Why did you switch to pellets?

Hello

I had a VC consolidated DutchWest Federal Design Wood/Coal stove that could not heat my whole house. So I switched to a Travis Ind. Avalon Astoria wood pellet stove. This does heat my whole house and very consistant heat! It takes only 3 hours to go to the store and get my 3 tons of heat for the whole season!! I luv it!

I'm not familiar with either stove but a good cleaning finished up with the leafblower trick will often make a finicky stove work like new again...

I bought my first stove to help with heating costs. My NG bills in Jan/Feb were about $350.00/mo.... my total seasonal bill was around $1200.00... at 65F. Now I keep the wife and MIL toasty warm at 74F or better for the cost of 2 1/2 tons of pellets.

I'm also going to have pellet heat in my shop... can't wait.

I switched to a pellet stove in my garage to hopefully avoid the $200-250 additional per month on my electric bill after installing a 5000w ceiling mounted electric heater.

We just started with pellets this year, at a total cost of about $5300, including purchase of the stove, pipe, the install, an ash vac and most all the pellets we think we will need to buy for the year. Deduct from that a $300 Fed income tax credit and some state tax credit as well (got to figure that one out) and I figure we are at about $4900 and probably a bit lower because a tax credit is worth lots more than a deduction, depending on your bracket.

Last year, which was cheaper for oil heat than they predict this year to be, I spent $4800 for oil, service contact and one uncovered repair. Granted my (beloved) mother in law was living with us all winter and therefore I had to heat higher and for more hours per day, but I figure this year will end up about the same with the projected oil price hikes.

More than that, I can not stand the uncertainty of the oil truck pulling up and never knowing how many gallons he would unload and at what price.

So I moved to pellets to save what I expect to be a lot of $$ in the long haul. Even if my numbers are off, I still expect to burn no more than 3 1/2 to 4 tons of pellets a year to heat my small house. Haven't turned on the oil burner for heat yet and do not expect to - although for the time being we still use it for DHW. It was a no brainer.

So far we are very very happy with the choice.

(1) Hated dealing with the constant rising price of HHO.
(2) Love that I can store multiple tons of pellets, can only hold 250 gallons of oil at a time.
(3) I like not being dependent on a foreign country for my heating needs.
(4) Love the look of the stove and a fire.
(5) I can keep the house in the mid 70s and not worry about the cost.

Bank, I am with you all the way. You articulated a bunch of reasons that applied to us as well, beyond just the cost factor.

I was a full time wood burner before going to pellets. Primary reason was a newborn in the house and we thought steady heat would be better for the child compared to the constent up/down cycle of the wood stove.

Second was didn't need 3 seasons of fuel stacked outside as most of the wood sellers in our area think 1 season is enough to properly season wood.

Third was the work involved with wood. Mostly the stacking and also the constent mess involved. Not to mention dropping splits on the toes!

krooser said:

I'm not familiar with either stove but a good cleaning finished up with the leafblower trick will often make a finicky stove work like new again...

I bought my first stove to help with heating costs. My NG bills in Jan/Feb were about $350.00/mo.... my total seasonal bill was around $1200.00... at 65F. Now I keep the wife and MIL toasty warm at 74F or better for the cost of 2 1/2 tons of pellets.

I'm also going to have pellet heat in my shop... can't wait.

Click to expand...

I have NG too. But, using the fuel price calculator I found that it was cheaper to heat with NG. Price per million BTU for pellets at $200/ton is about $17 assuming 70% efficiency. Price per million BTU for NG at $1.07/therm is $13 assuming 80% efficient furnace. But, of course, it is SO FUN to burn pellets. Also, it is nice to be able to heat the downstairs nice and toasty 76F. If I did that with the furnace, the whole house would have to be 76F which would dramatically increase my NG bill. So, I pay for pellets AND NG. But, the wife loves the warmth, so it's worth it.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/editreply/992389/

Edit: Maybe in retrospect, I should have gone with an efficient NG fireplace. Dunno? You never know what will happen with pricing...once they get most people on NG, they will probably start hiking up the prices. So, it is nice to have multiple forms of heating fuel so that I'm not locked in one way or the other. If pellets get outrageous, I'll just run my furnace.

