Is a pellet stove right for me? (Trying to heat whole house)

[Lunatics]

Hey guys, first off I apologize if this is not the place to post this but I am hoping to get some advice and knowledge/recommendations from people more versed in this.

I purchased a house last year, it is a small cape about 1100sqft, and is my first time living somewhere with oil and spent far more than I realized I would last year on oil. I know the house is old and drafty and I am looking into improving the insulation, however I am starting to look into alternatives for heating the house and some people had recommended pellet stoves.

I was thinking of trying to go down the route of installing a stove in my basement which is about 775 sqft, open and unfinished without insulated ceilings. My hope was if I oversized on a stove it would be able to run down in the basement and allow the heat to rise and be my primary heat source for the house and install vents if needed to help allow the air to move up into the rooms.

The first floor which is currently all I am using as living area has fairly small rooms and not much air flow through them and I really don't have much room in any of the rooms to actually put a pellet stove I feel. I typically keep my house around 65-68, maybe 70 max so I am not looking for or expecting the place to be boiling hot, but wondering if this would be sufficient to keep everything at a comfortable temperature. Even if I go through 2 or 3 tons of pellets, that's still only like one and a half tanks of oil lol.

I feel like with it being a fairly small house it doesn't seem unreasonable to think this would work but people have given me mixed reactions when I talked about this.

If people think this would work and is not crazy, I guess my next step or question would be what to look for as far as a unit goes and if I should consider looking for a used one?

I know Harman is the go to recommendation however it is out of my budget at the moment, especially a new one and since I am trying to save money on oil. I stopped by a fireplace store and the guy was recommending the Quadra Fire Outfitter 2 but after doing some research and reading it seems like it is the same thing as the PelPro PP130 which is $1000 cheaper and my store happens to have a unit on display with some scratches and rust on it that they are advertising for $999.

I am wondering if it's worth it to just start here and see if I can get a year or 2 out of the thing and if it actually does what I want it to and if I want to commit to the work/process involved going forward and if so, then I think about finding a Harman if I am going to stick with this route.

Sorry for the word salad, any help or advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I am hoping a stove like this may be a viable option for heating my home and saving me some money on other heating methods going forward.

 

[jackman]

You stated your case very well and welcome to the forum. Yes, this is a good place to get recommendations. Presumably you've worked some numbers and calculated that heating with pellets will save you money in your part of the country. Another thing for you to consider is the maintenance required to managing your pellet supply, feeding them into the hopper, and cleaning the stove. It's much more work than changing the thermostat setting on the oil burner. So if you're okay with that then at $999 I'd say, go for it, and try it out for at least a season or 2. Heating the downstairs is a good idea since you then won't have to listen to the blower noise.

Good luck and let us know how you decide.

 

[mtnbiker727]

The best location for a pellet stove is in the space that you're trying to heat. Many of the old crusty guys on here say that these stoves are nothing more than space heaters, so trying to heat your entire home with a pellet stove is crazy. I disagree, but I also bought a big stove and picked the location very carefully. We'll see what happens in our new poorly insulated house... but the stove location in our new house is much better than where it was in our current house.

I had a basement install for the last 6 years. It worked pretty well heating a single story house by blowing directly into an open stairwell and keeping the basement door open at the top of the stairs. I could close off half the basement, so it was only around 400 square feet of space to heat down there. The kitchen and living room are open upstairs, and I would have to open the kids' bedrooms at night to let the warm air in on really cold nights. The basement was regularly 85 to 90 degrees in order to make it 72 degrees immediately up the stairs in the kitchen in our well-insulated house.

To improve my success, I put a fan on top of the pellet hopper to blow across the top of the stove, and a fan in the stairwell to blow the warm air up the stairs better. My stove is a Harman P68, which is a 68,000 BTU stove, which easily handled the task. The stoves you're looking at are smaller, so they will have to work harder to accomplish the same thing. I always advocate for a bigger stove than you think you need, because you can slow a big stove down, but you can't get more heat out of a smaller stove.

The lack of insulation makes me wonder if this will work for you. Your stove will have to work hard and your basement will have to get pretty hot to keep the first floor warm, especially if it's a closed floorplan. If your basement does not have insulation in the walls, then you might be disappointed. There was someone on here a few years ago talking about getting a big Harman like mine, which would burn up a whole hopper of pellets just to take the chill off their uninsulated basement.

Feel free to ask more questions, there are a bunch of great people on here that helped me tremendously.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

 

[Washed-Up]

It is possible I believe…but more info would be great, basement construction, location of stairwell etc…and as said above mtnbiker727, had his big boy(mines only a P61) pointed at the stairwell and installed a fan to help blow the heat as well. You’ll also need to look at where the exhaust and oak(outside air kit) can be located. With it being a bit drafty and insulated poorly you’ll need an OAK. Tons of experience here by most and willing to help…welcome to the forum.