Thinking of switching to pellets.

[Aqua-Andy]

So as we are getting to the end of the heating season our wood supply has been dwindling and I'm not really looking forward to cutting, splitting, stacking and re-stacking a picker load of firewood firewood. I've been saying for years that I would not be changing out to pellets for a long time but I think the time has come. The work was enjoyable for awhile we just like to do to many other things in our free time. Between Hiking, Biking, camping, spending time at the family lake house and all the extra work those things involve, something has to give and firewood will probably be it. We burn around two cords of hard wood a year as supplemental heat, we really like the feeling of wood heat and that is why we have been doing it for so long. So we were wondering what the heat was like form a pellet stove? Is it comparable to the heat from a wood stove from a "it warms your bones" stand point? What brands are recommended? Harman is always recommended but I also hear about a lot of people having electronic problems with them and they are rather pricey. One other thing, My hearth is in the middle of the house so I would need a free standing stove that can go into a chimney liner.

 

[Dataman]

I switched from BK King to Harmon XXV (Non TC Floor Model). Cleaner house. Lots less work. Downside I could get wood for nothing but work. $1100 for 5 tons of pallets. I will have 2 Tons left over this year. 1 from last year and 1 this year.

I spent about 6k getting everything up and running.

3500 - stove
600 - Inverter/Battery
170 - Another Battery
1200 - Install (Required for Insurance)

Plus 800 1st year pellets and 1100 2nd year. Next year will be less without having left over pellets.

Still get good heat like Wood Stove. But not massive heat like wood stove would put out. On 30f nights pellet stove just does what is required, wood stove we had to open windows some days.

I don't miss the work of wood. We haul up about 1 ton of pellets to back porch and I keep hauling all winter long. Wheelbarrel or 2. Same as Wood, but easier.

I got 500 for my log splitter and 400 for the stove. So it helped with costs.

Biggest downside is when we lose power pellet stove need battery backup or go without heat. Had 8 hour run this Winter. 6 hours on 100ah battery and then couple hrs on battery for generator until I killed it and saved what was left to start generator (just in case).

This year I doubled my batterys. Two 100ah batteries (Solar Gel Cell) with AIMS 1250 Inverter/Charger. For 12 hours at least of backup power for stove. Longest outages was 8 hours in 9 years. Before that last one it was 4 hours.

I have 7k generator to charge up batteries if I need to. Along with run pump and water heater and lights etc. Never done more than test it so far.

Cleanup is a breeze compared to Wood Stove. No hot ashes to carry out. I clean burn pot with scraper and wipe glass with wet paper towel. Once a month I do 1 Ton Maintenance.

My 1st choice was Cab50, but Harmon was prettier. Guess who was with me when I got stove. They had really good deals on stoves in April. 1k off Harmon and Cab50 was 1500 then (Country Homes - Local Store)

On Electrical Problems. I replaced the Distribution Fan. Sounded like motor had problems. Loud Buzzing when Cold. Seems screws were impacting housing. I have spare fan sitting now. Local Dealer I also ordered fan from under warranty. They were very slow. I gave up after 2 weeks waiting for response and just bought fan from https://www.galco.com/buy/ebm-papst-Inc./55416.29089

I highly recommend you view Harmon Video on cleaning and maintenance.

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[SidecarFlip]

My philosophy with a bio mass stove is.. I don't care about fancy trim or fancy controls, I want simple and ugly so I have a USSC 6039-41. It's at least 12 years old now and other than routine maintenance, been very trouble free and best part it will burn anything, corn included, which, I'm running on presently. Free corn to be exact.

Not even sure USSC makes them anymore but I bought mine new for 1200 bucks plus another 600 for the venting.

 

[johneh]

I have a free-standing Enviro that's 19 years old
and works as good as new. The only thing I have
ever had to change is the combustion fan. This unit
runs 24/7 7 months of the year and now would not be without it.
get up at 6 in the morning outside temp -25. inside temp constant 20

 

[woodnomore]

First year burning corn, don't miss the mess and effort of wood.

 

[Tonyray]

So as we are getting to the end of the heating season our wood supply has been dwindling and I'm not really looking forward to cutting, splitting, stacking and re-stacking a picker load of firewood firewood. I've been saying for years that I would not be changing out to pellets for a long time but I think the time has come. The work was enjoyable for awhile we just like to do to many other things in our free time. Between Hiking, Biking, camping, spending time at the family lake house and all the extra work those things involve, something has to give and firewood will probably be it. We burn around two cords of hard wood a year as supplemental heat, we really like the feeling of wood heat and that is why we have been doing it for so long. So we were wondering what the heat was like form a pellet stove? Is it comparable to the heat from a wood stove from a "it warms your bones" stand point? What brands are recommended? Harman is always recommended but I also hear about a lot of people having electronic problems with them and they are rather pricey. One other thing, My hearth is in the middle of the house so I would need a free standing stove that can go into a chimney liner.

Have one of the Harman workhorses. Free standing P61A. 61K btu. Just cleaned after 1 month of 24/7burning. No digital controls. just a straight ahead heating Beast. . Very easy to maintain. 2nd pix is Ashpan 1/4 full after month of burning good quality pellets...keep our house plenty warm at using little over half capacity.. 1400 sq, 2 floors.. 2nd floor bedrooms stay consistant 68 degrees.

