Thinking about coming back to a pellet stove

[dalspot]

We had a Jamestown pellet stove in our old house some 16+ years ago. We had set up their insert in a zero-clearance fireplace that we pretty much took apart to get it to fit. Just ran the length of exhaust pipe up the existing metal chimney. Worked great to supplement our all-electric house. We were paying $165 a ton for off-season pellets and would go thru about 2 1/2 tons a year.

When we moved in '96, we installed a masonry fireplace and back in 2001, put in a Regency i3100 wood stove which has served us well, as we pretty much have had free firewood for the last 12 years. However, we are now 12 years older, a bit tired of the wood collecting and splitting. Plus our biggest source of free wood may be disappearing.

We are thinking of swapping the wood insert for a pellet insert. Seems this year that pellet prices have dropped? As I've seen them recently for around $200/ton. We thought $165 a ton a bit high back then.

Our old stove pretty much burnt whatever we fed it, and burned it pretty well. It was either an on/off high/low deal, so the newer thermostat-controlled stoves sound great. I'm a bit concerned tho about moving from a 75,000 btu woodstove to a 48,000ish btu pellet stove. Plus I don't want to spend more than $2400 as the cost savings would take us many years. We have natural gas for heat. I honestly don't know how much it would cost to heat our house with just the gas, as we supplemented with a kerosene heater before the woodstove. House is around 2400 sq ft. The upper back bedrooms don't get much heat from the stove on the other side of the house, but that's ok as they are now unused.

Now that I've rambled on - I'd like to get some stove recommendations that anyone would think we'd be satisfied with. Can we plan on installing ourselves once again? The dealer we got our woodstove quoted us "around $5,000" for a pellet stove. I don't think so. It would take 20 years to recoup our investment!

Thanks in advance for any sage advice.

 

[mikkeeh]

I had an old "Earth" pellet stove in the early 90"s. Bought a Harman P43 last year.......same reasons as you....wood getting expensive and just alot of work. Todays stoves are worlds apart from those of the 90"s. The P43 does a good job. Not sure how many new stoves can be had for < $2400. Even if you do the install yourself, cosider the price of those parts too. I would geuss a self install thru the wall would be about $300 in parts. That limits your stove price to around $2k. If you're going up an existing chimney I'm guessing would be alot more.. Ive been buying pellets for about $210. this year, but that obviously varies by area and brand. Seem to be quite a few used stoves on Craigslist and such......at least around me. Good luck in your search!

 

[jtakeman]

Wood heat is harder than if you were coming from the other fuels. It probably won't feel as warm with pellet heat as with wood. If it were me, I'd keep the wood eater alone and find a corner to install a freestanding pellet stove. It will give you the best of both. Burn wood when your home and at your leasure. Use the pellets to keep the house warm when you are away. Set it with a stat to a comfy temp or use a programmable stat to very the heat to save some fuel.

I love my pellet eater, but I will also not loose the wood eater. I really like having both available. The biggest keeper for me is power outages. We don't loose power often, But when we do I am glad i have my wood backup. And when it gets really cold out(-20ºF), I assist with my wood eater.

One way to try and keep the wood stove feel with pellets is to stay on the large size with the stove. If the wood eater is around 70K? I'd try to stay with a pellet eater thats somewhere around 60K or better. Plus you'll have quicker recovery times if you woops and forget to fill the hopper or loose power for a few hours. A smaller stove will take longer to warm the house and you won't have the blast effect like the wood stove. These stoves today are pretty good at running on the lower heat ranges. As long as you open it up every now and again. It will do fine.

Multifuel units(or the Harmans) are the cats meow as far as eating about any brand. Most have self cleaning burnpots that do the normal daily cleaning for you(harmans may need a scrape daily). I only clean my unit once a week and add fuel every other day(large 3 bag hopper). A bit more cash up front. But much less chores that saves some time. Mine has eaten even the worst pellets out there with relitive ease. I'd rather be the picky one!

Good luck in your search and keep us posted!

 

[UpStateNY]

Wow natural gas versus free firewood. No question there that free firewood is cheaper.

Natural Gas versus Pellets at $200 per ton. I would have to say their is virtually NO cost savings per BTU. Piped in Natural Gas is extremely cheap.The only thing cheaper than natural gas is free firewood and coal. Of course being able to not heat a large portion of your house is also huge advantage. Maybe a small space natural gas stove would be a good replacement.

Check it out for yourself. Here is the calculator.

(broken link removed to http://pelletheat.org/pellets/compare-fuel-costs/)

You should also check out huge savings from on demand hot water natural gas heaters.

 

[dalspot]

To answer a few of the excellent suggestions... We don't have a spot for a second stove - one in the living room might do, but the heat wouldn't circulate. The old Jamestown required little maintenance that's for sure. Dump the full ash drawer, vacuum once a week, pull unit out and do a thorough cleaning once a season. She was a good little stove for sure!

We seldom lose power and our Mid-Atlantic temps are much warmer than -20!

Right now, we have enough wood to last us the rest of this season, and probably a bit into next year. 6 racks of wood split, with more to be done this weekend. So we have time to do our research. I was thinking of the end-of-the-season sales.

Thanks for the fuel cost link. And we just replaced our gas H2O heater two years ago. Gas bill runs $20- $22 in the summer, so I figure that about $30 of our winter bill goes to the hot water due to colder ground temps. Highest gas bill we have had since installing the wood stove was around $80.