Switched to pellets - how much do I need?

[grahamk]

HI all,

Hoping for some general guidance here if possible.

I am switching to pellets from burning wood 24x7. I burn about 6 cords of lodgepole pine per winter.

I did a straight BTU comparison, but my thought is that the pellet stove is much more efficient per BTU - mainly because of the need to burn the woodstove 24x7 to keep a fire going overnight, and the fact that sometimes it just gets fed with wood so we don't have to reheat the stove, which takes a while.

I bought a Quadrafire Mt Vernon AE with programmable thermostat and my feeling is that I will save a lot of fuel by not heating all night, and dropping the temp during the day.

Curious if anyone has made a similar switch and how many tons of pellets they needed per the cords of wood you previously burned.

Reason for asking now is that there a re a few places nearby me that have pellets on clearance and I'd like to pick up enough for next winter while they are on sale.

Thanks!!

 

[DAKSY]

I would start with an equivalent amount...
6 cords = 6 tons... Take it from there.
When I burned cordwood, I routinely went thru 7 cords.
This last winter I burned the better part of 9 tons of pellets.
Then again, this was something like the 2nd coldest winter
on record in this part of the country...
Better to have more than you need.

 

[grahamk]

Hmm. Well that's not good news, I can get a semi of firewood logs (delivered) for about $1200 - 18 cords of wood.

I think I probably should have looked into this further first.

Thanks for being a Patriot Guard Rider.

 

[tjnamtiw]

yea, you were heating for $400/season vs much more than that for pellets in the future. Your only saving grace is that you won't have to get up twice a night to throw in more wood or be there when the wood-eating beast demands more food during the day. You WILL be spending a lot more for heat and still have a space heater.

 

[velvetfoot]

I'm working on my 7-8 cord, hopefully, log pile right now. It takes me weeks.

 

[Arti]

Rough estimate would be 200 bags a year.

 

[rcc]

Hello grahamk. I was also a wood burner (and still have one in my cellar for extremely cold weeks and power outages) for over 35 years. When I bought the pellet stove I told the salesperson I would set the thermostat really low at night and then back up in the morning and then low again during weekdays. He looked at me like I had three heads. Since the first day I fired up the pellet stove I understood why. Pellet stoves are slow and steady - and I should emphasize both slow and steady. Wood stoves can heat up a house in no time but they have a bell curve heat output. Pellet stoves take forever to heat up a cold house but the heat is steady.
Hopefully after the learning curve (and strategically placed fans to move the heat where you need it) you will be happy with your purchase.
Best of luck.

 

[St_Earl]

yeah, the thermostat is useful at the beginning and end of heating season.
once the real cold arrives, it's a matter of what setting will you run at 24/7.
my stove is very basic and i end up just switching between medium and high for most of deep winter.

the last two winters have been cold ones here according to all the lifelong residents (and the weather bureau), and i have heated my house in supreme comfort with 5 1/2 tons of pellets.
thats 925 square feet and the same footage of basement. i keep the basement at 50F all winter using a pass through vent that was in place when we bought the house.
i just set a box fan on the register and run it on low.

i'm not experienced living with a wood stove. i've spent some time with them, but not really enough to know how much distributing the heat is required.

how i'm successful heating all the areas of our house with a single pellet stove is down to my system of fans.
this is a major topic among pellet burners, and is one that you work out for your specific layout and situation.

in general, with some exceptions, the first maxim is blow cold air toward the stove along the floor.
the warm air flows back higher up in the convection loop.
i do this, but i have two small vornados up high helping things along because of the constricted path to the back bedroom.

but in general, distribution is essential in most cases.
the two stove solution is best for some situations. burn each stove at a lower rate and eliminate some if not all the issues of heating the areas away from the single stove in a much larger or large multi story home.

when you get to working that part out, there is a lot of info here in threads, and i and i think others will be willing to chime in to offer opinions based on your floor plan and square footage, etc...

three winters ago it wasn't as cold and i burned 4 1/2 tons and didn't really even have my fan set up dialed in yet.
i wouldn't mind a few 4 1/2 ton years in a row after these last two winters.

i will say i have found pellet heat to be great. steady and toasty all winter.

 

[grahamk]

Interesting about the fans. I have heated the top floor of my house with a single wood stove and only one large ceiling fan in the same room as the stove. I replaced the wood stove with a pellet stove and put it in the exact same place. My thought would be that the warm air distribution would be about the same as it was with the wood stove - anything I'm missing there?