Ohio

 

[Ssyko]

In 1999 we retired our old shenandoah wood stove and bought a new quadrature cb-1200, haven't looked back. This past October we retired the quad for an enviro MAXX again haven't looked back. The MAXX holds 3 bags And heats like a beast. I use about a bag a day and I live on tug hill in NY and snowfall is almost always in excess oof 200 inches a season is common. Sub 0 temps are also common. But out of the 3 stoves your looking at I would probably go with the cab50 because of the similarities to the quadrafires.

 

[railfanron]

I also have a Harman. Harmans are one of the easiest stoves to clean. I clean mine every 3 weeks and it takes about 30 minutes. The daily maintenance is a burn pot scrape which takes less than a minute. Mine runs completely off a thermostat that's the same as the house furnace.
No electronic problems although I did replace the combustion blower last year after 5 years. I could have put new bearings in it but a new one was less than hundred bucks including the blade. It burns anything that looks like a pellet. LOL It can burn corn at a 50/50 mix but I've never tried it. I get my pellets on sale and my price last year was 175/ton for one ton and 205 for 2 more tons.
Ron

 

[MalcolmH]

Another thing to note when comparing wood stoves and pellets stoves is the amount of moving parts and components that could fail making it inoperable, and the ease of fixing them and accessing parts for them.

A wood stove has, fire bricks, pipe, gaskets, glass and a convection fan at most if equipped.

A pellet stove has a control board/daughter board, ignitor, exhaust fan, convection fan, proof of fire switch, High limit switch, vacuum switch, pipe, glass, gaskets, a fair amount of wiring, but they light easy under any condition if all of the previous components are working properly.

I love my pellet stoves and enjoy tinkering with them sometimes when its not to cold out, but I'm a big fan of the KISS rule and the wood stove is a simple as they come.

 

[SpaceBus]

What about buying processed firewood or bio bricks/NIEL?

 

[zrock]

I switched from BK King to Harmon XXV (Non TC Floor Model). Cleaner house. Lots less work. Downside I could get wood for nothing but work. $1100 for 5 tons of pallets. I will have 2 Tons left over this year. 1 from last year and 1 this year.

I spent about 6k getting everything up and running.

3500 - stove
600 - Inverter/Battery
170 - Another Battery
1200 - Install (Required for Insurance)

Its different in different areas but all i had to do to satisfy my insurance company is have a inspection done on my stove and installation. Cost me $200 but my inspector was great as i had called him several times before i installed and he answered every question for me... Only part of my install i hated was cutting a home through the wall..LOL

 

[zrock]

Never had wood heat but putting a pellet stove in was great... the heat is so nice and i dont have to see $$ rolling every time the furnace kicks on. The only downfall to me is i live in a modular home so the floors tend to be colder but nothing slippers wont cure

 

[WarrenZ.]

We made the change from wood to pellets this year and couldn't be happier. We did it for convenience. 29 years of wood was enough - as you also feel, we got tired of all of the work that wood requires. We went with Quadra-Fire models, the Trekker and the Castile. Both have thermostats - it's wonderful to wake up to a 70 degree house instead of a 50 degree house, and we now have far less worry about flue fires and the like.

 

[mudeprived]

So as we are getting to the end of the heating season our wood supply has been dwindling and I'm not really looking forward to cutting, splitting, stacking and re-stacking a picker load of firewood firewood. I've been saying for years that I would not be changing out to pellets for a long time but I think the time has come. The work was enjoyable for awhile we just like to do to many other things in our free time. Between Hiking, Biking, camping, spending time at the family lake house and all the extra work those things involve, something has to give and firewood will probably be it. We burn around two cords of hard wood a year as supplemental heat, we really like the feeling of wood heat and that is why we have been doing it for so long. So we were wondering what the heat was like form a pellet stove? Is it comparable to the heat from a wood stove from a "it warms your bones" stand point? What brands are recommended? Harman is always recommended but I also hear about a lot of people having electronic problems with them and they are rather pricey. One other thing, My hearth is in the middle of the house so I would need a free standing stove that can go into a chimney liner.

I run a Castle Serenity. I grew up with a wood stove and I can say this Serenity pellet stove puts out way more heat than my wood stove did. I have two living room windows open all winter, regardless of how cold it is, just to keep the temps in mid-70's otherwise it gets into the 90's. It does dry the air really quickly so a humidifier is a must have if you don't already own one.

 

[SpaceBus]

I would probably not be looking at pellets anymore.

 

[ChandlerR]

I heated with wood from 1976 to 2008. 5 cord a year bought log length. When I moved into my current home I decided I would go pellet. It was during the fuel crisis and there were no pellet stoves for sale anywhere but the big box stores. I bought a Magnum Baby Countryside and used it for 10 years with good success. It was a pain to clean but worked ok. Two years ago I started looking for a Harman due to the design, their reputation and ease of cleaning and maintenance. I live close to a Harman dealer and I went there and spent time with one of their techs looking at and discussing each stove. I was advised to get one of the non digital models. He then told me something else. He said that the stoves were built to last. He said that all wear parts were easily replaceable so his advice was to decide on what stove I wanted and then to look for the cheapest one I could find.

My wife liked the look of the Accentra because it was close to the looks and dimensions of my Baby. Because it was summer I took my time and found a 2008 Accentra II for $1000. It was dirty but it worked. I ran it the first year with no issues. This year I replaced the control board and the combustion air motor and fan. Oh, I also painted it with factory paint. I am into the stove for under $1400. I love that it is quiet and boy does it throw the heat if needed. Do I miss burning wood? I don't even have to think about it. No. I have so much extra time to do more enjoyable things now.