Right Sizing a Pellet Stove?

[Cypod]

Hello all, just opened up this account as I've been doing research on pellet stoves and this website has been a tremendous help as I've been learning. Wanted to pose a couple questions to you about my specific scenario and see if I can get any advice.

I live in Michigan (Grand Rapids) and am in the process of converting a 400sqft barn shed into a living area. My wife and I just had our first child and with 2 beds and 1 bath and this offers an inexpensive way to keep us in our current home a little longer. I've already got a 50 amp sub panel in the building and am planning on a mini split for AC and electric heat, but am really hoping to do something better as a main source of heat. Personally I've always wanted a wood stove of some sort and with how a pellet stove can self regulate the heat it seems the perfect fit.

Do have a couple questions for the group before I jump into this...

First, my impression of a wood burning stove is that I can essentially add pellets, set a temp and if it has a self igniter (which I assume is all of them?) It is good to go as long as there are pellets. But what kind of maintenance is required on a routine basis? Is it just emptying the ashes every few days? And is it truly as hands off as I make it out to be?

I do not see a ton of pellet stoves that are geared towards smaller spaces... Most of the ones I'm looking at are 1500-2000sqft. I know there is something about right sizing a furnace and too big being bad. Does that same concept apply here? This space is going to be a studio with no interior walls. My hope is that the pellets would last longer, but don't know if there are factors to consider here.

I am looking specifically at PelPro stoves, specifically the PP70. With the variable speed blower and trim settings would it be possible to tune it down to a smaller space? Also, I've seen mention of the Pellet Miser on here and appears to have good reviews. I would probably plan to use that as well.

In any case, excited to join the community here and I appreciate any insight you all have!

 

[SidecarFlip]

My ONLY comment is, no pellet stove or biomass burner is to be considered as a primary heat source. They are only space heaters.

 

[gfreek]

Welcome....Pellet stoves are supplemental heaters. There is more than just filling the hopper with pellets, pushing the start button, and occasionally emptying an ash pan. Hands off , nope...Start with the owners manual and install manual...stove clearances, exhaust vent pipe clearances.. Some owners shut down their stoves many times during the week, other do it once a week, some do it bi weekly, etc.. for deep or shallow cleaning . Clean the combustion blower, clean the convection (room) blower, etc. Pellet storage, with a power outage the stove stops working, noise factor, shop vac with filters, or ash vac... warranty service , parts availability. These are a few things I can think of now.

 

[bogieb]

How often, and how complicated it is to clean a pellet stove depends on the pellet stove yu install. My previous St. Croix Hastings was a great stove for heating, but I HAD to empty the ash pan every week (and some stoves don't even have an ash pan, so those would be more often). Additionally, the cleaning was a bit complicated; There were baffles to remove (and re-installing correctly can be interesting), plus there were 3 tiny ash traps that were a pain to get to, and also serviced an air flow path that some use coat hangers to clean.

My Harman's have larger ash pans so cleaning is every 3-4 weeks and the cleaning is more straight forward and simple. The difference between taking care of my P61a and the Hastings was incredible and the reason I jumped on the chance to get a P43 to replace the Hastings. And I'm not pushing a Harman, just the stoves I know best.

Any wood burning appliance needs maintenance of the exhaust. The more you use the appliance, the more often it has to be performed.

With pellet stoves, buying larger than expected need, is better because they can be throttled down, but you can't get more out of them than designed should you have an extraordinary cold spell. At the same time, a P61a or P68 would probably not be appropriate for a 400 sq/ft place because it would do nothing but burn low. A 38,000 - 45,000 btu stove would probably do nicely in that small of a spacem assuming that you won't have a 20' ceiling.

If you decide on a pellet stove is decide the brands/models you are interested in and download their install and owner's manuals BEFORE making a decision. Those should show you not only clearances needed (some need more than others), but also should give you an idea of what the cleaning consists of, how complicated that cleaning is, and how often it would need to be done.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Don't 'buy' into what some salesperson tells you. They are there to make a buck and move product and they won't be dealing with it anyway. You will be.

 

[Cypod]

Wow, thank you all for the replies! This is very insightful.

So I think I might have mis-stated my intentions for the pellet stove... I plan on using the mini split as the primary heat source, but not use it to heat the space up to a comfortable level. Ideally I'd like to use a pellet stove for when we are in there to kick the heat up.

I will say even though I have a primary heat source I was under the impression that a pellet stove could be used as a main heat source... Are those comments based on coding standards that require a more reliable heat source (something that allows you to leave the home for a winter kind of thing) or is it because they really wouldn't be able to heat up a room from a low temp? This space will not have plumbing and if we are out of town or go for a period without using it I was planning on turning the mini split off and letting it cool and could use the pellet stove to heat it back to comfort. I assume it could handle that, but figured I'd clarify...

Also, thank you for the thoughts on cleaning... Definitely need to take that into account!

Does anyone have any opinions on PelPro? Seems to be well liked on here... I see it is manufactured by same parent company as Harman (Hearth and Home Technologies).

 

[johneh]

In my hunt camp, we use an enviro Max 70 thousand BTU
last Tuesday 3 of us went to the camp for 3 days when we arrived it was -22
The camp is open concept with 2 bed rooms and a bathroom
It took that stove 5 hours cranking out heat to bring the temp to 22
which included the walls floor and ceiling. This camp is only so so insulated
for this part of the world but it has kept this camp warm and comfy for us
It all depends on how you use it and maintain it
In your case, it may not heat the whole building but it will take a large chunk
of the mini-splits workload.
Your insurance company will want an automatic main heating system (oil, gas, propane, or electric )
so you can be away for extended periods

 

[JR52]

Yes, pellet stoves are space heaters so you are going to have greater temperature variation than non-biomass fuel heat sources. But this doesn't mean that it won't be a great solution for your set up with no interior walls and a small space. We use our Absolute 63 as the sole heat source (except while traveling) for 2,500 SF over 2 floors and rarely see a temperature difference of greater than 3-4 degrees. We have a similar set up to yours in that there are no interior walls and it's quite open which helps with the temperature consistency. For insurance purposes, we have a heat pump listed as our primary but we never use it unless we are away when we set our home to 50.

Maintenance is going to be more than you describe in your post. It's not just set it and forget it but, at 400 SF, it will be considerably lower maintenance than the average pellet stove user has to do. Great advice above on getting to know your manual and cleaning requirements will save a lot of headaches down the road.

 

[bogieb]

I heat entirely with pellet stoves and use my propane boiler as back up. For a simple, open area, I think a pellet stove would be great.

The reason they are considered space heaters are as more rooms are added into the mix (not neccessarily in your case, just in general), the less even the heat gets because it is all coming from one spot. Unlike a whole house heating set up, where there are ducts / baseboards / radiators that heat each room.

 

[SidecarFlip]

So do I actually, but my condensing furnace is always ready to assume the heat load which I do when I shut down the corn burner for cleaning. No point in letting the indoor temperature drop while I'm cleaning the stove. Even at maximum output (where is is presently and has been for a while) it still takes ab it of time to get the house temp back up so I used the central furnace with it's 120,000 btu's to keep it constant.

For me at least, the trick is using fans to distribute the heat except for the upstairs. I leave the door to the second story partially open and convection keeps it toasty up there.

Said before, I need to run the central furnace on blower only to keep my pipes from freezing when it's this cold for this long. I have the central furnace on a timed blower cycle where it runs for 15 minutes every hour.

I'm sucking down corn at a pretty high rate of consumption the last few days...