Running oil AND pellets at the same time?

[MatthewWickwire]

So I recently purchased my first home and in it there is a pellet stove (Harman Advance) as well as oil heat.

My question is, should I have them both on at the same time?

Should I run the oil heat at a lower temp such at 15C so that the house never dips below that in the event the pellet stove goes off. Or should I commit to the pellets and turn the oil heat off while the stove is on.

This is my first time useing any heat source other the electrical

 

[Ssyko]

my furnace is set at 60 just in case i run out of pellets or stove goes out. pellet stove is set to 70 must keep the warden warm

 

[Tar12]

That is the proper way to do it...keep both systems operational in the event you have a issue with one or the other.

 

[gutlo]

If your oil heat is forced hot air, you could have a problem with the exhaust of the pellet stove being drawn into the the furnace and coming up through the vents.

 

[MatthewWickwire]

Thanks for your help!

If your oil heat is forced hot air, you could have a problem with the exhaust of the pellet stove being drawn into the the furnace and coming up through the vents.

it is hot water base

 

[DneprDave]

I run My old Whitfield pellet stove and my oil forced air furnace at the same time. The pellet stove isn't controlled by a thermostat, I run it 24/7 at the lowest setting. The pellet stove on its own will keep the main part of the house at 60F. The oil furnace makes up for the rest of the temperature, I like to keep my house at 65F.

Before I started using the pellet stove, I used to burn about 600 gallons of oil a year, now I burn about 150 gallons a year.

I have a back bedroom that is far from the furnace and the pellet stove, it gets heat from the oil furnace, but it is cooler than the rest of the house. I augment the heat in that bedroom with a couple of desktop computers.

 

[MatthewWickwire]

The more I read the more I love that my house came with this magnificent machine.

Thanks so much everybody. This was a big help!

 

[Ssyko]

And Welcome to the Forums Matt

 

[zrock]

I keep my furnace at 15 or 17 if temps cup below 0. I shut the pellet stove off at night and use the furnace to heat. Helps keep the pipes from freezing. If it's super cold out I'll kick the furnace in once and à while to warm up the pipes

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

 

[Pete Zahria]

I run My old Whitfield pellet stove and my oil forced air furnace at the same time. The pellet stove isn't controlled by a thermostat, I run it 24/7 at the lowest setting. The pellet stove on its own will keep the main part of the house at 60F. The oil furnace makes up for the rest of the temperature, I like to keep my house at 65F.

This is exactly what I do..
Harman is on constant burn... NG boiler thinks it is trying to heat a 65 degree house..
It comes on occasionally when it is really cold, and gives the extremities some heat.
As well as circulating hot water to the baseboards..

Dan

 

[steevo]

I will run my oil to take the chill out of the air on cold days or while cleaning the pellet stove. ry to run it once or twice a week to get some heat in the basement as well. nice to have both

 

[peakbagger]

FYI with hot water baseboard, if you have cold spots in your piping and the oil boiler doesn't run very often you could get frozen heating pipes. There is device called a thermoguard you can install that cycles you circulators occasionally to keep that from happening.

 

[MatthewWickwire]

FYI with hot water baseboard, if you have cold spots in your piping and the oil boiler doesn't run very often you could get frozen heating pipes. There is device called a thermoguard you can install that cycles you circulators occasionally to keep that from happening.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[tlc1976]

The only issue I might see is outside air. If you don't have an OAK on your pellet stove, and your furnace just draws from ambient house air, then both running together might require more air than you can get through cracks in your house. And might backdraft down the chimney, or just starve one or both for air.

 

[Nikovevo]

Hey there,

I just bought my first house this summer and put in a pellet stove. So far I love it. I do have an outside air kit(OAK) I just put on and seems to be burning better. I keep my baseboard heat set at about 60*. If I’m home I shut off completely. When I go to work I shut of my pellet stove and turn my boiler on to 60* like I said. It hardly gets down to 60 so it rarely is used. I have been sipping on oil. I put about 3/4 of a tank in on November second and I still have over a quarter tank left. There is only myself and two others in my house so only about 3 showers a day. I run the stove from about 4 in the afternoon when I get home from work till about 630am and I burn about 1 bag in that time frame. Hope this helps.

 

[Dougsey]

Like some of the others above, I run my stove in Stove Temp mode to maintain a base temp of 65 or so. The oil fired boiler makes up the rest. That method gets some heat to the extremities/2nd floor and keeps pipes from freezing.

If temps are going to be above 30ish, I shut the stove off and just burn oil. I vary the strategy based on the price of oil.

 

[bill3rail]

Welcome Matthew!
I keep the heat on at our desired temperature when temps drop down below freezing. This way if the pellet stove cannot keep up, the heat will take over.
When the temperature is not that low I drop the heat lower in case the stove shuts down so the house stays at a reasonable temperature.

