New to Pellets

[Magilla60]

Well after weeks of read this forum and researching different stoves, and a few years of debate we made the plunge. Ordered a Harmen P61a today. Should be installed 2nd week of December. Thank to everybody on this forum for all you post made my decision and nervousness about doing the much easier.

 

[briansol]

great choice welcome

 

[Big papa]

Welcome you will love your harman.

 

[Lake Girl]

Welcome to the forum ... make sure we see pics when the deed is done

 

[Magilla60]

Will do Lake Girl

 

[Waterworker123]

Great investment! You'll love your stove and and you'll learn a lot from this forum. Enjoy the heat!

 

[bags]

Welcome! You made a good decision. Might spank the bank account a bit upfront but that will soon be forgotten without any regrets. You will enjoy that stove.

 

[bogieb]

Great choice in going with Harman - enjoy!

 

[Pellet-King]

All depends on what your heating cost's were before and what type of system you have, today with high cost's of stoves and recored high pellet prices....are you really saving anything?
Of maybe your looking for a new toy.
You gunna have some work ahead, cleaning, buying loading storing, carrying 40lb bags even on days you may not feel well to do so.....your central heating system , you get equal house warmth, no work, just pay the heat bill

 

[Magilla60]

Thanks for the downer Pellet-King My oil bills are high and have a room that doesn't stay warm. So my hope is that it will help offset the major cost of my forced air oil. Anything good requires some work, this is an investment that i hope pays off. so if I have to care a bag of pellets everyday no big deal.

 

[SidecarFlip]

My wife calls them 'beads'. I call them comfort that I control.

 

[Magilla60]

Picked up 2 tons of Energex today now all I need is a stove to burn them in.

 

[Big papa]

All depends on what your heating cost's were before and what type of system you have, today with high cost's of stoves and recored high pellet prices....are you really saving anything?
Of maybe your looking for a new toy.
You gunna have some work ahead, cleaning, buying loading storing, carrying 40lb bags even on days you may not feel well to do so.....your central heating system , you get equal house warmth, no work, just pay the heat bill

My house is 75 right now wouldn't think of turning the oil burner up that high unless I owned stock

 

[Tonyray]

Picked up 2 tons of Energex today now all I need is a stove to burn them in.

Thanks for the downer Pellet-King funny...

don't fret the buying, stacking, cleaning stuff....
the harman free standing stoves are the easiest to clean and maintain.. most harman owners go quite a while between full cleanings.
just scrape the burnpot couple times a day....
doesn't take long to buy pellets.. not like it's a daily thing ya gotta do...
once your stash is bought/ stacked, it's done.
carry a bag everyday to the stove.?... no biggie.....
just remember a day without the oil or gas furnace running is a happy day.
It's why 99% of us here invested in Pellet stoves.....

like Big papa said," My house is 75 right now wouldn't think of turning the oil burner up that high unless I owned stock.
used to keep ours at 67 degrees just so it wouldn't drink oil.. Those days are over. Even at todays Oil Prices.... 73-74 degrees 24/7

 

[devilsbullet]

Not all of us do it just to offset high heat bills. I've got natural gas as my main source, more expensive to run pellets. But I like the idea of having a second heat source since the natural gas company here has a monopoly on the marketplace, and the wife wants something warm to sit in front of. As the saying goes, happy wife, happy life.

 

[Tonyray]

Not all of us do it just to offset high heat bills. I've got natural gas as my main source, more expensive to run pellets. But I like the idea of having a second heat source since the natural gas company here has a monopoly on the marketplace, and the wife wants something warm to sit in front of. As the saying goes, happy wife, happy life.

like I said, 99% ....
majority will tell you it costs more to run the're Main or original heat source than using pellets.
plus the steady continuous heat....

 

[TimfromMA]

I love my stove but the oil furnace will go back on if oil goes much lower. I will still use the pellet stove once in a while when Im in the mood for a fire but it will stop being my primary heat source.

 

[yrock87]

Congratulations! You will love it! You getting it professionally installed by the sounds of it?

