Pellet Stove for FREE

[daisymc]

I'm so excited, I used my stimulus check to purchase my pellet stove, no cost out of pocket. (YEAH) My husband can install everything so no cost there either. I live in a 1600 sq ft ranch home in lower Michigan. I purchased 4 ton of pellets at a cost of $832. My husband thinks this is twice what we'll need, so the store we purchased them from will keep our name on file for anyone who is running low and can't get there hands on pellet. I will share ours if our consumption is lower than I planned. Pellet prices are on the rise around here form 3.69 to 4.99 over night for a 40 lb bag. I also filled my 500 gal. propane tank for our hot water, stove, and dryer. This will be an experiment this winter. Hope to cut heating cost and actually be warm. I have read all 52 pages on this message board and just love it. Keep up with all the questions and answers, I am learning a lot. :red:

 

[webbie]

Sounds like you are all set.........for this winter. Pellet prices should stay reasonable as long as you don't purchase in the middle of a "bubble"......

But always remember.....that stove was not free. The stimulus check came from me, you and our children (I didn't get one cause I make too much, and the $$ was borrowed and added to the national debt).......

It was "no cost out of pocket", which is dang good.

 

[packerfan]

Congrats on the new stove. I think that you will also notice that pellet prices in your area will tend to be much lower that what you read here from people in other areas of the country. It does pay to shop around for them as there are many times that the big box stores will have them on sale. It may also be a good idea to try out a couple of bags of different brands of pellets to see what works the best for you in your stove.

 

[Wet1]

1) The stove wasn't free. If you didn't buy the stove, that money could have went in your pocket. So it still cost you $X.

2) Two tons of pellets will not heat your house all winter. Four sounds more reasonable.

Enjoy the new stove!

 

[Xena]

Congrats on the stove!
Did you really read every post on
all 52 pages in the pellet mill/corn crib section?
:bug:

 

[daisymc]

I did read all the message pages, took me weeks. Thanks for the info on needing 4 tons. Im not sure how to calculate amount of pellets needed, when I ask people in my area with larger homes than mine, they say they only use one ton and it is their only sorce of heat. What I read hear contradicts that by a huge margin. My house has an open floor plan and is completely square, so I think that is a plus. Everything in my house is LP gas so hard to determine how much goes for the heater. I dont have the tank filled by the month, when it gets low I call for 500 gallons. (Never needed to keep track until now) I did prepare a spreadsheet to chart LP and pellets use for this year to try and get a better idea. I own two homes so this will be an experiment before I make a heating choice for my second home (still being built a 3,600 sq ft log home). Thanks to all. (Anyone out there in lower Michigan, if so, would like to have a discussion with someone near my area)

daisy

 

[Wet1]

1 OR 2 WILL CERTAINLY NOT BE ENOUGH! If you are going to try heating with just pellets, my guess is a min of 4 and that's keeping the place pretty cool... I'd plan on using 5 unless you're supplementing the heat.

With your new house, ya better plan wisely!

 

[jetskiman]

I heated my 1500sq ft ranch home (about 15yrs old) with 1.5 tons of pellets last year. I think some of you need to invest in insulation. I reinsulated my atttic a few years ago and it made a huge difference in my propane costs at that time.

 

[oldgoalie]

Our house is a ~1400 sq. feet modular, about 5 years old. We used about 2 1/2 tons last year of a mix of pellets and corn.

 

[daisymc]

Oldgoalie, where are you in West MI, if you dont mind me asking. I am also in a modular in Bellevue MI. Am glad to hear my 4 tons looks like enough. Maybe its just our area, but seem like everyone in this forum is spending a lot more on pellets and stoves. I did run accross others in this area and they are using around 2 tons. Thanks for the info.

Daisy

 

[drizler]

A couple tons is a darned good start yet they are right you will eventually end up needing more. Get yourself all squared away and think about picking up another one before too long and the price goes up. With 3 on hand you can do a wait and see about the 4th or just buy a few bags here and there at your leisure when you see a deal. I just got 3 to add to the 3/4 ton I had left last year which should put me in about the same status more or less. If you are pressed for room don't forget you can stack them higher than the standard one ton pallet shrink wrap. Many are shipped 1.5 ton recently to get some economy of shipping since a truck is wasting a lot of its legal rated capacity hauling one ton pallets. If they can stack them that high and bounce them down the road so can you if you need to in order to save space just handle the bags with some bit of care so you don't crush em up too much.
If you don't have a thermostat get one, you will be glad you did and it will save you a fair bit of money in my experience. I used around 3 tons of pellets and corn last winter to heat 1400 sf ranch in a climate similar to yours. Usually it ends up being more like 4 or 5 depending on what Ole Man Winter throws our way.

 

[oldgoalie]

Daisy,
I'm near White Cloud. It seems like a lot of the forum members are on the east coast. Pellet prices are about 60% higher there than they are here, and stove prices are substantially higher too. I have a St. Croix Lancaster that I sold and I just bought a Harman P38 this weekend that I'm replacing it with. With the price of corn I don't plan on burning it any longer. I'd wager that the 4 tons you have should get you through the winter.

 

[Wet1]

I heated my 1500sq ft ranch home (about 15yrs old) with 1.5 tons of pellets last year. I think some of you need to invest in insulation. I reinsulated my atttic a few years ago and it made a huge difference in my propane costs at that time.

I'm calling BS. You must have R100 insulation and live on top of a volcano. There is no way you could heat a 1500 sq ft home all year solely on 1.5 tons of pellets! If so, it must have been about 60* F near the stove and <40*F everywhere else in the house. Or maybe you're leaving out a key piece of info, such as you are also heating with another heat source.

Hell, even if you have a pellet stove that can really be choked down at it's lowest setting and you can get 30 hours of continuous use out of a bag of pellets, that's still only 1500 hours of heating, or less than 9 weeks.. So you mean to tell me you can comfotably heat your entire 1500 sq ft house in the dead of winter with the stove set at its lowest setting (cranking out <10,000 btu), and that you only need to heat your house for less than 9 weeks per year??? Me thinks not.

Let's do some math. Lets just say you leave the thermostat set fairly low and heat the entire house to about 65* F. You would probably need about plus or minus 80,000,000 btu to heat your house for the year. In terms of fuel oil, that's about 575 gals per year. With propane, you'd need about 875 gals per year. Or with natural gas, about 775 CCF. With pellets, a ton produces about 16,800,000 btu, so it takes about 4.75 tons to generate 80,000,000 btu. So you expect us to believe you're heating the ENTIRE house comfortably for the entire year on ONLY 25,000,000 btu worth of fuel???

 

[MCPO]

I heated my 1500sq ft ranch home (about 15yrs old) with 1.5 tons of pellets last year. I think some of you need to invest in insulation. I reinsulated my atttic a few years ago and it made a huge difference in my propane costs at that time.

I think you need to recalculate last years fuel costs .