Bill

 

[MatthewWickwire]

Hey there,

I just bought my first house this summer and put in a pellet stove. So far I love it. I do have an outside air kit(OAK) I just put on and seems to be burning better. I keep my baseboard heat set at about 60*. If I’m home I shut off completely. When I go to work I shut of my pellet stove and turn my boiler on to 60* like I said. It hardly gets down to 60 so it rarely is used. I have been sipping on oil. I put about 3/4 of a tank in on November second and I still have over a quarter tank left. There is only myself and two others in my house so only about 3 showers a day. I run the stove from about 4 in the afternoon when I get home from work till about 630am and I burn about 1 bag in that time frame. Hope this helps.

Very helpful! Thanks for your input.

 

[TonyVideo]

I don't use oil but natural gas. However I have an old 1880's home and zone heat. I keep the pellet stove on medium setting in stove mode not room temp in the living room where we are majority of the time. The thermostat to the gas furnace is in the same room and I keep it at 70. It runs enough when it gets cold to keep the rest of the house at 65 as the pellet stove is not set high enough to keep it 70 by design. If it drops down below 65 in the rest of the house I will drop the pellet stove down slightly so the thermostat kicks on more for the rest of the house. The house is 3000 square feet with 10 foot ceiling on 2 floors so a lot to heat. I have to keep the rest of the house at least 62 or I get some pipes that freeze up on outside walls that happen to be the farthest point of the pellet stove. So I just keep it warmer where we are most of the time.I have a second pellet stove back by the kitchen on the back side of the house that will kick on and off as it is set to 65. When it gets into the teens or below it will go on and off as the furnace run is really to far plus the kitchen was an add on that really isn't insulated well enough. Morel of story. Don't buy an 1880's home. 3 layers of brick on outside perimeter is all the insulation for the walls.

 

[MarkF48]

Forced hot air by oil on a programmable thermostat and a Harman XXV. The thermostat is in the same room as the pellet stove which is the living room. Old two story farmhouse, bedrooms upstairs. I have fan mounted in an opening to the rest of the first floor which pulls warm air from the living room into the rest of the house. The kitchen is at far end of the house where I have coal stove that gets used occasionally if the temps get down to about 10 F or lower. Both my wife and I are retired and home for most of the day.

I have the thermostat set at 6:30am - 60 F, 7:00am - 62 F, 10:00pm - 63 F, 11:00pm - 52 F

Usually up around 7am and start the pellet stove which is set to keep the room at 71 F. This overrides the thermostat daytime setting and I run the pellet stove through the day and evening until shutdown at 11pm. When the living room temp drops to 52 F the thermostat kicks in the oil furnace for the remainder of the night as needed until 6:30am. This gives some heat to the cellar for the water pipes and gives the furnace a bit of run time. Upstairs have been comfortable for sleeping and we turn on a warming blanket about a 1/2 hr before going to bed. Wife doesn't like the cold and she hasn't complained yet with this routine. I haven't used much oil this year and I think my pellet usage is down as well.

 

[MatthewWickwire]

I don't use oil but natural gas. However I have an old 1880's home and zone heat. I keep the pellet stove on medium setting in stove mode not room temp in the living room where we are majority of the time. The thermostat to the gas furnace is in the same room and I keep it at 70. It runs enough when it gets cold to keep the rest of the house at 65 as the pellet stove is not set high enough to keep it 70 by design. If it drops down below 65 in the rest of the house I will drop the pellet stove down slightly so the thermostat kicks on more for the rest of the house. The house is 3000 square feet with 10 foot ceiling on 2 floors so a lot to heat. I have to keep the rest of the house at least 62 or I get some pipes that freeze up on outside walls that happen to be the farthest point of the pellet stove. So I just keep it warmer where we are most of the time.I have a second pellet stove back by the kitchen on the back side of the house that will kick on and off as it is set to 65. When it gets into the teens or below it will go on and off as the furnace run is really to far plus the kitchen was an add on that really isn't insulated well enough. Morel of story. Don't buy an 1880's home. 3 layers of brick on outside perimeter is all the insulation for the walls.

I do not envy your heating bill! But it sounds like what you are saying lines up with what others have told me and what I have been doing so far.

My home is only 42 years old and was recently updated with regards to insulation. So I set the hot water baseboards between 15C to 17C and run the Pellet stove when we are home and awake.

So far so good!

 

[Luvmesomesamples]

Nothing better than waking up to a nice warm house. Before i switched to a whole house pellet boiler I would have my oil radiators Run from 5-6am and then the pellets the rest of the time. Programmable tstat on both

 

[mr meener]

my furnace is set at 60 just in case i run out of pellets or stove goes out. pellet stove is set to 70 must keep the warden warm

keep the WARDEN warm hahahah LOL that is funny