Newbie with lots of questions

[Bumper1990]

Ok guys here's my situation looking at getting a pellet stove to use as a primary heat source my home is 1200square foot two stories but I plan on putting it in my basement so I'll be heating 1800 square feet basement is 90% underground so once I get my stone foundation up to temp I should be alright I'm thinking. So for my questions. Am I right about that? Should I put vents with the built in fans on the first floor to suck the heat out of the basement? Can I even heat a two story house with these? My house is an open layout big living room and big kitchen then three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs recently remodeled so insulation is good windows are good. Next set of questions I want to put this where my oil furnace is currently can I remove that and just hook the stove up to the existing pipeing that's going into the chimney now? I plan to put the clean air vent where the fill up pipes come out for my tanks but my main concern is putting the exhaust pipe into the chimney if I can just use my existing pipe that would be perfect. I'm looking mainly at used stoves or new under 1200$ preferbly a used one around 600 would be better. What makes should I look at what makes should I avoid? How many ton am I roughly looking at for a heating season in central pa (our house is usually set at 68) I know I kind of rambled and have alot of questions but found this forum and figured I'd give it a shot! I grew up on a hand fired wood stove as a main heat source so I'm savy on that but pellet stoves are a new animal to me. Any advice or direction will be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance

 

[jertola]

Wow there is a lot here and I think you posted it in the pellet review area which is probably the reason for no responses yet. First off, if I read this correctly, it said you wanted to remove the boiler and use the existing chimney. With an insert you may be able to use that chimney but honestly I would rethink this plan. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that you really should have a backup heat source. I'm not sure where you live, but if your pellet stove fails in the dead of winter, you'd be SOL. Pellets stoves have a lot of electrical components unlike wood stoves and things will go wrong with them every now and then. The other is that it's not very efficient trying to heat from the basement. Especially if you are trying to get the heat up two levels. There are posts about that on here. Just curious as to why you'd use the basement. Is it a space issue upstairs or the use of the old chimney? If you have space then I'd put it on the first floor. It should heat nicely with an open floor plan. Pellet stoves unlike wood stoves do not require a full chimney. Just a vent going out of the wall. I heat my 1900 sq/ft house with a Harman P61a and it does the job nicely but more than what you wanted to spend. There are other decent stoves that might work for you in your price range. Check out AMFM energy. They have some reasonable stuff that could work for you. Good luck.

 

[mariohere]

Generally speaking, pellet stoves do not put out enough btu's for basement placement. However, since your entire house is 1800 sq/ft including the basement, I would say that you may have a chance. My recommendation is to put the pellet stove on the first floor if at all possible with a model that can put our up to 40,000 btu.

If you must go with the basement placement then I think you will need a model that puts out much more than 40K btu, id say 60,000 btu's(if you want to heat exclusively with pellets). For inexpensive models look to the USSC or other stoves that drop the pellets into the burn pot. These are prefferable, for heat output, to the type that push the pellets directly into the burn pot.

Good luck!

Ok guys here's my situation looking at getting a pellet stove to use as a primary heat source my home is 1200square foot two stories but I plan on putting it in my basement so I'll be heating 1800 square feet basement is 90% underground so once I get my stone foundation up to temp I should be alright I'm thinking. So for my questions. Am I right about that? Should I put vents with the built in fans on the first floor to suck the heat out of the basement? Can I even heat a two story house with these? My house is an open layout big living room and big kitchen then three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs recently remodeled so insulation is good windows are good. Next set of questions I want to put this where my oil furnace is currently can I remove that and just hook the stove up to the existing pipeing that's going into the chimney now? I plan to put the clean air vent where the fill up pipes come out for my tanks but my main concern is putting the exhaust pipe into the chimney if I can just use my existing pipe that would be perfect. I'm looking mainly at used stoves or new under 1200$ preferbly a used one around 600 would be better. What makes should I look at what makes should I avoid? How many ton am I roughly looking at for a heating season in central pa (our house is usually set at 68) I know I kind of rambled and have alot of questions but found this forum and figured I'd give it a shot! I grew up on a hand fired wood stove as a main heat source so I'm savy on that but pellet stoves are a new animal to me. Any advice or direction will be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance

 

[dotman17]

Generally speaking, pellet stoves do not put out enough btu's for basement placement. However, since your entire house is 1800 sq/ft including the basement, I would say that you may have a chance. My recommendation is to put the pellet stove on the first floor if at all possible with a model that can put our up to 40,000 btu.

If you must go with the basement placement then I think you will need a model that puts out much more than 40K btu, id say 60,000 btu's(if you want to heat exclusively with pellets). For inexpensive models look to the USSC or other stoves that drop the pellets into the burn pot. These are prefferable, for heat output, to the type that push the pellets directly into the burn pot.

Good luck!

Yeah I've got 2100 sq/ft and my Harman Accentura i52 pellet stove is downstairs. It heats my whole house on a bag of pellets a day -- using a quality premium pellet. On colder days a bag and a half.

 

[fmsm]

Have you considered a pellet boiler? This would completely take the place of your oil burner. If that is not practical you may want to purchase a model that can be adapted to your current venting (assuming you have forced hot air). There are a few out there but I can’t remember the exact brands and models. If neither of these ideas are practical I would caution you as to the air flow reaching the upstairs, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t . You can’t in most if not all localities just cut a hole in the floor for the heat to rise, this is against building codes and could create a very hazardous situation in the event of a fire.

Perhaps the Moderator could move this to the general forum.

 

[Gasjetruss04]

I replaced my wood burner in the basement after much arguements with the wife. She got her pellet stove, but what a drop in temp compared to the woodstove in the same location. After a couple experiments with fans and about 2 days to get foundation warm, it has kept the basement at 75 to 80 with my upstairs staying around 70. The outside ambient last night was single digits. If all else fails I will make the wife a sandbox with pellets in it and install the Rinnai DV furnaces I wanted to originally put in lol.

 

[Tonyray]

Generally speaking, pellet stoves do not put out enough btu's for basement placement. However, since your entire house is 1800 sq/ft including the basement, I would say that you may have a chance. My recommendation is to put the pellet stove on the first floor if at all possible with a model that can put our up to 40,000 btu.

If you must go with the basement placement then I think you will need a model that puts out much more than 40K btu, id say 60,000 btu's(if you want to heat exclusively with pellets). For inexpensive models look to the USSC or other stoves that drop the pellets into the burn pot. These are prefferable, for heat output, to the type that push the pellets directly into the burn pot.

Good luck!

Curious why u feel drop feed is prefferable

 

[Nitro-Fish]

I was wondering the same thing

 

[dotman17]

Again, I dunno where that guy gets his information but I have a tiny Harman insert in the BASEMENT and it heats my whole house of 2100 sq. feet. I suppose you can take his advice or read the testimonies of others. My stove is about 50,000 btus and it's a pusher.

 

[Tonyray]

I always thought that the drop feeder was more prone to what they call "damming" where the pellets get backed up by
pilling onto each other.

 

[batchman]

And I always thought the drop approach was more immune to hopper fires...

Still believe this thread belongs in the main forum, this sub-forum is about this years' pellets - because they vary year-to-year.

PS my basement dweller isn't yet ducted, but it does still help. It replaced a WS that wouldn't draft without a window or door open...

Best,
- Jeff