hey there. we are thinking of switching from a toyo to a pellet stove to heat our 1200 sqf 2 story log house. it's 3 years old and was done in 8 inch logs. i don't know its r rating but it was real tight during our blow test last fall for our inspection. we really want to get away from the oil heat because of the price. we are hearing conflicting things about the compatablity of pellet stoves and our long COLD winters. any words of wisdom out there?? thanks for the help.
pellet stoves in AK log home, some advice??
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I have been going back and forth on buying a pellet stove for almost a year now. The biggest thing that has held me back from doing so is the availability of Pellets in Fbks. Theres only 3 sources : Sams, Lowes and Home Depot, and no local distributor though there has been talk about it for years. Lowes is selling a bag of Pellets for $7.98, thats a lot of $$ for a ton of pellets. Not to mention they dont always have em. I am vary wary of spending $2000-$3200 for a stove that I may or may not have pellets to burn in. Tough decision, but as I am sure you know, a wood stove ensures a fuel supply that wont break the bank or become non-existent.Its a tough decision and a costly one too.
Would seem silly to buy a pellet stove in Alaska unless a steady supply of cheap pellets were available. At $400 a ton, you might as well use oil, electric or LP.
OH, as far as the long cold winters - here is the story. Pellet stoves are used mostly as supplemental space heaters. Folks who are used to the heat of a wood stoves are sometimes disappointed, maybe because they expect miracle. But you have to burn a lot of pellets to get a lot of heat. For instance, a house in Alaska (well insulated) could easily have a heat loss of 40,000 plus BTU per hour. That type of output would take about 4 bags of pellets per day - at $8 a bag as quoted, that is $32 a day or over $900 a month.
So to answer the question, once push comes to shove and you really need to push out the BTU's, you are going to be loading a lot of pellets into the stove.
So to answer the question, once push comes to shove and you really need to push out the BTU's, you are going to be loading a lot of pellets into the stove.
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