Hey all! I read through similar posts on here and reviews on Amazon, but thought I’d post this just in case it’s helpful to others down the line… we finally installed our woodstove, getting the chimney up on probably the coldest day of the years! 🤣 We started planning last summer and of course that’s when it gets done. 🤣
Anyway, we don’t have much cordwood yet since we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we do have a literal ton of pellets from the pellet stove the woodstove replaced. So…we got the small pelletier pellet basket to tryout. I have found it burns well if you fill it all the way and start it with lots of newspaper and cardboard, maybe a little lighter fluid if you’re impatient. 😁 It burns for maybe a few hours at most, with the air intake open all the way, and gets the flue temp up to a little more than 400… so not super hot. The real challenge is getting the pellets to light once you refill it… I have had the best luck just restarting the whole thing again once it burns down or a few times managing to rake the coals and last burning pellets to one side when maybe a 1/4 full and then refilling the other half of the basket, not covering any of the burning pellets. If you do it smokes a bunch and doesn’t relight very well…. Honestly we had better luck with the smaller and cheaper wire baskets I found on Etsy that we take camping, but they burn down much faster so take more work watching the fire.
We also tried a few biobricks and I liked those better for sure… either way next year we will have cordwood but it’s nice to be able to use pellets in a pinch if needed. We’ll still have them since the pellet stove will be in the otherwise unheated three season room instead! Hope this saves someone else some guesswork…
Anyway, we don’t have much cordwood yet since we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we do have a literal ton of pellets from the pellet stove the woodstove replaced. So…we got the small pelletier pellet basket to tryout. I have found it burns well if you fill it all the way and start it with lots of newspaper and cardboard, maybe a little lighter fluid if you’re impatient. 😁 It burns for maybe a few hours at most, with the air intake open all the way, and gets the flue temp up to a little more than 400… so not super hot. The real challenge is getting the pellets to light once you refill it… I have had the best luck just restarting the whole thing again once it burns down or a few times managing to rake the coals and last burning pellets to one side when maybe a 1/4 full and then refilling the other half of the basket, not covering any of the burning pellets. If you do it smokes a bunch and doesn’t relight very well…. Honestly we had better luck with the smaller and cheaper wire baskets I found on Etsy that we take camping, but they burn down much faster so take more work watching the fire.
We also tried a few biobricks and I liked those better for sure… either way next year we will have cordwood but it’s nice to be able to use pellets in a pinch if needed. We’ll still have them since the pellet stove will be in the otherwise unheated three season room instead! Hope this saves someone else some guesswork…