I replaced a Jotul Oslo wood stove. If the fire went out it would take half a day to get it back up to heat - it concerns me that pellet stoves are regarded as slower at heating than wood stoves. I think I'm going to hang on to the wood stove instead of selling it in case I want to go back

 

[St_Earl]

you really have to play around to see what works with your fan(s)
there's no hard and fast rule.
kind of like having a pellet stove in the basement. there are some people whose homes that works for.
and i have read about some folks whose second floors stay warm with no extra fans.
it took me a little while to dial things in. but now i am able to regulate the back bedroom heat in a very responsive manner.

 

[NHcpa]

With the new pellet, you bought in to convenience (over wood)... You don't say what your primary source of heat is. I'm not sweating next years pellet purchase as pellets are now premium $ and I fortunately have 2 oil tanks. The upside for you is that at some point, pellet will once again may be an affordable option - hopefully, but who knows. I will say, having spent $5k for my pellet insert just last year, I am having some buyers remorse!

 

[Luv2burnPellets]

Pellets ain't gonna spoil if stored properly. Buy 4 or 5 tons if you got the room. Then by mid Jan, you will have a decent educated guess if you will need more or not, and go from there. Not rocket science, and what are the consequences if you underestimated by a ton? If you overestimated by a ton or so, you have them ready for next year. If you ain't got the room, then it doesn't really matter, does it? You buy as needed.

 

[maple1]

So why did you switch?

If it was for convenience & to get rid of some wood related labor you'll likely be satisfied. If it was to save money on fuel cost, maybe not so much.

I'd likely go with the one ton per cord mentioned above, for starters.

 

[doghouse]

Home layout and how well insulated probably play a larger role in heating with pellets than with cord wood. Square footage and where you live (in colorado) are other factors.

 

[bogieb]

Home layout and how well insulated probably play a larger role in heating with pellets than with cord wood. Square footage and where you live (in colorado) are other factors.

Exactly.

Most likely you won't save over a woodstove. Pellets are handled many more times than cordwood, so the price is a lot higher for the same "amount". However, convenience of handling, feeding the stove, no bugs, less mess (some would argue this point - but as a former wood burner, IMO there is less), and better ability to regulate the temperature of the house is what you get in return.

 

[GT_Sharp]

Burned cordwood from '74 to '94 and switched to pellets in '94, have not regretted it. ymmv.
Only time I burn wood anymore is when camping out and even at that, right now in the process of building a woodgas camp stove that will burn pellets, .

 

[grahamk]

I switched for convenience - no doubt about it. I actually enjoy the work of cutting and splitting wood, but I need so much that it has become tediously boring work for me over the years - and it's messy as hell. The prospect of bringing in another semi load of trees just wasn't floating my boat. I heat with wood almost exclusively - I do have propane fired central heating that gets used very rarely. My last propane tank was $1.39 a gallon. Generally it's over $2. We had a wood insert in the downstairs of our house that was an under- performer and a general PITA. We replaced it with a used thelin pellet stove and put it on a programmable thermostat and the comparative convenience was tremendous. Not to mention that the downstairs office is now toasty warm when I arrive every morning. So after running that for a while the writing was on the wall and we bought a Mt Vernon AE for upstairs. Since I buy wood for ~$70 a cord (plus all the work, chainsaws, etc) I didn't expect it to be cheaper than wood by any means. But I wasn't quite expecting it to be 3.5X more expensive either! Thanks for all the useful replies.

 

[grahamk]

Burned cordwood from '74 to '94 and switched to pellets in '94, have not regretted it. ymmv.
Only time I burn wood anymore is when camping out and even at that, right now in the process of building a woodgas camp stove that will burn pellets, .

I bought one of these (used) for my outside patio. Pretty fun:

http://woodpelletproducts.com/

I probably burn close to a cord of wood every year in the chiminea though. I don't see that changing.

 

[grahamk]

it took me a little while to dial things in. but now i am able to regulate the back bedroom heat in a very responsive manner.

Wood stove worked well for us because we really don't want the back bedroom to be particularly warm. In fact this time of year (average lows in the mid to upper 20's) we tend to sleep with a window open. Nuts, 'eh?

 

[GT_Sharp]

I bought one of these (used) for my outside patio. Pretty fun:

http://woodpelletproducts.com/

Those look pretty cool .

 

[tjnamtiw]

Those look pretty cool .

You think that's cool. Check this little baby out! We've been using ours like crazy this last month! Burns pellets and cooks a pizza in two minutes! 800+ degrees just like the big wood fired outdoor ovens. Won't bake big stuff like bread and casseroles though. But it makes darn good pizza NOW!

http://uuni.net/

 

[Bridgeman]

A ton of pellets is the equivalent of a cord and half of dry hardwood firewood. In my opinion 4 tons of pellets will a good start. It depends on how you heat. I think you will find a constant thermostat setting will burn less and be more comfortable. The guy that owned my place before me burned 4-5 cords of oak and I burn 3.5 tons of pellets. I also keep the place at 72-74 deg.

