GenghisJon said:
It is good that your installation defies the laws of thermodynamics but this won't work for most people. Heat distribution is an important part of designing a heating system for a home and without a distribution system, a one-room house will be somewhat even and it goes down hill as you add walls and floors.
I burned wood as my sole heat source for 11 years so I have experience with single point heating. My installation a grate cut in the floor and a plenum over the stove to feed it through an 8-inch duct.
When I installed a forced hot water system, it was very noticeable that when you walked into the rooms furthest from the stove that you felt heat coming towards you (from the baseboards) instead of cool air from the windows. This house was a new super-insulated cape so the cold was not due to the windows leaking. My point being that the heat didn’t transfer evenly through out the entire house.
I am not trying to start an argument here but it is important for people thinking about making the switch to realize that you don't get the same heating characteristics when changing from a distributed system to a single point system. You also can’t switch from 1000 gallons of heating oil to 3 tons of pellets and keep your house at the same temperature.
Do the math. 3 tons is 150 bags. 150 x 2.5 gallons per bag is 375 gallons. The BTU’s just aren’t there. It will take 400 bags or 8 tons to get roughly the same amount of heat as 1000 gallons of oil.
Before making the switch, people need to understand there will be trade offs to save that money.
ï‚· Your heat will be coming from one point in the house. If you put the stove in the living room and your house is not an open concept design, the temperatures will drop as you move into the rooms further and further away from the stove. Even with an open concept design, you will have bedrooms and bathrooms separated by walls that impede air flow.
ï‚· You will be cleaning the stove at least once per week.
ï‚· There will be dust from pouring the pellets so if the stove is in your living room, be prepared to dust more often. There will be dust from the ashes as well, especially if you need to stir the burn pot daily.
ï‚· You will need to move tons of pellets at least once to get them into the house and more if you move them into the basement in the off season and to the stove during the heating season.
Don’t get me wrong, you can save money but you will give up something. I live in a different house now use my pellet stove to put heat in my 28 x 28 drive under garage that is converted into a workshop. Some of the heat makes it way up to the living area. I have a warm shop and save around 300 gallons of heating oil per year. Not free because I burned 3 tons of pellets.
