How many people use their pellet stove to heat their entire house....honestly?

Heating the top two levels of our 1,650' cape with our pellet stove as well, oil for hot water and finished basement only. Bought three tons to start the year and in January I was afraid that I would run out during a cold stretch, but the temps have been unseasonably warm here in central Maine, 30's-40's days and 20's-30's at night, been hardly burning a 4-5 bags per week, heating us of the house a few times running on medium- 78 degrees is too hot! Stove has been on high only a few times all season, unlike last winter.

I use my pellet stove to heat my 1400 sq ft ranch.

Unlike the last 2 burn seasons, i don't run my stove after going to bed no matter how cold it/was . I run my furnace, after leaving it on 62 all night, put it up to 70 when i get up, usually 'bout 6 , turn on the stove & 10-15 minutes later, shut the furnace off. Works great that way & i have 3 + tons still left . What a difference Muss

1250 sq ft first floor Farm House.
House stays in a range of 70-78 day and night depending on the tempurature outside.

Heating 1940 square feet at the location & with the stove in my signature. Furnace blower only running for air circulation.
Ran the heat pump for 47 hours this year, because I didn't understand the pressure switch action on a Whitfield.
That won't happen again. We are on bag 98 of the 100 we bought for this year.
The house has never been below 75 and we've shut 'er down twice when it got to 84 at the lowest setting.

This is Illinois, not the northeast, so yes we heat the whole house. Last year I had 2 months of electric bills that
were > $400. This year I have not exceeded $200.

Ask me if I like it !!

I have a Quad Castile and heat about 1100 sqft. The only time the furnace came on was when I left the house without filling the hopper and that was only once. Looks like 4 tons of pellets but the stove has been on sense September. I do have one 10" fan installed in a wall to push air to the other end of the house. Keeps it a toasty 75 in the living room kitchen bathroom and 68 in the bed room.

I run a Whitfield Advantage II-T Insert, I heat a 1800 sq ft single level home, I use about 3 ton from Oct to March. Mostly on heat setting 1 or 2. At 1 temp is 68 to 70, at 2 temp 70 to 72. It all matters what the outside temp is.

I have just over 1400 sg ft split level and only use my USSC 6039 to heat the whole house. I have no basement, just a crawl space under the living room and kitchen. Down in the family room where the pellet sove is the thermostat usually reads around 78, and I would say that the upstairs is around 72, but don't have a thermometer up there to be sure. The stove has 9 heat setting and during the day if it is above 30 outside I usually turn the stove down to around setting 3, or above 35 I'll put the stove down to 1 or 2 and often just turn it off for quite a few hours. At night I usually put the stove on 8 lately because it has been getting down to around 15-25 outside and when I wake up the thermostat reads around 75. I almost always put the stove on higher at night because I have three daughters all under 5 years old, and a new born. I'd rather them wake up warm than cold.

So far this year I have used just under three tons. The pellet stove does an excellent job keeping our house warm. The house was built in 1978, and still has the original insulation so I think it could be better insulated.

hopefully you can figure out your problems and get that stove heating your whole house! It should be able to do the job!


Jacob

We heat an 800 sq ft small ranch solely with a Quad Castile. House has baseboard electric but a $3000 winter had that stove paid for real fast! Average use of 3.5 tons of pellets per season. R-38 in the attic. Spray foam insulation under the house in the crawl space. Priceless!
Runs on top speed on temps in the mid-teens or less and uses about a bag a day. Now that we are back in the mid-20's at night and mid-30's in the day, runs on the middle speed setting using about a half bag a day.

Just love telling family and friends that we heat for the whole winter for less than $900. Every year, we are tweaking the house to upgrade insulation and plug drafts in the sixty year old "mansion" and I think we can do next year's winter on less than three tons.....

