HELP! Don't know which to go with

[emergencymom]

I am buying a house that had an old wood-burner in it. I am iffy on using it. The stove is the original one from when the house was built in 1947. The house is about 1600 sq. ft. It had a propane tank there at one time but with the prices I am not sure if I want to pay for propane. I am looking for advice on the best way to heat the house, not sure how insulated it is. The sellers tell me that it is well insulated. Which way should I go for my primary source of heat? Wood-burner or pellet stove? There is a main gas line running down the main road there but I dont know why they didn't tap into it. Which way would be more efficient money and heat wise?

Thanks

 

[Eric Johnson]

If the choice is between pellets and chunk wood, then it all depends on wood availability. Wood is probably more work than pellets, but should be much cheaper, depending, as I said, on the price and availability of the wood you plan to burn. And you will need a Class A chimney for a woodstove (stainless steel or clay tile).

If you can find dry firewood for sale, it should cost around $200 per cord, and I would guess you'd go through 5-7 cords, depending on the climate and condition of the house, etc. Cut your own wood, and the price drops dramatically. Hopefully some of the pellet heads on this board will chime in with estimates on how many tons of pellets you'd go through.

And there's nothing iffy about a 1947 vintage wood stove. Don't even think about using it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Depends on what is available. Do you have your own trees to cut for firewood? How much wood did the former owners use per season? Where did they get their wood? What is the price of firewood if you have to buy? What is the price of pellets in that area? etc., etc.

On the old wood burner, because it is 60 years old, I certainly would be tempted to replace it. What size is it?

Many questions you must answer to know the final answer.

 

[emergencymom]

I have woods around me but not able to cut it down. I haven't looked to see what pellets cost yet. There is person that has a dumptruck of firewood I am told for $35.00, I just have to find him. I am looking for hardwood. I know it is more expensive but need to have heat run as long as possible during the day. I am not sure how much the sellers have used during winter but I will definitly ask them. The only thing is if I go with a woodburner my insurance tells me I have to move a water heater 36" away from it, which is no problem. I was thinking along the lines of the pellet stove so I wouldnt have to move anything.

Thank you very much

 

[Robbie]

First, find out if the dumptruck load of firewood is a full size, split, and if it's hard wood, if so buy the whole dump truck load and resell it to make money to help get a stove you want. ;-)


Robbie

 

[emergencymom]

Good idea......thanks

 

[begreen]

Many basic questions and more info needed. Where are you located? This will determine gas, propane, wood, pellet fuel prices. Are you saying the house currently has no central heating system? It seems unlikely a bank would finance it without one, but maybe. Do you intend to run a woodstove 24/7 round the clock. That is a lot of work and may not be all that reliable if you are away at work, etc..

 

[jpl1nh]

I would mention too that for many of us burning wood is a labor of love. As many have already alluded to, the word "labor" should not be downplayed. Many woodburners are pretty much self sufficient, willing to go cut up, pick up, split and stack cords of wood every year. Some of us even love doing it. If you enjoy that sort of thing as many people actually do, then by all means go wood. If you are buying wood, the price advantage goes away, some of the work goes away too but i'd start considering the conveniance of other heat sources more strongly.

 

[emergencymom]

Yes they had a propane tank there, they had it removed bc it cost to much money to keep filled. I am also looking into tapping into the gas line so there will be another source of heat there. I live in the north central part of Ohio. After the advice I might just go with a pellet stove. Now which one is good and will heat 1600 sq. ft.? And should I get one for my living room also?

 

[jtp10181]

I like Quad: http://quadrafire.com/products/stoves/pelletStoveDetail.asp?f=CB1200

Not sure what would work best, kinda need a crude floor layout to see how everything would come together. Sometimes it can be hard to heat bedrooms and outer rooms with stoves. Your best bet might be to tap into the NG and get a new furnace.

 

[wg_bent]

To give you a taste of my the way I work... I have 8+ cords of wood in the back yard now... and I'm worried that I do not have enough. I'd like to have closer to 14 or 15.

I'll probably burn around 5 this winter.

