How will my electric bill be effected now that im running a pellet stove ?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.

Jackfire

Member
Oct 24, 2014
69
Vermont
With blowers and an auger motor running not to mention the circutry will my bill see an increase ?;hm;?
 
With blowers and an auger motor running not to mention the circutry will my bill see an increase ?;hm;?
Have a Harman P61A..
Electric bill each month was a bit more running the stove but not much as I recall. was very surprised at that..
Run an Electric Space heater 24/7 and watch the meter spin..!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: bags
I was worried about blowers running constantly and and the power the ignition rod takes
 
Depends if it's for a little extra warmth and looks or a more "primary source". I put mine in to eliminate the need to heat my home with the electricity. I saw my bills go down close to 70%. I only run the electric heat periodically during extremely cold temps. I shelled out $3000 in 2011 and I am willing to bet I am real close to getting that $3000 back already. I average about 3 1/2 ton a year (last year a bit more), so I spend roughly between 700-800 dollars on pellets per season.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bags
I use propane for every thing heating , base board , hot water and cooking and was averaging $400. a month so i hope the pellets will be a $ savings . Ive spent about $400. now on 2 pallets of pellets and have my name on 2 more. Its got to be cheaper than the gas.
 
Depends largely on stove efficiency. One of mine uses only 27 watts for blowers, and about 315 when ignitor on. The other (very old) one uses about 120 watts and has no ignitor. Plan on about 90-120 watts for most stoves and you can estimate from there. Is likely to be much less expensive than propane, overall.

While not specific to electricity use of your stove, here is a good site to calculate comparative costs for heating: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/heatcalc.xls
 
Depends largely on stove efficiency. One of mine uses only 27 watts for blowers, and about 315 when ignitor on. The other (very old) one uses about 120 watts and has no ignitor. Plan on about 90-120 watts for most stoves and you can estimate from there. Is likely to be much less expensive than propane, overall.

While not specific to electricity use of your stove, here is a good site to calculate comparative costs for heating: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/heatcalc.xls
Thanks
 
I wouldn't even bother if I had NG. Propane, I would be on the fence. Electric heat, it was a "no brainer" for me.. I am sure a lot of "knee jerk reaction" stoves were sold after last years cold weather and the price gouging that happened with propane. I suffered a bit also as I was fleeced on a rapid increase in pellet prices and a bag limit.....
 
used a Killawatt on my stove once, used 75watt's max, it's like burning a light bulb my friend
 
Depends on your electric company rate. However I would estimate that my bill went up approx 20 dollars a month for the pellet stoves. Hard to tell without a killawatt or some other device to measure electric use because lights are on more in the winter I also run the ceiling fans more in the winter.
When cold weather hits we run a pellet furnace 24/7 and a pellet stove in the tv room approx. 8 hours a day. On the other hand the propain furnace doesn't use anything while the pellet burners are on so I suspect that is a wash.
 
I didn't really notice much change in my Central Maine Power bill. The oil burner wasn't coming on much, and I think that uses more power than the pellet stove. The motors are quite efficient on the pellet stove. Everybody's situation is a little different, of course, but it's not something I'd worry about. Pretty much what Arti and Pellet-King are saying.

-Stretch
 
$20 per month increase is a good approximation of pellet stove electric consumption. Your actual costs will vary depending on your electric rates, stove and usage.
 
Cheaper than running your AC in the summer
 
Did not notice any difference in electric. We were using oil heat and that electric useage has dropped to be taken over by the pellet electric usage.
 
If you run a dehumidifier in the summer months you can anticipate about the same bill for the pellet stove in the winter months. My dehumidifier runs constantly from about April to Sept. It prob averages about $20 a month of my electric consumption.
 
Its hard to tell if the $20 extra on our bill if its the extra hours of light needed or the occasional battery charger and block heater or extra hours of cooking hot food.
 
You probably will not see a difference whatever you were using before probably used more electricity ( blowers circulators etc..)
 
$20 per month increase is a good approximation of pellet stove electric consumption. Your actual costs will vary depending on your electric rates, stove and usage.
That sounds about right.
I pay about 20 cents per kWhr. There are 24 hrs/day x 30 days/month = 720 hrs/month.
$20 /0.20 $/kWhr = 100kWhr
100 kWhr / 720 hr = 138 W

At 0.20 $/kWhr we are at the high end of the price range and 138W is a little on the high side.
The igniter may be 300W but it is only on for minutes per burn cycle so it doesn't add up to much. The two blowers pull less than their labled rating(rating has to be within 20% of the max they can pull). I think my PDVC pulls about 100W for the blowers, the MVAE is a miser and is well below that (<30W). Actual power consumption is dependent on the specific stove model.
My oil boiler with its combustion blower/oil pump and circulating pumps is above those numbers (150 - 200W)*. It has a higher BTU output, so it burns less time than the pellet stove (about half).
The net result is that the change in electrical cost is hard to notice.


*I didn't measure these numbers. They are based on the horsepower ratings of the burner (1/7 hp) and circulating pump (1/25 hp) assuming about 70% efficiency for the motors and 746W / hp.
 
My bill is about $10 more than without it on a month. It's negligible.
 
Your electric kw/h cost, divided by 10 will approximate the cost of running the stove for an hour.

At 20 cents per kw/h, we are talking 48 cents per day, or $14 a month, for *continuous* use.
 
On second
Have a Harman P61A..
Electric bill each month was a bit more running the stove but not much as I recall. was very surprised at that..
Run an Electric Space heater 24/7 and watch the meter spin..!!!
as a second thought,
I must take into concideration that since we have an Oil fired furnace that we hardly used last winter,
there was a drop in Electricty from not have things Like Circulator motor running[heat], auto ignition etc many times per day ..
so a small increase either way happened.
 
$20 per month increase is a good approximation of pellet stove electric consumption. Your actual costs will vary depending on your electric rates, stove and usage.

My stove runs 24/7 during the winter and i believe $20.00 / month is about how much my electric bill increased.
 
Looked to be about $10 a month here, for a smaller pellet stove, a Santa Fe. Very rough estimate though just from eyeballing bills.
 
Last year I measured it with a Kilowatt, and when the igniter ran my stove used just a little over 300watts, but under normal conditions it uses about 100 watts, total. Most of the power use is for the room blower. The augur uses a little less than 20 watts, and the combustion fan uses less than 30 watts.

Last year my kWh rate was 14.5 cents, but this year it's going up. Last year, the stove added between $20 and $25 to my electric bill.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.