Main source of heat is my St. Croix EXL... Propane stove has used 74 gallons since 7/09. Baseboards have been locked out since 2002. Wood stove is run only when shutting down the EXL for cleanings and when temps are in the low 20's... used 3 tons of pellets and about 1/2 cord of wood this season..... EXL is in the basement, cut in 2 natural draft registers between the joists in the main floor and hung 9" bracket fans below the registers on bungy's to force the heat up from the basement, have a 20" fan hanging in the stairwell to the basement to assist in returning the air to the basement... works well, plus it keeps the basement dry, no more dampness or musty smell down there. 60" ceiling fan hanging in the overhead to recirc the warm air in the main living area...think I have this heating thing licked.

PV

I heat my 2,200 sq ft house with my new mount vernon. The house is well insulated and a open floor plan. This stove will maintain 72 - 74 with ease.

Quadra-Fire Sante Fe in my basement. 1300 square feet on both both levels.... Stove heats the whole house easy. Its been a mild winter here in Northern Alberta, but we had a cold snap of -50 Celcius and the furnace didnt kick on once. Stove runs on medium.

My Quad Santa Fe has heated my 1,100 sq.ft. ranch house in Vermont the past two winters with no problem. The house in usually 72 to 75 degrees even in the coldest weather we have seen. I only turn on the oil heat once a week for an hour or so to exercise the furnace.

Turbo-Quad said:

I'm curious if anyone actually heats their whole house with a 60.000 btu pellet stove. The guy I bought this Quad Mt Vernon (non AE) from told me it would be too much stove for my 1200 sq ft house. I have half the house shut off and have to run this stove wide open to keep it at 70. I did the cleaning...yes tore it apart and cleaned. I admit the house it a block greystone house that is only insulated in the ceiling so I'm sure that has alot to do with it. From they way the seller talke I thought I would be able to run this on low and burn less pellets to heat my little house. Turns out I'm blazing on high the whole time I'm home. So are you really heating the entire house or do you shut off parts of your house and cozy up to the pellet stove running wide open to stay comfy? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head arouns a 2500 squre foot home being heated entirely by one of these stoves. Maybe I just have a lemon. The stove seems to be functioning fine although a bit noisy.

Click to expand...

I agree with the other posters that it is probably lack of insulation. I heat an enitre (not closed off) 2800 sq ft house to 70 degrees uniformly, whiile it is 10 degrees outside with a 70,000 btu pellet stove, on the fourth setting (5 is highest). If you had wall insulation, I would think a 40,000 btu stove would have done you nicely.
My many humble thanks to the people and information on this site which is invaluable to me accomplishing this.

I've got a Harmon Accentra in my basement and it does a really good job for my two story house. I put small doorway fans in the corners of the doorways to move air from room to room and it works pretty well for a low tech and cheap solution.

My home is 3400 square feet and if the outside temp is 30 degrees or higher, then my stove can heat the entire home. 20-30 degrees and it does the downstairs fine but upstairs furnace kicks on once in a while but infrequent. Under 20 and things get tough for the stove,. Can't complain as I only have to fill my propane tank twice a year and most of it is used by water heater.

I have a 2600 sf split level home (1/3 over a basement, 2/3 over insulated crawl space) in Canada. Typical weather in December to February will see temps drop to -30 to -40 range for a few weeks and average 70 to 80 heating degree days for most of the 3 month period. I burn an average of 2.4 bags a day during this period. Some days I put in 3 some days only 2. I have a Harman PF100 forced air pellet furnace. This is probably on the extreme end of heating use from all the posts I have read on these forums. It's still cheaper than oil (about half what I was paying). My pellet prices average 225 to 275 a ton and I lay in 7 tons for heating from Oct 1 to May.

We have a colonial that is about 2200 sq feet and we have an englander stove that is supposed to heat 1500 sq feet. The main room that it is in we have to keep the stove on 1and 1 and the temp in that room is usually about 74 the rest of the downstairs stays at about 68 to 70 and the upstairs can range from 65 to 70. I love our stove and think if we had a bigger one it would blow us out of the house. I love our pellet stove. For reg heat we have forced hot water and I leave that system turned off. only if it may get really cold out will I turn it on.