Pine has less BTUs per cord. We don't burn pine in the east so I'm not sure how it heats. The safety gurus tell us we will die horrible fiery deaths if we burn pine.

 

[bogieb]

Pine has less BTUs per cord. We don't burn pine in the east so I'm not sure how it heats. The safety gurus tell us we will die horrible fiery deaths if we burn pine.

Yeah - heard that all the time when I was a wood burner.

 

[bags]

Pine burns just fine IF it is dry and seasoned. No need to listen to the hype.

Graham, Keep in mind that DAKSY is running 2 stoves doing that amount of pellets and it was a long cold nasty winter. The north easterners had a good beat down pounding winter. The winter in KY was horrible and consistently below average colds the last two years also but not what they had. Especially snow wise.

I think 6 tons would be plenty and you will likely not use that much but it's better to have extra and not need it than the other way around. How many SQ FT are you heating? I just dipped into my 7th ton and I am running a P68 68,000 BTU pig and the wife kept it excessively hot inside all winter. Like 76 damn degrees hot non-stop. I know I could get by on somewhere between 5-6 tons heating 2,350 SQ FT two story with high ceilings and tons of windows and glass doors if I kept the house at 70-72*.

I too heated only with wood for many, many years. I will again if I need too but for now they can keep it. Tons of work, mess, etc; I had wood burning down to an equipment (minimal touch) science also in regards to machinery doing most of it and it was still tons of work. I understand the sinking boat deal very well. All the work wasn't floating my boat either and it was the time factor as well and not having all the time to do wood.

Now I just started with a pellet stove last October the 18th. First pellet stove and first heating season with one. Love it! I have all of the "free wood" I want right on my property too. That being said, When I heated only with wood I went thru on the average of 10-12 cords per season in the OWB Woodmaster 5500. This winter would have been a 12 cord proposition without a doubt. I did heat around 4,000 SQ FT also because the wood boiler produced more heat than I could really use so I also heated garages and a great room not really used along with some adjoining areas.

So that being a fact I went with one pellet stove and just did the main core of the house of 2,350 SQ FT as a trial run and to see what the stove would and could do. It is hard to do an extremely accurate wood to pellet and SQ FT conversion but I have a real good guesstimate. I also bought a second pellet stove to pick up the other 1,600 SQ FT but did not install it yet or use it at all this heating season.

I guestimate that I can do what the Woodmaster does with the two pellet stoves with somewhere between 7-10 tons worst case scenario. I did most of it and the harder to heat areas with one stove and what should have been 5 tons. Realistically it should have been a 5 ton winter with one stove but the wife likes it hot inside as mentioned and I wanted to max out the stove so I knew what I could rely on with it. I guesstimate using both stoves that I would burn a max of 8 tons per winter. Another way to look at it is I burned half of the amount of cord wood in pellets but heated less space. I could be way more efficient in pellet consumption also but I wanted worst case and running balls to the wall.

My estimate is that whatever cord wood use was or is, is that pellet use should be somewhere over half. So if you are burning 6 cords then 4 tons of pellets will likely be your number. Again, I'd go with 6 tons to cover your bases. Leftovers can be burned the following season. I bought 8 tons my first season and burned 6 and some bags. It could have been done on 5 tons easily but now I know what my max consumption will be in a cold winter.

 

[hockeyfan]

Hmm. Well that's not good news, I can get a semi of firewood logs (delivered) for about $1200 - 18 cords of wood.

I think I probably should have looked into this further first.

At ~$67 per cord (you haven't mentioned how seasoned the wood was) there is no way that pellets can compete with that if your concern is cost. Even seasoned wood around here cannot match that price.

The major advantage to pellet heat has been mentioned above, namely convenience and a better ability to regulate temperature. It will be much more expensive than what you're used to, but the payback is that you'll have time for other things besides c/s/s. However (you'll hate me for this) it should be mentioned that there is more maintenance required for a pellet stove than a cord wood burner. Cleanings and maintenance of mechanical parts is mandatory (sorry).

That being said, time is money for me and I thoroughly appreciate the pellet stove and what conveniences and even heating it provides. I cannot imagine living in a cold climate without having one in my house. Hopefully you'll learn to appreciate it as well and won't mind the extra cost (comparatively speaking) of the pellet stove as compared to cord wood burning.