Today I stopped by someone's house to pick up a few rounds of wood. 3 actually. The last of a huge maple the town cut down and left. All in all I got about 3/4 of a cord of wood from these folks. In my book easy pickings. 10' from the street, all I had to do was cut the rounds in half put in my van and away I went. Each round was about 24" in diameter and I needed to cut them into smaller rounds that were about 10" long. Otherwise I couldn't pick them up. Even a 10" round was at the limit of what I could pick up safely. I'd say around 100lbs each. 6 or 8 of these in my van and it was draggin it's rear end pretty good.

At home... unload the rounds directly to my splitting area. I have about 1/2 a cords of this stuff all split and stacked on a pallet, so approximately 4'x4' by 5' tall. I expect it to be ready for the 2008/2009 burning season.
I split 2 rounds of it today and I was drenched. The wood I worked on tonight had a large knot in it, so to took a combination of lots of hard wacks with an 8lb maul and wacking a wedge through the wood.

A dip in the pool... Toss my daughter in the pool a bit... she's 12... and she weighs less than those rounds!

I'm constantly on the look out for wood. I turn down almost nothing. If it's free I'll burn it. I know others who do similar routines to me. Some on the forum have jobs that help a lot to supply them with wood, others scrounge, still others purchase, but to me I sort of enjoy the scrounge and the work it takes. My kids even enjoy it a bit.

Wood is work but the fire in the evening when I get home is simply awesome.

Pellet stoves are great heaters but do not provide the ambiance of a wood stove. They are basically nice looking furnaces. They're a lot cleaner (less clean out and less dust) than a wood stove, look sort of nice but require electricity, so can't be used for black out conditions. Granted that's sort of rare these days. But my stove has a blower too, so...

The heater kings are coal stoves. You simply can't beat the constant and potentially massive heat output of something like a big Hitzer or a Harman Mark III, or the automation of a Stoker. Most manual coal stoves are dusty (I don't care what anyone says... I remember growing up with them... they're dusty!!) and Stokers are expensive. On the other hand, you shake them down twice a day, pour in 30 lbs of coal, and sit back and enjoy the constant even and massive amount of heat.

It comes down to life style, needs, desires etc. Be careful on stove costs. You can easily get a nice Englander or small Vermont Castings stove for 1200 bucks or so that will do the job, but the Chimney will cost as much as the stove.

For a Pellet stove, the chimney is a lot less, but the stove can be 2400 bucks. What will really get you is the Pellets. At 300 bucks a ton and many people burn 4-5 tons a year for heat, your costs are not a lot better than hooking into that gas line.

You return on investment will be a lot of years with a pellet stove. On the other hand you are reducing our dependence on foreign oil (unless you count the pellet processing and delivery), and have a heck of a nice heater and they are relatively easy to deal with. Wood stoves are more work. You really have to learn to use one to get the most of it but it's sort of an art form that you learn to love. The heat output is great, your house will be warm and if you get the wood free, after a couple years... you have free heat.

 

[emergencymom]

WOW! Ok thanks to everyone for their advice. I really appreciate it. I will let you know which way I go.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[GVA]

Just need to interject one thing here.
Prices.
They vary depending on area..... Here's an example....... http://www.mywoodenergy.com/2.html

pellets are far less right now (over 100 bucks) in the same area....... NG is about the same as pellets but the BTU's out is a little less with NG......
As many have said here to me and others............ apples to oranges...............
You need to do some homework and check prices in your area and calculate the "sweat equity" you are willing to invest add this to the cost of the stove and this will give you an idea of overall cost.
Good luck and WELCOME TO THE HEARTH :cheese:

 

[emergencymom]

Thank you, I have learned more from this forum. I have a friend that has a pellet stove for sale so hopefully I will get that at a pretty resonable rate. I have to find out more on the model. The pellets I thought at one time in our eastern part of the county there was a gentleman that made them. I will be asking everyone about the stove once I find out more about it. If it is a good one or not.

 

[Cath]

Em,
Once you have the name of the manufacturer and the model name/number check the Ratings forum. For older stoves you may need to do a key word search on this forum to get any info. For instance my husband was interested in an Ashley we saw on Craig's list. I couldn't find it in the ratings but I did find one thread about an Ashley on this forum and got some additional info that way.

And since I'm not the shy type I posted a question once I'd gotten as far as I could on my own.

