Which will I benefit more of?

depends of the price of the comparative fuels donut? insulate the attic with cellulose, blown, easy dyi

You will benefit most from attic insulation since warm air rises...

Eeps24 said:

blown in with fiberglass. the pellet stove is more expenisive...but lets put cost of installing for both to the side..... which in general is better to keep the house warm?

Click to expand...

cover fglass with cellulose which settles & minimizes airwash/heatloss of fglass

If you insulate first, you will save money heating even if you don't put in a stove later on. The insulation will also help with you a/c costs as well. If you put the stove in first, you will only save money when you are using the stove.

Improving the thermal efficiency of your heating/cooling envelope is usually the best place to put your money if you simply want to lower your heating/cooling bills. I doubt anyone here can tell you for sure if your attic will give you the best ROI. An energy audit will tell you that.

After that, upgrading your heating to lower cost is an area to look at.

Unless you are above R-50 you will always get more bang from your buck with insulation.

Other things to consider:

Doors and windows, while replacing these will get you better insulation values of your home, unless they are single glazed I would look at sealing what you have for air infiltration. You can find new seals for must windows out there.

Draft elimination are usually the biggest return on investment even in some newer homes.

Look at even you light switches and plugs on outside walls.

Insulation between the main floor and unfinished basements can also be a huge help with elimination Cold floors which caused my wife to turn up the heat.

For the price of a good pellet appliance you can do a bunch of smaller projects that are all rebate applicable and will save you in the long run.

Then when you are done with that and you want to change out your heat source your home will be ready.

Remember you pump in heat to your home. It doesn't matter what source you use, if you reduce how fast it leaves you will save.

Rick

I live in northern alberta, I have 3 feet of blown in insulation up there.... Pretty sure most houses around here do as well... it cold in the winter...brrrrr.


With that said.... I'd still get the stove if I had less. If your gonna get a pellet stove anyways, your cost comparison would be the insulation vs the extra bags of pellets you'd burn. Pellets maybe cheaper...

I do not know about that pellets and stove being less than insulation.

I personally blew in an extra 8/10 inches of the pink stuff at what R-2 per inch.

Added in the soffet vening materials and 4 hours of my time total cost was $350. Covered 800 sq feet of attic.

That is fairly cheap, I got that back in 3 months of heating season never mind cooling season.

All a pellet stove does is changes your source of BTUs from ga, oil, electric, woodstove to pellets. The savings is just the difference in your source of energy. You still need to have the appliance to convert the source to heat.

You may even find as some on here have that a pellet stove can not keep up with the heat loss of you home.