Why Do I Have A Pellet Stove ?

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www_godzilla

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Oct 24, 2008
196
Portland,Maine
That's a good question. Judging by most peoples posts,it's got to be because of the cost to heat their homes. Honestly for me that's second. I orginally got my Quadrafire Sante Fe because I wanted to burn wood and have a fire in my house. I can't put a wood stove in my home because of too many corners and the configuration of the rooms. So for years I was bummed because I couldn't burn wood and sit by the fire on a long cold New England day. I am a mailman for the US Postal Service. I work outside all the time. So it was important for me to have something.
I saw an article on TV about pellet stoves 3 years ago. They showed how easy it was to own one. Plus the ability to put it in a corner of a room without worrying about the heat on the edges. 3 days later I was delivering mail to Finest Hearth in Portland. I asked them if they had wood pellet stoves. They did,they showed me a demostration of one working. I was so impressed I ordered my stove....Now I can say it's probably one of the best investments Ive ever made. I save a ton of money and I now can sit by my fire. My wife and I sit in here more than anywhere in the house. It has made life so much better for me....What about you ? Why do you have a pellet stove ?
 
If I were to continue burning propane, I would go bankrupt. 2000 dollars a year is way to much to pay to heat my 1400 sq ft home. 3 tons of pellets cost me under a thousand and my wallet finally has some relief.
 
I grew up with my dad burner wood, so when me and-the wife remodeled the house I said lets get a wood burner and save $ also be a lot warmer. well my dad said don't U remember splitting all that wood, stacking it all summer long, also you got the bugs that come out of the wood. Why don't you get a pellet stove, all you got to do is dump a bag of pellets( that look like rabbit food) in once a day, you just don't have the mess and hassle like with a wood stove. 4 yr later we love ours and would not turn back. we love our $50 a month NG bill in the winter.
 
I LOVE the savings.... But I definitely spend more time with My Stoves... Than I do with my Wife.... My reasoning is I single handedly heat my home without a Furnace and a gas man. I get the fuel, lift every single bag (sometimes 3 times before reaching hopper), keep it clean, do the maintenance, and make sure the house is at a temperature, that is much more comfortable than the LP furnace could ever keep.. Pride in knowing me and my Family are warm because of my own 2 hands. Watching the fire is a bonus. We burn wood in our fireplace in the coldest of months. (normally 2 cords a year)
 
Like you, I first wanted a stove for the atmosphere. So I planned for one in my new house - it is a Quad 3100 woodstove, and it is fairly close to the walls - most of the heat comes off the front.

As it turned out, I couldn't find a company to give me a reasonable price for installing an oil-fired, baseboard heating system in my new house. So, I decided to go with the woodstove as my primary until I got sick of it. That lasted 5 years, until I planned to live out of state. So I put in a propane forced air furnace.

When I am at home, which is back to full time, I heat with wood. It turned into an economic thing. Like the second poster, it would cost me $2000 or more to heat a 1400 sq ft house. I live in the woods, so wood is plentiful. Many years I get my wood for the labor, which admittedly can be extensive. Sorry to lurk, but I thought the similarities outweighed the form factor in our fuel. My next stove will be a pellet.
 
Basicaly to save money and not have to buy oil. Back a few years ago when oil spiked to over $5 a gallon, my wife and I got a wood stove to help offset the cost of the oil. It actually turned out that even with buying the wood stove, lining the chimney with 6" rigid SS and buying 4 cords of wood we still saved money over heating with just oil that season. We used the wood stove for a few seasons and it definitely reduced the amount of oil we used but the problem was with getting the heat out of the room the stove was in and this was the same room we use to watch TV and generally hang out in. I knew about pellet stoves but did not know much about them so I started to do some research in the fall of 2010. The more information I found, the more I liked the idea of the pellet stove and realized that it could probably heat our house much better without cooking us out of the room. Then I found Hearth.com and with the wealth of knowledge on this site, I was able to learn even more about the pellet stoves, fuel, installation, maintenance, etc.... I finally went to a couple of stove shops to look at them first hand and was able to choose a stove that fit our heating needs. Now that I have it installed and have burned about 3/4 of a ton, I'm wondering why I didn't do the pellet stove in the first place. We love it. It heats the entire house to a comfortable level and it is supper easy to use and clean compared to the wood stove. Since I have not burned a full season with the pellet stove, I'm guessing that I will need 6 tons of pellets for a full season (October 1 to April 1) so with the current price of oil, that's about a 40% saving over heating with oil. Nice!
 
If you asked me 3 years ago my answer would have been to save money. That was 2008 and I remember getting our "pre buy" price from the oil company. My early buy cost was $4.95/gal and it was going to cost almost $2600 just to heat my house and I still had to buy propane for hot water and appliances.