RKS130 said:

Bank, I am with you all the way. You articulated a bunch of reasons that applied to us as well, beyond just the cost factor.

Click to expand...

I'm on my 4th your with this stove, and my only regret is not using one in my other house I lived in for 15 years prior!

Long live the PELLET

It's a no brainer: 1300 gallons of oil @ $4.00 per = $5200 OR 6 tons of pellets @ $200 per = $1200.

Tom C.

jonwright said:

j-takeman said:

I was a full time wood burner before going to pellets. Primary reason was a newborn in the house and we thought steady heat would be better for the child compared to the constent up/down cycle of the wood stove.

Second was didn't need 3 seasons of fuel stacked outside as most of the wood sellers in our area think 1 season is enough to properly season wood.

Third was the work involved with wood. Mostly the stacking and also the constent mess involved. Not to mention dropping splits on the toes!

Click to expand...

That makes sense - I'm already burning wood, so I get that part of it. My real question is pellets vs. cord wood.

The FPX takes 24" + size logs, the little Tribute 12". So I have two wood piles, and also have to fiddle with the Tribute a lot. Wondering if I shouldn't get a pellet stove in the next year or two but wondering if the complexity of the stove itself is a trade off with stacking wood. I'm looking to LOWER my time spent on maintenance/work for heat.

Click to expand...

My first pellet stove wasn't big enough to do sole heating duty. So I kept the wood eater to assist in the cold season. You could do the same? Having the stat sure makes things steady heat wise.

There is still maintenance/work on the pellet stove. A multifuel unit is more forgiving and allows longer time between cleanings. Plus they eat a wide variety of pellets with no being picky.

I am glad we kept the wood eater in the family. It just got us through 5 days without power. I'll give her a good cleaning this weekend and tuck her in for the next time we need to religh on her for heating duties. Another reason to keep at least one wood eater install is they run without power. Forgot about the wood heat feel, Haven't seen the wifey walk around in shorts for a long time in the fall/winter. Like we spent a week in Florida! :lol:

jonwright said:

I'm looking to LOWER my time spent on maintenance/work for heat.

Click to expand...

i realize i'm very new to the pellet stove thing. and i'm not saying my stove is better than others.

but it is exceptionally easy to clean. and it has fewer and less complicated electronics than many out there.
it has fewer features and is less adjustable compared to other stoves i read about.

but it does have dependable proven parts inside, a low price. and with a thermostat, i am very happy with how i can regulate my heat throughout the house.
the firebox is roomy and makes cleaning the fire pot a breeze. it's still rated at >75% efficiency at minimum. even with the tubeless method of heat exchange. (to me this just means no tubes to keep clean.)
today i took the back baffles off for the first time. just lift them off the slotted rails.
we actually like the look of it . but our house isn't particularly fancy and the stove just fits in. nice big glass to see the fire through too.

definitely research carefully, but perhaps give the ps50 a look too.

i guess a lot depends on how big your house is.
this is rated for roughly 1200 sq. feet. and we have 925. imo it's a perfect fit.

bear in mind i've never had a wood stove. and i haven't yet done the end of season maintenance on the pellet stove.
but so far it seems quite easy to maintain this set up.
the biggest tasks i've read about are the flue cleaning and end of season motor maintenance. which as far as i can tell just involves detaching the motors for full cleaning and re-gasketing.

so that's a newbies perspective. for what it's worth.
love having a thermostat on a fire in my living room

i guess consider adding the noise of blowers to your home instead of the sounds your woodstove makes.
i'd say listen to some stoves first.

jonwright said:

Why did you switch to pellets?

Click to expand...

save money.

I had baseboards. They were expensive, didn't make me feel warm, and they stink.
I'm spending less money and I'm much warmer now.

When I bought mine, oil was $147 a barrel.

