New to this - advice on pellet insert.

[BAS]

New to all of this. Posted on the wood stove section before - all set to pull the trigger until the installer said the wood insert couldn’t be done and I should go with pellet.

I’m looking at the ComfortBilt HP 22i and wood like to hear peoples thoughts on both that stove and “pellet” in general. My main reasoning for the purchase is not wanting to be without heat in case power goes out - especially given the conversations about shortages of nat gas and coal. However pellet requires electricity - so now I’m forced to get a generator as well.

Can anyone provide some insight into whether this is worth it? FYI a roughly 2400 sq ft home however the living room/dining is open with 12 ft ceilings. Is 50,000 BTU’s sufficient for a good portion of the house? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mt Bob]

Do you have NG or LPG?

 

[Dataman]

2nd the NG or Propane. I have similar sized house. For Backup I keep Inverter/Generator (AIMS 1250) with two 100ah Batteries for 12 hours of Run Time on Medium Fan speed and Manual Mode (No Shutdown & Restart). One time in 3 years went 10 hours and it worked great except I did not have 2 batteries. Had to get another battery from Garage to swap out. I have 7kw Genny if it goes longer and I need to charge the batteries. I plan on PSW Generator in the Future. I have Harmon XXV for heating when it goes below 30f (Heat Pump until then). Used 6 bags of pellets since Sep. Warm at Night still. It's 48k BTU. I would have got P63 but Wife wanted pretty one (Brown). I put Stub on the OAK so the OAK Soft Intake Tube don't get damaged each time it's cleaned. Plus exchanged the screws for panels with ones I can just twist off easily instead of screwdriver. Makes it easier to take off back panels and do the 1 Ton Cleaning. I have plenty of room to clean it. I use couple of Box Fans to move air down the hall. It keeps it about 65f in Winter. Plus Ceiling fan in Living Room. If you think you will need box fans get the yesterday. They disappear in Stores in Fall/Winter. I picked up Cougar ASH Vac on Ebay for 65 bucks. Had to replaced filters. Works great.

 

[BAS]

Do you have NG or LPG?

Nat gas

 

[Mt Bob]

Nat gas

Well,wood and pellet stoves payback are not quick,take some years,unless you have free wood.This late going into winter,I would recommend a direct vent,pilot light wall heater,like from Empire. Yes,the blower will not work with a power outage,but it will function as a convection heater.
Also,any wood or pellet stove, mounted outside your fireplace, will give you much more heat than an insert, and makes them easy to service.

 

[BAS]

Well,wood and pellet stoves payback are not quick,take some years,unless you have free wood.This late going into winter,I would recommend a direct vent,pilot light wall heater,like from Empire. Yes,the blower will not work with a power outage,but it will function as a convection heater.
Also,any wood or pellet stove, mounted outside your fireplace, will give you much more heat than an insert, and makes them easy to service.

Fireplace is up 10” off the floor with an 18” hearth. Not big enough for a free standing unit plus aesthetically it would not be preferable. I know I’ll get a lot more heat than the traditional fireplace (which essentially is zero). I know it will take a bit to completely offset the cost. Wood insert is about $1000 cheaper but that’s no longer an option.

 

[mtnbiker727]

The website for that stove says it will heat a 2,800 sq ft house if the temperatures are mild. So I'm thinking it won't heat a 2,400 sq ft house if it's cold. Is the floorplan open? Looks like that is in kind of a den type area.

As the older guys keep repeating on here, a pellet stove is a space heater, so you'll heat the room the stove is in pretty well, and adjacent rooms OK, and other rooms or other floors not well at all. You'll lose a bunch of heat up those stairs, but not necessarily enough to keep whatever is up there warm.

A pellet stove gives you the look and feel of a wood stove, without all the labor of cutting and splitting and stacking firewood. You still have to carry the bags in there, and when cleaning it can be dusty and dirty. If it was my place, I would definitely put one in that spot, but its your money and your house...

 

[BAS]

The website for that stove says it will heat a 2,800 sq ft house if the temperatures are mild. So I'm thinking it won't heat a 2,400 sq ft house if it's cold. Is the floorplan open? Looks like that is in kind of a den type area.

As the older guys keep repeating on here, a pellet stove is a space heater, so you'll heat the room the stove is in pretty well, and adjacent rooms OK, and other rooms or other floors not well at all. You'll lose a bunch of heat up those stairs, but not necessarily enough to keep whatever is up there warm.

A pellet stove gives you the look and feel of a wood stove, without all the labor of cutting and splitting and stacking firewood. You still have to carry the bags in there, and when cleaning it can be dusty and dirty. If it was my place, I would definitely put one in that spot, but its your money and your house...

Not sure what you mean by “I would definitely put one in that spot”. What would you put in that spot, a wood insert, pellet insert? Sorry, I just don’t understand.

 

[mtnbiker727]

Not sure what you mean by “I would definitely put one in that spot”. What would you put in that spot, a wood insert, pellet insert? Sorry, I just don’t understand.

My whole post was talking about pellet stoves...

 

[Bob11b]

I just did a conversion to pellet stove back in October/November of this year. I’m using a Harman P35i to heat entire home 2016sqft. The stove is rated to heat 2100sqft (in zone 4) which I’m in in central Texas hill country. In zone 1 (New England) the stove is rated for 800sqft. So depending on which zone you reside in the true rating of the pellet stove can change drastically. So always buy a bigger stove if your budget allows it is a space heater but you can manipulate the air to heat more of the home.
I have a very open plan (doublewide) with pitch ceilings 9’ highest 7’ lowest. Higher ceilings are easier to cool but harder to heat heat air rises cool air sinks. There are loads of threads throughout the forum to get information which I used to manipulate heat to spread throughout the home. Regardless of which system you use moving the heated air to other locations without a central HVAC system is basically the same.
Ceiling fan set on low spinning clockwise this moves the warm air. I use x2 table oscillation fans (WalMart $14ish) on the floor center pointed to the floor locked and on low about 4’ away blowing into the room with pellet stove. The idea here is move the cold air out to the room to get heated and the warm air above will fill the space where the cold air has been evacuated. In my experiments this worked best. My insert is dead center of home room is kept @75 end bedrooms maintain 70 master bath maintains 68 (master ceiling fan low on clock wise).