We bought the stove, had it installed and heated our house for just under $6k that year ($3800 for stove and install & $1200 for pellets). Since that time oil has continued it's volatile track and pellets have stayed around the same price. Now 3 years later I love the fact that heating my house is not dependent on what fool in the middle east or the white house and congress are rabble rousing and causing the price of oil to spike. Anybody notice that gas prices went up another 10% in the last week? I can still get a decent ton of pellets for $219 and "good" stuff for $250 or so, those prices are the same and in some cases lower than 3 years ago.
 
The OP burns a pellet stove to keep him calm. That way he doesnt storm Tokyo eat cars and take down power lines.
 
I got mine when oil went to $4.00 a gallon. Breakeven was 2 years. Year 3 started the profit. Also the great room that its in was impossible to heat with oil because of the cathedral ceiling, with the Pellet Stove, its toasty warm as is the rest of the house at 1/3 the cost.
 
My pellet stove was to heat my newly finished basement TV room. As oil went up, i started running it more and more to heat the rest of the house. Now, I run it anytime I can to keep my heating money here in the USA instead of OPEC :)
 
I'm doing everything i can one bit at a time to be self-reliant. I wanted a wood stove, but i'm busy (aka lazy) and don't have time to split/stack and on and on. At the time, I was also gone for most of the day (16 hours some cases) with a 1.5-2hour commute each way and long days. so, i needed it to run all day without me, and me not worry that my house is burning down. The electronics/safety shut downs of the pellet stove won me over.

Now that i work from home, I have more time and getting a wood stove for another area of the house is on my list, but not in my budget.

The pellet stove has reduced my fuel costs by 75% over oil. I was spending 500+ a month on oil before the stove and now i spend ~150 on pellets depending on the price per month. I still have my hot water on the oil boiler, so that too is something I'm looking into changing, but isn't in the budget right now.

My garden is going in soon. I have over 60 seed varieties in starter plots. I'm planning on a about 750 sq ft garden this year.

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I'm looking into zoning issues/regulations for getting some chickens.

I have a bug out bag ready to go after following this guide:
http://survivelikeme.com/gear/ultimate-bug-out-bag/

I'm expecting the end of the civilized world soon, and i plan to be ready for it. :)
 
Got my Quad CB122I for two reasons. The first was to save money. Over time I have become very close to the green stuff and like to keep as much of is I can. Giving a lot of it to the dead dinosaur dealer was becoming unpleasant. Figured that I could pay for the stove and install in 3 years. Managed to save it in just over two. Second reason is that the burning of pellets is carbon natural. Not as bad on the big blue planet that we share. Have burned over 10 tons thru the stove in the last threee winters and haven't been disappointed.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
briansol,

Look in the LORE database on backyard chickens. The information may be already dug up and links to the sources are usually provided.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=310268

According to that, i can have 12. But i'm not sure if I am covered in that. Half of my property is considered wetlands/watershed as i have a small brook within 25 feet of my property, and down hill. So any run off goes right into the river. I'm not even supposed to use fertilizers on my lawn.
 
briansol said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
briansol,

Look in the LORE database on backyard chickens. The information may be already dug up and links to the sources are usually provided.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=310268

According to that, i can have 12. But i'm not sure if I am covered in that. Half of my property is considered wetlands/watershed as i have a small brook within 25 feet of my property, and down hill. So any run off goes right into the river. I'm not even supposed to use fertilizers on my lawn.

Zoning and environmental laws are two different critters.

You need to look into the environmental laws, however I think you may find that if you have less than one unit of chickens (normally a large number well above 12) you'll have no trouble. You'll have to maintain any manure away from the brook, I can't speak to the required setback where you are but it isn't all that far. Hopefully your lot will big enough to fit things in.

I have a brook that runs through my property and have no issues with the environmental laws.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
briansol,

Look in the LORE database on backyard chickens. The information may be already dug up and links to the sources are usually provided.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=310268

We picked up a small dog house kit which made our coup and made a small fenced in pen. Just 2 birds give us more than enough eggs. We have Araucana's which lay most of there life, So we made them pets. They are the green egg layers. We get 7 to 8 eggs a week on average.
 

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That's awesome. My entire backyard is chain-link fenced in already so i have a natural border already. Would just need a house/coop setup for night time, and hope they don't fly away. lol

TSC sells baby chicks for like $5. I'm definitely going to do more research on the subject.

I want a goat for milk/cheese and an alpaca for fur/clothes.
The deep woods are a 10-min drive/hour walk away to get deer/game/etc if need be. And with the river, i have a fresh water source.
garden will take care of the rest.

I'm almost ready to survive the Apocalypse :D
 
I pulled my pellet stove out of storage when my electric bill was $400/month.
Couldn't be happier.

