Dust and dirt in house with pellet stove?

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lissac67

New Member
May 30, 2008
7
Massachusetts
Does using a pellet stove or insert increase the dust, dirt or soot in your home? I have asthma and really have think long and hard about that before I get a pellet insert. I understand the pellets themselves can be a bit dusty. But I mean more of what the stove produces? How is air quality? I am on a steroid inhaler daily, so mine acts up quite frequently as it is. Any input is appreciated!
 
I did not see any difference in our house. No soot of any kind but some pellet dust (fines) in the surrounding area around the stove .
 
I have a Breckwell Big E , and yes, my cleaning lady informs me that since I installed my pellet stove there is more dust . I see it more on the TV then on the furniture. It may be more dustier because of the way I clean it every week. I scoop out the ash which puts dust in the air.
 
You want dust burn a wood stove...or even better coal....pellet is nothing compared to them. Cleanest of the bunch.
 
I don't notice much dust at all from the pellets, it's the cleaning process that adds dust. For your needs a real deal stove vac may be the way to go when cleaning, even if someone else does the actual cleaning.
 
For us it was the opposite, there was a little more dust from the daily fueling of the stove. It's hard to not get a little dust in the air when pouring 40 lbs of pellets into the hopper. One could wear a dust mask while filling if this is a concern. But cleaning was all done with a shop vac with a filter bag and didn't cause any more dust to get into the house.
 
For us I believe the increased dust was due to the fact that we were not using the furnace and therefore not circulating the air through the filter. We run the furnace fan for a while every so often and that seems to help. That, and a little vege oil in the pellet crib keeps the dust down.
 
A lot of it is in how you " DUMP" in the pellets. Set the bag in the bottom of the hopper way down in all the way. Take razor knife and slit it across the bottom and pull it up slowly letting the pellets slide out gently. You will get hardly any dust. Otherwise you get some fallout from the edge of the door when you open it along the air wash vent. Pull the door open SLOWLY at the beginning of the swing so little or nothing pulls out with the change in air pressure as it opens. Don' t do a lot of digging around in the fire pot with the blower going. Lastly, if you are seriously bothered by pellet fallout go burn a ton or so of corn: believe me you won't even notice the pellet fallout after the corn volcano is finished.
 
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