Pellet Furnace Options

[Alex MacAskill]

Hello Pellet People,

I've been tossing around the idea of a OWB for a while now, but am turning gears a little and now looking into a pellet furnace that would hook directly into my current oil fired hot air furnace.

I am looking for a couple things right now, particularly is there a list somewhere of the available pellet furnaces and possibly even ratings on which ones are better, etc, etc.

And I am also looking for any one local to Nova Scotia that has had a pellet furnace installed that may be able to recommend a good local installer.

Thanks a lot everyone,
Alex.

 

[hossthehermit]

I like my St. Croix Revolution. Harman makes the PF 100, I personally know 2 people who have them, they are happy with theirs. Several others on here with Pinnacle and Farenheit, I think, they will prob'ly chime in.

 

[DexterDay]

The 4 mentioned above are the top 4 used Furnaces out there.

St. Croix revolution (70,000 btu)
Fahrenheit Endurance (50,000 btu)
Harman PF-100 (105,000 btu)
Pinnacle/Traeger (??? Don't know off hand but its around 100,000 I think??)

I love my Fahrenheit. But I run it in tandem with a wood stove right next to it. Some use a much lower heat setting than the other 3 Fahrenheit users here. And I am heating about 3,000 sq ft total

 

[Alex MacAskill]

DexterDay - the pipe coming out of the top of yours, is that the exhaust or is that the warm air "plenum" of sorts and connects into your forced air system?


On a side note I am also wondering about how a pellet furnace would connect into my existing oil hot air system.... would they both use the SAME direct vent? Or would I have to install a new separate direct vent for the pellet stove?

Thanks a bunch!!

Alex.

 

[DexterDay]

They can be hooked up to the existing duct work, but the proper back draft dampers must be used.

The big pipe on top is Hot air plenum with the Exhaust being 4" and Outside air being 3".

Here is my Avatar blown up so you can see them better

 

[shtrdave]

What kind of cost would one be looking at for one of these furnaces? How much maintenance is involved with them?

I live in what used to be a commercial building, it is 40X60 so 2400 sqft with another 500 sqft added on, I enclosed and built about 1000 Sqft of the main room into an apartment which I heat now with my pellet stove. The rest of the garage is heated with an Oil hot air furnace and i would like to get away from the oil man, I keep the temp on the low side upper 40's low 50 unless I am going to be working out there. The ceiling is 14 Foot and I did have a bunch of insulation blown in, which helped some with oil usage. I am not sure how much I have used this year I started with 550 gallons I need to check my tanks.

Over all would a pellet furnace be a good option or should I look for something else, no Nat Gas here and the propane people are nuts.

 

[DexterDay]

I paid $2,000 for mine used. With duct work, back draft dampers, and some venting.

My dealer heats his shop (3,000 + sq ft w/ 16' ceilings) with a Fahrenheit.

My dealer has a new Fahrenheit for $3,000 OTD! Thats a great deal..

 

[Alex MacAskill]

Hi hossthehermit.... I just seen a Revolution for sale used, only 1 year old.... looking at the specs it only puts out 60,000 BTU. My house is about 4000 sq ft (including the basement which isn't heated all that well). How many lbs per hour would this unit use on the highest setting? Do you know?

I like my St. Croix Revolution. Harman makes the PF 100, I personally know 2 people who have them, they are happy with theirs. Several others on here with Pinnacle and Farenheit, I think, they will prob'ly chime in.

 

[Delta-T]

60K BTU is pretty close to 8lbs/ hour...give or take a few ounces here and there

 

[DexterDay]

Yep. Pellets are about 8,000 BTU per pound.

A 50,000 BTU unit is a little over 6 lbs an hour.

80,000 BTU unit is 10 lbs an hour

10 lbs an hour means 6 bags of pellets a day!! Or 180 a month (3 ton a month).

What size is your oil furnace now??

 

[hossthehermit]

60K BTU is pretty close to 8lbs/ hour...give or take a few ounces here and there

Yeah, 8#/hr sounds about right, never pushed mine anywhere near that, maybe 5-6 on a real cold night, 2 bags in an overnight is the most I ever ran, all I ever needed, but I know it WILL do more

 

[Alex MacAskill]

Yep. Pellets are about 8,000 BTU per pound.

A 50,000 BTU unit is a little over 6 lbs an hour.

80,000 BTU unit is 10 lbs an hour

10 lbs an hour means 6 bags of pellets a day!! Or 180 a month (3 ton a month).

What size is your oil furnace now??

I am not 100% sure what size nozzle they have in my furnace right now. I suspect it is in the 100,000+ range. Just bought the house last summer and am going through our first winter. I can tell you I used about 3000 liters of oil (or ~792 gallons) and additional electric heat on some of the tiled floor and a small heater in the babies room (probably would still need this go forward so we can turn down the overall house at night, etc)..

My house was gutted and renovated 10 yrs ago, so I think it is insulated quite decent on the main floor and upstairs, the basement is partially unfinished and could use some work there to insulate better, etc.

I would hope that I would not be running the thing non-stop! So , even at 80lbs a day (2 bags) at $4 per bag, that's 8 bucks a day.... I went through a tank of oil on a cold month this year, which was about 900 dollars, or $30 per day!

Based on that math, I guess I could go full tilt at 8lbs and hour @ 24 hrs = 192lbs or 4.8bags * $4.00 = 19.20

ohhhh my head hurts )

 

[Alex MacAskill]

I see locally that there is a St Croix Revolution for sale, used.... suppose to be less than a year old, only used a few months, they are asking $2500 but said they would go less.... I suspect this is a good deal, what are these worth new? I wonder if this is a cheap way to get into pellets and see how it works out, just don't know if it is big enough for my needs.