Pellet Boiler

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Flem

Member
Dec 12, 2009
131
Western MD
Gents,
I'm currently running a pellet stove in a house with a pretty open floor plan with two stories. Also burn about 300 gallons of oil a year for mainly the upstairs and domestic hot water. My house has hot water baseboard with an oil burner. Would it make sense to replace my 8 year-old oil burner with a pellet boiler? I would also use it to heat my domestic water. Right now I tend to keep the upstairs and basement pretty cool to avoid the cost of oil. I'm thinking I could keep all levels of the house warmer with a pellet boiler as it should be cheaper to heat with than my oil burner. I'm hesistant to use it for domestic water heating though. I don't want to be without hot water because I have a problem with my pellet boiler. More confident in the reliability of my oil burner I guess. Thoughts?
 
I wouldn't use the pellet boiler to replace your current oiil boiler. The oil burner can be used as a backup to your pellet boiler should something happen to it.
 
I agree with Labrat. Keep the oil as a backup. When we do pellet boiler installs, we just install em in series with the existing boiler. Because the boilers we use can run on a "pilot" or very low setting, we've had a few folks keep their pellet boilers running all summer to heat the domestic HW. How many square feet is the home? How many tons do you go thru currently?
 
How effecient are Pellet Boilers? My father in law was looking for something to put in his basement next to the current oil furnace. I know that some people do basement installs with regular pellet stoves, but I'm not sure his layout would work that well for that.
 
Have you thought about maybe getting another pellet stove instead of the boiler? I run two stoves at opposite ends of the house and it works like a charm. If you do get a boiler, I would not recommend replacing the oil burner, but instead placing the pellet boiler in line with the oil burner. You will still be able to use the pellet boiler as your primary and the oil burner will be the secondary back up just in case the pellet boiler runs out of fuel or you have an issue.
 
I am not aware of any pellet stove that claims much more than 80% efficiency.
 
The efficiency depends on the brand. The highest I have seen is the Harman Hydroflex 60 which is marked at 92% efficient. If you were to put a large pellet stove in the basement, is the spot you have picked out a finished or unfinished part of the basement. If it is unfinished then you may have some difficulty heating the area you want to heat.
 
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