Erin

1600 sft townhouse condo heated solely with a Harmen Accentra insert.
74 degrees in the living room...69 in the upstairs bedroom...
Only complaint is the typical dry air...but I love being warm...

We heat our newer 1800 sf colonial with a Harmon XXV completely. I turned the oil on once, when the floors were a little cold. 70 degrees, no fans, 2.5 tons this winter.
Cheap Heats!

Turbo-Quad said:

I'm curious if anyone actually heats their whole house with a 60.000 btu pellet stove. The guy I bought this Quad Mt Vernon (non AE) from told me it would be too much stove for my 1200 sq ft house. I have half the house shut off and have to run this stove wide open to keep it at 70. I did the cleaning...yes tore it apart and cleaned. I admit the house it a block greystone house that is only insulated in the ceiling so I'm sure that has alot to do with it. From they way the seller talke I thought I would be able to run this on low and burn less pellets to heat my little house. Turns out I'm blazing on high the whole time I'm home. So are you really heating the entire house or do you shut off parts of your house and cozy up to the pellet stove running wide open to stay comfy? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head arouns a 2500 squre foot home being heated entirely by one of these stoves. Maybe I just have a lemon. The stove seems to be functioning fine although a bit noisy.

Click to expand...

I ran a thread last winter describing problems I was having with my Mt Vernon insert. To make a long story short, we have a 2-story 2400 sf colonial. We put up a curtain across the stairway to keep the upstairs cold (we like to snuggle), figuring that we would save on pellets that way. For half the season, we couldn't even heat the Living Room, to say anything about the whole downstairs. The repair dude suggested taking down the curtain, his theory being that the cold air leaking around the curtain and coming down the stairs was offsetting the heat from the stove. Turns out he was right! This season, with all bedrooms open upstairs, the stove has heated the whole house until the temp outside gets close to zero.

We heat a 2400 SqFt triple wide manufactured home that sits on a daylight basement.

The basement has a 1000 ft apartment but has its own pellet stove.

We have 3 pellet stoves upstairs. One Whitfield advantage in the family room, a Whitfield Prodigy in the Living room (one corner) and a Quadrafire 1000 in an opposite corner of the living room.

This is a Ranch style house that has Zero hallways (very open)
We use a variable combination of the stoves to keep the place warm depending on the outside temp.

Some days the little (very tiny) Prodigy is all thats needed to keep the house quite cozy.
Other days the Advantage running on 1or 2 setting will be used and if its nasty, cold and windy too I will run the Prodigy and the Advantage on a low setting to keep the temp even throughout the house.

The Quad is normally set to come on at below 65F and we use it if we can't be home to tend the others or in case it really gets Blistering arse cold (teens or below)

We burn Hazelnut shells in the two Whitfields and Pellets in the Quad.

We have never used the Electric heat in the house as it is just stupid expensive to turn that thing on.

Snowy

I am heating a 2000 sq ft house with a 48000 BTU Harman Accentra. I didn't run my heat pump at all. It heats my 1st floor to 72 and the 2nd floor to 65-69. I have to use space heaters in the basement as the heat doesn't travel down there.

I've got a 200+ year old farmhouse that's almost 3000 square feet on the Quebec border in No.Vermont. It's been insulated and new windows and doors. Very open floorplan with central atrium to bring heat upstairs. I heat it most days with a Harman P68 and usually burn about 7-8 tons a year. This year I burned only 6 tons due to the warmer and much shorter winter we had up here. On very cold days; ie well below zero, I sometime have to turn on the oil hot air furnace but for the most part, pellets heat my home.

I do. 68-72 throughout the house all winter except for a couple of far reaching rooms that stay at 64 or so when it's cold. I have an 8 year old 1900 SqFt single story house in Maine.
My old stove (POS Glowboy) wouldn't keep up when it got cold out ( below 10F ). My Rika has no problem. I've burned 62 gallons of heating oil since last September. 4 tons of pellets.