 

[Tonyray]

I love my stove but the oil furnace will go back on if oil goes much lower. I will still use the pellet stove once in a while when Im in the mood for a fire but it will stop being my primary heat source.

Tim,
looks like your over 2,000.00 yr for 6 tons pellets which is about 100.00 more a ton than the average buyer pays 250.00?] although your pellets are top line.
I Pay around 1200.00 yr but would deff think about Oil if It cost me that much for pellets.

 

[alternativeheat]

Even at $2.25 a gallon and locally it is not there yet, I wouldn't heat my house to 74 deg with oil but I do with pellets. And the wife cozies right up to that thing at night knitting or reading. She likes the glow in the living room and extra warmth I could see me burning maybe both oil and pellets , one off setting the other being equal cost. But not oil completely. My house has not been without a stove since 1978, granted back then it was coal but just sayin. And there was a time I did not use the coal stove continuously, after the phony oil shortage when Jimmy Carter went out of office. When he left oil dropped to next to nothing so the stove was a novelty for a while, where it had been a necessity.. But we all know that did not last !

To the OP, congratulations and a good choice in that P61a !! This gives you choices in the way you heat your house.

 

[Jigger]

My neighbor across the street hates me. She came over and came in. As soon as she came in she said it was warm inside my house. I try to keep it around 70. She said she has been keeping her thermostat set for 66 because she doesn't want to burn the oil. She's retired and divorced so she runs on a fixed income. She had me move some stuff into her house and her daughter was there. We started a discussion about heating and her daughter asked her. Mom what are you going to do when the power goes out. She told her she would come over to my place because I have a generator and the pellet stove were it is always warm. My answer to that was. If the power goes out my door will be locked and I'll be armed because I'm the only one in my area with a generator.

 

[alternativeheat]

My neighbor across the street hates me. She came over and came in. As soon as she came in she said it was warm inside my house. I try to keep it around 70. She said she has been keeping her thermostat set for 66 because she doesn't want to burn the oil. She's retired and divorced so she runs on a fixed income. She had me move some stuff into her house and her daughter was there. We started a discussion about heating and her daughter asked her. Mom what are you going to do when the power goes out. She told her she would come over to my place because I have a generator and the pellet stove were it is always warm. My answer to that was. If the power goes out my door will be locked and I'll be armed because I'm the only one in my area with a generator.

Quite neighborly of you.

 

[Arti]

We personally enjoy the Ambiance of the Pellet Stove as well as the steady heat.
The living room is in the mid 70's when we are home, never kept it above 68 with the gas furnace, after we put a Heat Pump in we bumped it up to 70 but it still didn't have the warm cozy feel of the pellet stove.
We have burned a few extra pound's of pellets this year as the wife likes to watch the fire burn, It's by far cheaper to heat with the Heat Pump so we turn that on when we are gone.
I'm somewhat concerned about the rising cost of pellets in this area as they have gone up about $75 a ton in the last few years. We are burning a lot more corn this year however that requires a bit more work than pellets. It takes time to clean the corn a bit, put it in containers fill buckets verses just picking up a bag of pellets and just dumping it in the stove.
Also with the corn it has a bigger and harder Clinker to deal with everyday but for $100 a ton verses $225 for pellets it is easy to justify the extra time spent on corn.
Would I go back to LP if it became cheaper to use than pellets? probably not.

 

[TimfromMA]

Tim,
looks like your over 2,000.00 yr for 6 tons pellets which is about 100.00 more a ton than the average buyer pays 250.00?] although your pellets are top line.
I Pay around 1200.00 yr but would deff think about Oil if It cost me that much for pellets.

I only use 3.5 tons per year, the rest is just a cushion.

 

[lagger]

for me it's a trade off of sorts, I have a pretty efficient house and hydronic oil system, installed a Honeywell AQ200 controller a few years ago and upgraded the water heater to a stone lined German unit, went with pellets for the comfort factor \ price.. although I use only 3.5 tanks of oil a year (each refill at about 175 gallons) my home was only heated to 65 max in what ever rooms were being used (3 zone +dhw) with the pellet stove for a little less money, I can heat to 72 degrees including the bedrooms. Big difference in comfort level.