Considering a small pellet stove

[mayhem]

But I'm unsure if tis the right solution for me. I installed a new Morso 3610 wood stove last year and it literally cut my oil bill in half from the prior year. Now that I've gone that far I want to cut it further. My house is a roughly 1750 square foot log cabin, chalet (think cape) stlye with a 2 story great room where the wood stove is that comprises easily half the internal volume of the house. 2 medium sized bedrooms and a full bath on the back half of the first floor, large master suite on the second story. Unfinished walkout basement roughly 1120 square feet with a heated slab.

The first floor bedrooms didn't get warm air delivered efficiently enough last year, though I'm still playing wiht fans and such to see if I cna improve things somewhat...because of this, that zone came on quite a bit last year, some thing that was painful at $3.29 a gallon is now like sawing my own leg off at $4.59 a gallon and climbing. I was considering installing a small pellet stove in the basement and ideally piping some of the heat up into those bedrooms to help keep the boiler off in the basement and back bedroom zones. My present heating system is baseboard hot water, not forced hot air so I would have to do something with ductwork, which may give me fire safety problems by installing a convenient chimeny into the back half of my house.

My goal is to reduce my oil consumption down to one tank a year at this point...I'm at 3, down from 6-7 so it shoul dbe possible, though not simple by any stretch.

Thoughts? Pellet going in the worng direction? I was also thinking solar hot water overflowing into the basement floor to keep its temperature up by running hot solar heated glycol through the pex I've got in the floor. Haven't worked that through though to really know if its viable...seems like it probably isn't or lots of people would already be doing it.

 

[MCPO]

The real savings you experienced was with the wood stove at the cost of the labor and other cord wood burning negatives.
Since pellets are about 1/2 the cost of oil your savings will be much less than burning cordwood but still a good way to wean off oil..
John

 

[stoveguy2esw]

if you have the wood to burn , or want to stay with a single fuel type, you might look into an "add on wood furnace" connected to the ducting in the basement to pipe heat up to the zone you are looking to suppliment , there are also pellet add on 's as well. install cost would be comparable for either as the wood one would be a less expensive stove , but a more expensive flue, vice versa for the pellet stove.

indirect harvesting of heat by a return for the furnace near the pellet stove is not very efficient. so a directly ducted appliance would be my choice.

EDIT: just reread your post , a simple duct setup with an add on might just get it done but a pellet stove in the basement would definately help

another possibility would be an install of a smaller pellet unit in a better location to heat that zone , but before you move on that check where you want to put it and ensure that local code will allow in that area, generally combustion devices can be taboo in a sleeping room so a bedroom install may not be acceptable.