Hi all,
Just bought a new home in Southern NH and moved in last month. It has oil fuel and radiant heating throughout. Considering it is more than double the size of my last house (2300 sq ft vs. 1100 sq ft), I'm a little nervous about upcoming oil bills. I've been tossing the idea around of supplementing the oil heat with a pellet stove. A little short on cash after putting down the new down payment but I really think a pellet stove would be a good investment.
I have three zones of heating (2 downstairs, 1 upstairs) which I think would make my home very conducive to a pellet stove. Two rooms on the main floor (dining room and formal living room) are on one zone and can be closed off so they don't have to be heated that often. The bedrooms are upstairs and on their own zone. The main living area on the first floor includes the kitchen, half bath, and family room. This is the area I'm hoping to heat primarily with pellets and is probably only about 600 sq ft. I figure that if I can heat this area with pellets and just let the oil furnace control the bedrooms upstairs, I should see some savings in my oil bills. If some heat makes its way upstairs, great. If not, at least I'll have cut down costs somewhat.
There are two possible locations on the 1st floor where I could install a stove. We have a functioning fireplace in the family room where we could install an insert. My only concern with this is that this is where we spend most of our time watching TV and I'm afraid the pellet stove might be too noisy. The other area is in the kitchen. The kitchen is an eat-in kitchen and the far wall is an exposed brick wall that is our chimney. There was a cut-out in the ceiling where someone had venting for a stove of some sort installed previously but it has been drywalled over. The kitchen floor is tiled.
I've just started looking at a few stoves that others have recommended here and I'm sort of keying into the 55-TRP10 but I'm open to any other suggestions. I have a few questions though .... (disclaimer - I have no knowledge related to this so I apologize in advance for any stupid questions)
1) I read that stoves can be adapted to use a thermostat. Will I have to bury a wire in my wall? I read about remote thermostats but I'm not sure how they work. Reason I ask is because the stove backs up to the brick chimney and I'm not sure where to run the wire. Same goes with the electric. There's no outlet by the brick chimney so I'm not sure how I'd handle electric.
2) I expected to see a vent directly into the brick chimney. But you can tell the previous owners punched a hole in the drywall in the ceiling which I'm assuming was used for venting at one time. If there is a vent there, there's no benefit of trying to put one in the brick, right?
3) When using a thermostat, is it possible to use a programmable one that tells the stove to keep the area at 60 degrees from 8am-4pm but to increase temp to 65 degrees starting at 4pm? If not, do most stoves have an internal thermostat that tells them to kick on at a target temperature?
4) Are there benefits of a free-standing stove vs. an insert?
5) Living in New England, how important is it to have a multi-fuel stove? I'm assuming most pellets up here would be wood and that corn pellets would be more prevalent in the west/midwest.
6) Considering we lose power occasionally up here, any idea how much power a pellet stove uses? I just bought a 6000W generator which I think would be sufficient to power a stove in those rare instances when we lose electricity.
Thanks in advance for any help/info you can provide! I'll try to upload a picture of the area in the kitchen where I'm thinking about installing the stove.
Just bought a new home in Southern NH and moved in last month. It has oil fuel and radiant heating throughout. Considering it is more than double the size of my last house (2300 sq ft vs. 1100 sq ft), I'm a little nervous about upcoming oil bills. I've been tossing the idea around of supplementing the oil heat with a pellet stove. A little short on cash after putting down the new down payment but I really think a pellet stove would be a good investment.
I have three zones of heating (2 downstairs, 1 upstairs) which I think would make my home very conducive to a pellet stove. Two rooms on the main floor (dining room and formal living room) are on one zone and can be closed off so they don't have to be heated that often. The bedrooms are upstairs and on their own zone. The main living area on the first floor includes the kitchen, half bath, and family room. This is the area I'm hoping to heat primarily with pellets and is probably only about 600 sq ft. I figure that if I can heat this area with pellets and just let the oil furnace control the bedrooms upstairs, I should see some savings in my oil bills. If some heat makes its way upstairs, great. If not, at least I'll have cut down costs somewhat.
There are two possible locations on the 1st floor where I could install a stove. We have a functioning fireplace in the family room where we could install an insert. My only concern with this is that this is where we spend most of our time watching TV and I'm afraid the pellet stove might be too noisy. The other area is in the kitchen. The kitchen is an eat-in kitchen and the far wall is an exposed brick wall that is our chimney. There was a cut-out in the ceiling where someone had venting for a stove of some sort installed previously but it has been drywalled over. The kitchen floor is tiled.
I've just started looking at a few stoves that others have recommended here and I'm sort of keying into the 55-TRP10 but I'm open to any other suggestions. I have a few questions though .... (disclaimer - I have no knowledge related to this so I apologize in advance for any stupid questions)
1) I read that stoves can be adapted to use a thermostat. Will I have to bury a wire in my wall? I read about remote thermostats but I'm not sure how they work. Reason I ask is because the stove backs up to the brick chimney and I'm not sure where to run the wire. Same goes with the electric. There's no outlet by the brick chimney so I'm not sure how I'd handle electric.
2) I expected to see a vent directly into the brick chimney. But you can tell the previous owners punched a hole in the drywall in the ceiling which I'm assuming was used for venting at one time. If there is a vent there, there's no benefit of trying to put one in the brick, right?
3) When using a thermostat, is it possible to use a programmable one that tells the stove to keep the area at 60 degrees from 8am-4pm but to increase temp to 65 degrees starting at 4pm? If not, do most stoves have an internal thermostat that tells them to kick on at a target temperature?
4) Are there benefits of a free-standing stove vs. an insert?
5) Living in New England, how important is it to have a multi-fuel stove? I'm assuming most pellets up here would be wood and that corn pellets would be more prevalent in the west/midwest.
6) Considering we lose power occasionally up here, any idea how much power a pellet stove uses? I just bought a 6000W generator which I think would be sufficient to power a stove in those rare instances when we lose electricity.
Thanks in advance for any help/info you can provide! I'll try to upload a picture of the area in the kitchen where I'm thinking about installing the stove.