I was the opposite (kinda) I have been burning pellets for yrs and added a Woodstove this year to the arsenal. Getting a few yrs ahead on wood ( lots of work) the cutting, splittinv, stacking.... After using the stove now (messy too) I have to say iys a trade off. The pellet stove requires maintenance (weekly-bi-weekly)and you must fill it about once a day (some less, some more) but a woodstove requires tendinv 2-4 times a day (depends on stove also) and needs ashes cleaned and flue cleaned. Granted pellet stoves nees there flue cleaned also. But I can shut my stove down on Sun and within an hour or so, have it fired back up. Kickin the heat. A woodstove must burn down (no off button) losing heat for hours before you can sweep the flue, then buold a fire and get the stove back up to temp.

I love them both. They have there pro's and con's. Pellets are easily stored and always "seasoned" lol. Plus they are automated and convenient. The biggest pro to the woodstove is the Nuclear lile heat they produce.

Again. I like them both for different reasons. But if I HAD to pick one. Pellets win. Hands down. For my lifestyle. Its to convenient to be able to set the T stat and keep the hopper filled until the weekend when I clean them.

smoke show said:

jonwright said:

Why did you switch to pellets?

Click to expand...

save money.

Click to expand...

Ayuh! x2 for me. (as if anyone didn't already know that)

save$ said:

smoke show said:

jonwright said:

Why did you switch to pellets?

Click to expand...

save money.

Click to expand...

Ayuh! x2 for me. (as if anyone didn't already know that)

Click to expand...

+1

Switched to pellets in 03, when people were saying "Whats a pellet?" Simply stated, I switched to save money, but also to keep my heating money in the USA.

Have an oil furnace that also heats water, an old Vermont Castings Defiant in the basement, and more recently a Quadra-Fire Santa Fe at one end of the downstairs. 110-year old 2200 sq. ft. house that's reasonably weatherized, considering. Over a year I run through 500-600 gallons of oil, but about a gallon a day goes to the hot water, so what's for heat is less than half of that. The rest of my heat was from 3-4 cords of wood when I was primarily using the wood stove. Then I went a couple of winters almost exclusively with the pellet stove (plus oil), and it was a bit over 3 tons of pellets per year. The pellets are a lot less work than the cord wood. On the other hand the radiant heat from the wood stove penetrates in way that the hot air blown from the pellet stove does not. And the wood stove smell not just more, but better. Cord wood used to be cheaper than pellets, but this year wood's come up, and pellets dropped, to something like equivalence. I both cases, the quality of the fuel makes a huge difference in the experience.

One difference though: I have termites in my yard. Everyone does in this village. Right at the northern edge of the termites' current range. Stacking wood out there only encourages them. If I went to using the wood stove and pellet stove both, I wouldn't need the oil except for hot water.

Bank said:

(1) Hated dealing with the constant rising price of HHO.
(2) Love that I can store multiple tons of pellets, can only hold 250 gallons of oil at a time.
(3) I like not being dependent on a foreign country for my heating needs.
(4) Love the look of the stove and a fire.
(5) I can keep the house in the mid 70s and not worry about the cost.

Click to expand...

Ditto.

It is extremely stressful knowing that you only have a 275 gallon oil tank and you will need several deliveries in the peak of winter and you are at the mercy of the oil companies. However, even if oil and pellets were approx the same price, I would rather keep the money in this country rather than overseas. I personally feel that oil companies are playing games and artificially inflating demand so they can rip off Joe Consumer.

Bank said:

(1) Hated dealing with the constant rising price of HHO.
(2) Love that I can store multiple tons of pellets, can only hold 250 gallons of oil at a time.
(3) I like not being dependent on a foreign country for my heating needs.
(4) Love the look of the stove and a fire.
(5) I can keep the house in the mid 70s and not worry about the cost.

Click to expand...

Mostly 1-3, not so much for 4&5. It's in the cellar, so about the only time I see it is when I go down to tend it. Only got a small window in it, and pretty much looks like a big black box. Don't keep the house in the mid 70s, more like high 60s, but the last year we used oil we kept it in the high 50s, we do worry about the cost ( translation; I'm cheap, and my wife is even more so ).

I am right where rokal is. If I can heat my home - even for the same price - with pellets made in US, as opposed to oil from Saudi Arabia, there is no choice to make. But in reality, heating with pellets is way cheaper (last delivery was $389.99/gallon) and benefits Americans. Is there really a decision to make?