What would heat my house the best?

Pellet stoves are space heaters, It'll heat your living room fine, but the rest of your house? Probably not so much.

You could augment the pellet stove with a ductless heat pump, they are very efficient and use less Kw than baseboard heat.

Does the 2900 sq ft include a basement? A pellet boiler or furnace would be an option but they are a larger price tag. Two pellet stove might work but that increases labour on hauling pellets, cleaning and maintaining.

ChrisWNY has a Farenheit Pellet Furnace that heats 2500 sq ft...

There are other factors to consider such as the cost and availability of electricity, oil, and natural gas. I have both an air source heat pump and pellet stove. One solution I'm considering is a geothermal system. It's a tough decision and one size does not fit all.

I'm thinking you would have a really warm upstairs, but keeping the heat on the main floor would be a pain because of the cathedral ceiling. If you decide on a pellet stove, I would think of it as supplemental heat (or at least go in thinking I would have to use electric heat too - just not nearly so much).

However, I don't have a cathedral ceiling - or nearly that much sq/footage, so my opinion isn't coming from relevant experience.

If its well insulated and you think the electric can heat it well enough, it would "just" be money. I'd look for solar installation incentive programs. Then maybe also a ductless if you need more in the cathederal ceiling area.

No.

Depends of your definition of a heated house though, and how cold you can stand it.

EDIT: On the thread title though, I would go ahead with a pellet stove for supplementing (assuming you have a good reasonably priced supply of pellets), along with a mini-split heat pump or two for what should be the rest of the load. They can also do a/c in the summer, if a/c would be a useful thing for you to have.

ejsechler said:

I am buying a new house and it is an all electric base board house. So i am instantly thinking $$$$ in heating cost for the winter. So my question in your opinion would heating my whole house with a pellet burner work? The house is fairly new (1997) It seems to be well insulated. The house is about 2900sqft. My question there is a insert already in place in the living room. I was thinking i would replace that with a pellet stove and i should be good. The layout of the house is a colonial style with cathedral ceilings about 30ft tall. There is a ceiling fan and the upstairs is open so you can look down onto the living room from the second floor. Do you think a pellet stove will heat the whole house? Also what type of stove do you recommend? I have included a pictures to show you what i am working with.

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It can be done, but will take some work to move the heat were you want it. I'm running a Harman P61 in a 3500 sq. ft. brick ranch, and unless it gets real cold and stays cold, ( single digits or below ) I don't need to turn the hair dryer (heat pump) on. Generally 68 or above for temps. Only used the backup heat twice last winter. Took me a year (plus the help of this forum) to figure it out. Some homes like Pellet heat and some don't. All depends on the ability to move the heat. Where are you in Ohio? There are wide temp swings in Ohio. What works in southern Ohio may not work in northern Ohio.

mid 60's should be doable with a big insert if it fits the opening,you would be much better off with something like a harman p68 freestanding on the existing hearth.

ejsechler, I'm in East Canton, Stark County now. Lived in Bedford for 46 yrs. I don't miss that snow belt one bit! My brother is up in Ashtabula County, just south of Interstate 90. He has been running an older Whitfield insert for about 13 yrs. Heats his old farm house pretty good. Does have oil as a backup. I agree with rich2500. A Harman P61 or a P68 would give you more heat than an insert, IMO. Easier to service also. I'm only familiar with a Harman, but there are other brands out there that will work just fine also.

I am doing a similar place here with my P68 easily. Only doing 2,350 SQ FT but I have high vaulted ceilings, tons of big windows and glass doors too. Don't think an additional 550 to 600 SQ FT would be an issue here with my 68 either. I have much more big glass than what I see in your photos. IMO you need the P68. Not because I have one but that will be the tool for the job. The down stairs will heat fine because that is where the hot stove is located and blowing out hot air via the distribution blower along with radiating heat. Your cooler rooms will be the farthest from the stove say back the upstairs hallway.

Here I never see more than an 8-10* difference in temps from my farthest bedroom up stairs down a hallway at the complete opposite end of the house on the very brutally coldest days of last winter and the room the P68 is located in. I do use my ceiling fans and a couple of cheap box fans. Electric heat sucks and costs an arm and a leg. It is OK for the mild cools and still won't break the bank then IF you have a new highly efficient system such as a mini split or central system. Heat pumps are simply not the answer for colder climates. At best a fully cranked and Cha-Chinging the checking account electric heat system offers luke warm water shower temps at best. Let's be real here. I'll be brutally honest with no unicorns and rainbows fluff.

After installing the P68 here that is all I use now and I have several options for heat from a high dollar Carrier high efficiency heat pump with all new duct work etc; (That sucks too for heating while it is cold) to an outdoor wood boiler which is great and produces a bunch of really hot heat except for the endless slave labor to keep chucking oodles of wood at the hungry beast. I am over that as well.

My go to is the 68 hands down. I originally bought it to save some wood hassle and heat with as long as I could until the brutal cold set in. Much to my surprise the P68 not only did that but easily heated everything I wanted to throughout the nastiest of colds for extended periods here. Every place and results may vary so keep that in mind. Can you post a sketch, drawing, or describe your 2,900 SQ FT? Just from looking at the pics already posted I think you have a really good shot at what you want to accomplish. What is pellet pricing per ton around you? I think it is similar to here from what I have seen. This is another consideration because IMHO many people here on the forum pay too much for their pellets. Yeah, I'm picking on you North Easterners. One plus with a Harman is they can slum it with the pellet quality and get all ghetto without issues if they do not get their diabetic designer pellets which also cost an arm and two legs. There is a point of diminishing returns on everything.

