switched from pellets to wood and were glad they did?

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Call me partial and you'd be correct....but I had a "state of the art" pellet stove when I first moved to the NW. I bought it new and had it installed. It was great except cleaning and parts replacement. It did a satisfactory job of heating but my better half hated loading the bags into the hopper. (The melted plastic bags were proof of her inability to lift 40lbs over a hot surface...which I had to scrape off from time to time.)

Several years later I went to work for my current employer (now 18 years later), THERE IS NO WAY I WILL GO BACK....UNTIL I AM TOO OLD TO HANDLE CORD WOOD!

I do acknowledge there are many fine wood stoves out there that may have more maintenance or ash clearIng requirements and that would be important to take into consideration.

BUT NOT ALL WOOD STOVES ARE EQUAL. (Nor are all pellets stoves, I assume)