Regarding chickens, we have 400+. Another 125 coming on 4/21.
You can check us out here: http://mulkeytownfreshfarm.com/

My wife can give you the details etc, if you desire chicken tips. :)
 
I have mostly Golden Comets, they are a buff sex link bird, when they start laying at about 16 weeks, you'll find they almost average an egg a day.

I'm currently thinking about brooding some more, which is why I'm glad the bunkering operation is done. 16.8 ton in the garage.

Gee Jay, 7 or 8 eggs a week and my wifes customers would be sorely teed off.

ETA: I have a pellet stove because I wanted something other than just an oil drinker and to not have to worry about getting a delivery truck into the yard during the winter. Much warmer and cheaper.
 
On chickens - look for a weather hardy breed. Ours live in an unheated coop all winter, and it gets as low as 0º here often. As long as they're out of the wind, they're okay. There's nothing like your own eggs - they look and taste better than store-bought, and if you decide to sell them, can pick up a few extra dollars. Local eggs are going for $3/dozen around here.
And, if you let them wander about the yard, they are great at eating fleas and ticks, etc., and ours have dispatched two mice that we know of. Chickens can be pretty vicious, even with each other.
They are a great source of entertainment, too, since watching them is often amusing. They have individual personalities, and you soon figure them out.
And, free fertilizer!
 
Hello

Well for us it started in Aug 13,2008 when we got our oil fill up for the fall using 701.7 gallons of Oil that winter!!!

Date________ Gallons__Price Per Gal____Total
08-13-2008____208.5____$4.129______$860.90

So we insulated our attic floor of the split by ripping out the old R7 Corning Fiberglass Insulations (Paper faced)
Then nailing 2x2s to the 2x4s to make 2x6s.
Putting down r4 reflectix foil as a radiant barrier to keep heat in and r19 paper faced 6" fiberglass on top crisscrossed with r30 unfaced 9" fiberglass for a total of R53!

Then for very efficient heat, this is our story!
This year we bought only 138 gallons of oil last Sept. 30 for the entire winter, 6 months and here is why.

The Hearth Warming Story of the TRH Heaters !!!!
Keeping the house warm this past long freezing cold snowy winter!

Well our LP fireplace who we call Auntie Glow (SL-550-TRS-D 30,000 BTU Heat n Glow) warms us up in a pinch if I turn up her flame and the convection blower comes on. She is really warm if we lose power but that does not happen very much at all!!
Our 22 year old Uncle Villy (F75CW-55 155,000 BTU Valliant Oil Fired Boiler with Tankless Coil) kept us real warm and toastie till he sprung a leak one day last summer. God rest all of his cast iron sections in the scrap yard! (The junk man there gave me $137 dollars for his heavy 550 lb carcass and some old copper pipe & brass valves!! YO !!!) However We will still miss that green and white steel shell of his and big 6†450 Degree F hot smoke stack!
So now to really save money we have our new Asti (Avalon Astoria 45,000 BTU Wood Pellet Stove) and as an energy saving backup with the light blue steel shell we call BIG BOO (Buderus G115WS/4 110,000 BTU Oil Fired Boiler with Indirect Superstor-Ultra who we call MaxiSuper). MaxiSuper sure makes our bath water piping hot and we never run out!
Also it is good to have Cactus Quartz around in case we need him when someone is cold and sick (1500 Watt Dual Element Electric Portable with Convection Fan)
OOps, I almost forgot to mention STINKIE out in our garage. Our 23,000 BTU CV-2230 KeroHeat Convection - Portable Kerosene Heater.
So now we have Asti and only if needed Big Boo to keep us warm on a snowy below freezing cold winter’s night and then we turn on Auntie Glow in the morning with our coffee!!!
 

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The honest answer on why I have a pellet stove is that I wanted to save$, I was about to retire and needed to cut some cost. I got a cash out for unused leave which I used to buy the stove and the installation. The other benefits came along with it. It strengthened my commitment for some amount of independence. The fire from the stove is relaxing, and my wife is very happy with the house being warmer and not having me turning the thermostat down.

We had about 6 hens we bought all grown up. (35 years ago) they had something done to their beaks so they couldn't peck holes in each other. Very friendly. They would follow you around like a pet cat. I found I had to keep them in a pen with the top covered and the fence dug into ground at the edge. Raccoon would get into the pen and take off their heads. That was very upsetting to our young kids at the time. We have been thinking about having a few birds again, but only for the eggs. No meat birds. I remember the eggs we got were the best.
 
Where did the chicken talk come from ?? LOL
 
www_godzilla said:
Where did the chicken talk come from ?? LOL

We need some wood pellet-laying chickens!
I love the fresh eggs from our chickens, way better than store-bought.

On topic, keeping the owners warm and happy helps keep the chickens warm and happy, too. If the stoves weren't so expensive to buy and install, I'd put one in the chicken coop. Then, probably one of the hens would lay an egg on it, and my breakfast would be precooked! Win/win situation...
 
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