As for your chimney.... What is in there now? If it is a zero clearance you may not be able to use existing flue etc; I would consider a direct vent straight out the back thru the fire box or close by. This I say for several reasons. One, there is less venting pipe and fittings to buy which keeps costs down considerably. It is simple to do and install. And much easier to clean and brush out ash as needed. Keep it simple and install an OAK. People arguing against installing an OAK Outside Air Kit are also lost and really can not grasp how air movement and heating and cooling really work either. I don't care who i tick off with that statement. Kinda like uneducated hill billies arguing about the colors of trucks. The red one is more powerful,,,,, "well because it is red and that's why."............ They miss the whole shebang because it is a very black and white color issue. Drive that red truck until it is on fire and keep filling up that big tank on that 8 MPG puppy is all I can say.

I replied to your junky harman thread as well and then saw this one so some questions I had were answered here. Again, PM me. This home you have is a prime candidate for the P68. I have a similar open timber frame type place here. I would steer you away from an insert and the main reason is so you can get the most umph from your stove. The P series not only throw massive amounts of heat with the distribution blower but also offer a lot of radiant heat from the stove itself. This can not be compared to any insert of any brand. Simple fact. There are some inserts that will heat quite a bit but they will not compete with a P68 in your situation.

For starters the largest harman insert is 52K BTU's. The P68 offers 68K and the P61 weighs in at 61K. So the 68 offers 16K more and that means a lot along with the radiant heat it throws. A plus is that you can throttle it down and still heat during the milder cool snaps (shoulder season) when say highs are in the 50's-60's etc;

Heating and cooling anyplace is all about moving air. Bottom line. I do not think you would have many issues if any doing that. Most people that have problems heating with wood stoves or pellet stove "space" heaters have somewhat compartmentalized structures or problems getting the air to move. A bunch of walls and doorways create issues. So does putting one in a basement with one door at the top of the stairs. Your layout is very different that those scenarios.

I did something similar to what you're suggesting. My fireplace is an insert with a class A double wall wood chimney inside a drywall chase covered with fake rock. I ran a 4" Stainless liner up the chimney and capped it off on the top. It's been working perfectly for 3 years. When I clean it there is hardly anything in it. No need for a leaf blower or anything like that just a quick sweep with a 4" brush on a drill. Cost was about 350.00 for the whole chimney liner, top, tee and connection to the stove.
Ron

Pictured is a P61A ..
1000 SQ Down and 1000SQ Up.
straight across the room is steps to the upstairs...
at top of steps is a ceiling fan set to turn clockwise at the lowest speed.
once the air flow get's going, the upstairs stays a steady 68 degrees all winter give or take for Super windy nights providing the stove is running 24/7
downstairs stays approx 74 degrees with my stove distributer fan Only on Half speed. [Don't want to try and see if the walls downstairs will melt]
If a Harman P68 is overkill for me [which it is], should be perfect for the Original Poster..

ejsechler said:

Do you have a picture of what this looks like?

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It's my avatar picture. I blocked off the hearth opening with a removable metal panel, built a self supporting stove base on the hearth, secured it and set the stove as shown. Did the whole install in a couple of hours after I pre built the base.

Nice base Ron !

alternativeheat said:

Nice base Ron !

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Thanks. I had some left over Granite tile from another job and that worked fine for the top. Made the sides from some left over birch plywood from another project. The only thing I had to buy was the black paint.
Ron

At least the OP's house is pretty open concept, that's favorable. My concern is the cubic feet needed to heat not sq ft. Obviously it's going to be key to push air down with that high a ceiling arrangement. I imagine trying fans in both normal and counter rotation will be tried. I've found ( we have three ceiling fans here) that at the top of the stair well we need to push down, course it's a pretty closed stairway and the fan is over a landing with a 90 deg turn then up 3 more steps to an upstairs hallway. But in outer rooms on the main floor we run in reverse which pushes air up to the ceiling and down the outside walls in both cases. That works better than no fans or standard rotation by some degree but not like that upper stairwell fan does. I'm guessing if we reversed that stairwell fan we would bake in our bed at night. But having that fan push down helps distribute downstairs air out those outer rooms.

I think in the open concept with really high cathedral ceiling I would run the fans in reverse to start and try and push the trapped air up there out to the walls and down. I would start there but it's going to be quite a task IMO. it would help with multi fans I imagine. I worked in a shop with 25 ft ceilings and have two fans per side of the building really made a huge difference in the comfort of the place and cycle times of the heaters in there, I mean really significant. To try and heat that shop on single digit days the heat ran literally all day long trying to make 67 deg. With the fans running it cycled on and off all day long up to the setting of 68 where we kept it at normally. That was with two 90,000btu gas heaters. It was a shop not a house, open doors , heat it all over again LOL. But the fans were hugely effective in that case.

No way

Get a pellet stove as a supplement and install geothermal. Do it fast before the tax incentive goes away. I have had geothermal for 4 years. I heat a 2500 square foot house for $800 a year in WNY.

How much did the geothermal install cost?

maple1 said:

How much did the geothermal install cost?

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Less than having two Harman Pellet stoves installed, after the tax rebate. It could be as cheap as one Harman if your house has a good electrical service and room to dig.