Overuse of Pellet stoves

[Lemms]

Okay, I bought and installed a Mt. Vernon pellet stove this November and have been using it as the primary heat source for our 1,600 sq. ft. ranch home... Are these stove built for this or are they built more for supplemental heat? I just don't want to be burning the stove out early because it is being over worked.
This is why I am looking into install a wood gasification unit this coming summer/fall to use as my primary heat source, and then I would use the pellet stove as a supplementary heat source. Besides we are running into the problem where the rooms around where the pellet stove are warm, but the rooms on the back side of the house are 3-5 degrees cooler. As long as I have the hot water registers in the house, I might as well, use them and keep an even temperature in the house.
Besides, I think that the pellet and corn companies are going to (or have already) start taking advantage of the increased use of pellet and corn stoves by increasing the prices on pellets and corn. Eventually, we'll be no cheaper off than if we would just burn natural gas...

 

[moralleper]

I think you will find that a lot of people heat with only a pellet stove. I personally heated my house with a Breckwell for 1 year and the owner before me heated w/ it for 15 years. I just replaced it with a Quad Santafe and it is my only heat source. I think you will be fine.

 

[Xena]

Our St Croix has been cranking along every day
for the past 3 months, and every day last winter.
I will run 24/7 for a week before shutting it down
and giving it a half hour cleaning, then refire.
Mom gets cold if the temps go below 75, so
I do fire the oil burner to heat her
bedroom which is at the back of the house but
it's own zone anyway so it works out well.
If you have the pellets then by all means, burn em up.

Pellet price increase? That seems to depend largely
on where you live. Price of corn increase?
I think that's due to the ethanol thing rather than
an increase in stove usage.

Far as the rooms closer to the stove being warmer..
I think you'll find that the case with any type of stove.
Some folks use fans to help circulate heat better.

 

[begreen]

Quadrafire uses high quality motors that are designed for years of service. The stove can take it. Many of the components are very similar if not identical to ones used in a conventional warm air furnace.

As to pellet prices, it's supply and demand. The price of almost any fuel outside of geothermal and solar are variable. Fossil fuel costs are particularly volatile. Unusual weather, increased demand, the cost of transportation and world politics are factors that are out of the hands of the pellet manufacturers and suppliers.

 

[drizler]

I just shut mine off for the first time in a month this afternoon. It usually runs all winter long unless its really warm out or being cleaned.

 

[richg]

A Harman P61A is my primary heat source, and it runs nonstop from November until March (aside from shutdowns for cleaning). Buy a high quality stove, clean it regularly and follow all recommended maintenence, and you should be fine. However, my Harman is now three years old, and I plan on buying spare parts for it in the spring to have on hand in case it goes down in the next heating season. A spare ignitor, blower motors, etc.

 

[G-rott]

Many of the components are very similar if not identical to ones used in a conventional warm air furnace..

But...most warm air furnaces don't "run" 24/7 they cycle. Do new pellet stoves cycle on and off or do they run continously? Dosen't this call for more durrable parts?

Garett

 

[PutnamJct]

My Quadrafire is on a thermostat (comes that way from factory) and it runs weeks at a time depending on the weather.

 

[restorer]

Many of the components are very similar if not identical to ones used in a conventional warm air furnace..

But...most warm air furnaces don't "run" 24/7 they cycle. Do new pellet stoves cycle on and off or do they run continously? Dosen't this call for more durrable parts?

Garett

Garett:
Theoretically continuous operation of the motors (if designed for continuous operation, as most motors used in stoves are) will extend their usable life. Although you would not be able to measure it in your stove. What damages motors in stoves most, is the work they do, not the time they run, for example if your pellets get stuck a lot and the auger motor has to struggle. Starting and stopping is also hard on motors. Some stoves cycle, but many here have stoves that run conitinuous. Not set and forget, but with feed rate adjustments and blower adjustments. Proper maintenance will extend the life of the parts, but I for one am still operating on the original mechanical parts from a 1994 stove. And am only now noticing some performance losses in the motors.

 

[begreen]

The Quad pellet stoves run just like a warm-air furnace. Actually they are simply a pellet wood furnace. They cycle on off by the thermostat. With their reliable self-ignitors and a digital thermostat they are pretty slick units.

 

[MA01460]

The most effective (and least expensive) insurance policy you can purchase for your pellet stove is a battery backup, also referenced as an Uninterrupted Power Supply or UPS. Obviously parts will fail regardless of a UPS but not nearly as often. We have been heating exclusively with pellets for 3 seasons and my Big-E has spent every second protected by a computer grade UPS; I've had zero problems on the stove. I breathe a sigh of relief every time the UPS beeps indicating a quick outage or low voltage condition. In the winter time, that happens about once or twice a week on average.

As for consistency with temps in the house, this really depends on how well the house is insulated and how conducive the floor plan of the house is to natural airflow. You could find certain areas require assistance by way of a fan or possibly even a secondary heating option particularly in the bitterest weather but chances are if your house has these issues using pellets, you would probably experience those types of issues with any type of heating option. Flexible insulated duct, an inline duct fan and a Saturday afternoon can fix a lot of those issues.

As for pellet costs, it doesn't seem likely that you'll soon see pellets take another 50% price jump like the one seen in the 2005/2006 season. That jump was almost predictable as the pellet buyer market grew substantially and most newbie’s naively expected to walk into their local supplier in the middle of January and buy a few tons at the rock bottom prices they saw advertised just a few months prior. Many suppliers & retailers have adjusted their supply models to accommodate year round availability shifting away from the big "pre-buy" rush of lower priced deliveries that once defined the pellet industry; of course these changes come at a cost.

With deference to the Kyoto treaty, I will heat with pellets as long as they remain reasonably competitive to fossil fuels and probably beyond, which I’m betting is forever. Unlike my generation and those before me, my children are being taught from an early age that we will run out of fossil fuels someday and the sooner we accept that fact, the better off we will be.

As for realistic cost savings, I purchased my Big-E for $1500 3 years ago and by way of off-setting the cost of heating oil previously used in this house, it became fully depreciated from our domestic assets about 2 months into this heating season. Despite the increased pellet prices of the past two seasons. Of course you need to factor a 20 year old oil furnace and poorly designed heating system into the equation so your mileage may vary.