Pellet Stoves and Electrics

[Researcher]

Hi All

I intend to do a self build home in the near future and so am looking at all the various eco/solf-sufficiency elements. Wood Pellet stoves obviously came up along my researching travels.

A very key element of my self build requirement is the ability to "Live off the grid" as clearly we are all going to have to fact that reality in the next (probably) 2-5 years following some kind of disaster be that an earthquake, terrorist attack, oil crisis and so on.

Burning some kind of wood is clearly a desirable strategy in order to warm the house and water. Wood pellet burning looks to be extremely eco friendly with it's high 95% burn efficiency and relatively little ash to clear up, but, I notice looking through the various stoves available that they are all still dependent on electricity. They all seem to have control panels and thus electronics which manage the hoppers and fuel control and fans which pump the air around the house.

So, be honest please.

If you're in your eco home keeping warm from your eco friendly wood pellet stove and the power grid goes down for a significant period of time (like days/weeks)
what then happens to the pellet burner?

Can it function at any level without electricity?

If not, is it possible to power the stove using solar panels/photovoltaics or would that require too many panels?

Thanks in advance

 

[WoodPorn]

In my limited experience as a pelletburner, no you can not use the stove w/out electricity of some sort. The draw on electronics/motors is minimal, a few hundred watts at best. solar w/battery backup would definitely work, but run time would be dependant on your DC storage capacity.

 

[man-machine]

A very small generator would keep a pellet stove powered up, as mentioned just a few hundred watts.

I'd be inclined to have a straight woodburner as backup in addition to a PS.

 

[Dr_Drum]

Go with a straight wood stove, no electricity required, and you can always burn your furniture if necessary. Also, pellet stoves are not 95% efficient and ash and cleaning are issues that come up here constantly.
Mike -

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Pellet stoves are efficient as far as burning the fuel goes, after that it can go down hill fast.

If you can live with manually lighting your stove and don't need to heat a large area there are pellet stoves that can run on as little as 27 watts of electricity.

Any carbon based fuel is other than clean so I don't understand why you are even considering a wood burner.

 

[BIGISLANDHIKERS]

Some stoves can operate on DC without a converter. We lost power for 4 days and didn't have a generator. I used our car as the generator and rotated 3 batteries to keep my stove running. For long term a woodstove is a must and a good supply of fuel.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

If you really want to go off grid and be comfortable. I'd suggest that you look into super insulating the structure. It can cut down substantially on heating requirements.

Unless you have your own source of biomass (and can protect and harvest it) you are likely going to have difficulty in obtaining any (let alone electricity) under those lovely situations.