As you can probably tell already this is a great group of people with a wealth of knowledge and a willingness to share it.

Good luck in your quest!
~Cath

 

[emergencymom]

Thanks, I know I looked online at different things and I learned more here then I did on my own. I will check the ratings, I didn't realize I needed to do that until I got on here. One thing I have to say is everyone that has helped me out has been great. Usually woman that ask questions get put down but this has been great, no one has made me feel like I was any different then anyone else asking a question.

 

[Cath]

Thanks, I know I looked online at different things and I learned more here then I did on my own. I will check the ratings, I didn't realize I needed to do that until I got on here. One thing I have to say is everyone that has helped me out has been great. Usually woman that ask questions get put down but this has been great, no one has made me feel like I was any different then anyone else asking a question.

Em,
Do you mind me calling you "Em", "Emergencymom" is a bit long.

I wasn't trying to suggest that you **had** to check the Member Reviews first. Although occasionally someone will refer you to the reviews if you are asking about a specific stove. I just think it can be a bit of a time saver since it can rule out some obvious duds pretty quickly. But that may depend upon the way your mind works and the way you tackle information. I tend to be a bit of a research geek.

The reviews don't always touch on important details. It was only in skimming through some random postings that I realized that you shouldn't burn colored ink in Catalytic stoves since it ruins the chemicals in the Cat. That's a question I wouldn't have thought to ask and even if I'd asked for the pros and cons between Cat and non Cat stoves I'm not sure someone would have thought to volunteer that. But it's important to me since my husband's mom has a stove and he grew up burning incidental carboard, etc. Sorting through the paper would be prohibitively time consuming. So that outweighs almost any advantage there may be --for us-- to a Cat stove unless we were able to pick one up very inexpensively.

Also, you do need to take some reviews with a grain of salt. If you see one negative one and five positive ones look at whether the real problem in the negative review might have been with the dealer and consider the possibility that the reviewer was expecting too much of the stove (e.g.: was using too small a stove for the area in question.)

I agree about the atmosphere here it is very helpful especially towards novices, regardless of gender.

I wish you success in finding a stove that meets your needs and fits your budget.
~Cath

 

[wg_bent]

Thanks, I know I looked online at different things and I learned more here then I did on my own. I will check the ratings, I didn't realize I needed to do that until I got on here. One thing I have to say is everyone that has helped me out has been great. Usually woman that ask questions get put down but this has been great, no one has made me feel like I was any different then anyone else asking a question.

For all you know, we're all women too.

Uhhh... your not different from anyone else. ... Now... back to stoves

 

[emergencymom]

LOL...that would explain it. Now I have someone telling me to go with NG and get a generator that has automatic start. But still want burner in the living room.

 

[begreen]

Em, what is your budget and time frame? Sometimes these things are best taken over a year or two. Rushing in before one knows the house can possibly lead to making expensive mistakes. How was the house heated last winter?

 

[emergencymom]

I have to find something quick winter will be here before you know it and I have no source of heat.

 

[begreen]

How did they heat the house last winter? What is your budget?

 

[emergencymom]

They used a woodburner. But the woodburner that was in the house when I went to look at it was not the woodburner that was in there when my insurance showed up to take pics. The sellers did not say anything about switching them out. The old woodburner that they put back in was the original one from when the house was built. Talk about a shock when insurance said they wouldnt' cover me.

 

[wg_bent]

I agree with begreen. Give us the house stats. Did you decide... Pellet or wood?

 

[Cath]

...Now I have someone telling me to go with NG and get a generator that has automatic start. But still want burner in the living room.

I tend to agree and would suggest holding off on a stove for the living room and concentrate on a conventional NG set up to make sure you have a reliable constant source of "whole house" heat come winter time. Once you become more familiar with the idiosyncracies of the house: how well insulated it is, where the drafts are, how the air/heat flows, then you can think about what kind of stove to get to supplement your heating bill.

Some additional factors to consider: 1) amount of living space and 2) how many floors, how open the living space(s) are, and of course 3) budget.

However, I would certainly keep browsing for stoves in the meanwhile so you can weigh your options and keep your eyes open. If you aren't looking around, asking questions and mulling it over you won't recognize a good deal when you see it. Especially if you are considering buying a used one.

~Cath