Tell me about your pellet stoves

[br64]

We have a Harmon pellet stove and I love it. DH,our son and I have a 16x80 trailer house with the living room in the middle and it heats the entire house.

In the fall when it gets cool enough that we have to start burning pellets we use maybe two bags a week. In the winter about one bag a night which continues to burn through out the next day. I clean the ash box out once a week and a thorough cleaning ( vacuming around the motor,cleaning the vents ect.) once a month, sometimes more if it needs it.

Here the bags cost anything from 4.00 per bag to 6.00 a bag, depending on where we get it. We bought 2 tons last year and I think they cost us @ 200.00 per ton. A little pricey but well worth it IMO. It sure beats having to pay an arm and a leg for propaine.

 

[michickenwrangler]

We have a 700 sq. foot house that we heat with a pellet stove and it gets so hot we have to turn it off for a few hours during the day and crack a window. It maintained a temp of about 80 degrees. I have no idea what our model is, but we got it at Home Depot for $2000~. There are several mills around here that make pellets so finding a local source isn't a problem. We went through 2 1/2 tons last year.

Once in awhile ash gets in the way of the ignition thing-y so make sure you keep that clear. We use wooden shish-kebab skewers and they work well for that. We have an ash vac for cleaning it out, which we do about every other day.

 

[fwschrom]

We had a pellet stove for years. I don't remember the brand but it was a good one, as I don't skimp on heating, referigation equipment, and I sold it used for about $600.00 over ten years ago. I have had in the past or still have woodburners, pellet stoves and natural gas. Natural gas wins hands down, cleaner, less hassle, cheaper to run. Wood stoves are dirty but the new ones have high effieciency, I still have one wood soapstone that is there only as a back up ( used once in 4-5 years ) I have about 12-15 cords of firewood for it and just don't use it.

I live where pellets are ( or were ) fairly cheap, I remember $50-$60 a ton for pellets. I think they are about four times that now at $200.00 a ton now. Thats too expensive, and again it is more work than natural gas. For those without natural gas...propane it is not as effiecient as natural gas and you should figure 90% of natural gas.

Not banging on pellet stoves, mine heated our house for a long time, and they are less hassle to feed than wood burners...but I am on gas and staying there. Another item to consider is pellet stoves need periodic maintenance ( all stoves do ) but the motors on the auger and the blowers need replacing every few years.

My favorite brand of stoves is Jotel one of the oldest stove makers still in business ( from Norway ). This becomes very important later as you need parts, and Jotel is excellent I can find very old parts manuals on line and order parts. Last winter the burner plate on my Vermont Castings finally went out. Vermont casting has been bought by another investor and all the parts on older stoves are discontinued, ( they are still having finance issues and barely have enough money to build new stoves ). Long story short is the part could not be bought anywhere, period I looked for months, put a CO2 detector by the stove and kept looking. In the end I went and had a batch of them waterjet cut and manufactured the part myself ( I am an engineer with connections). Bottom line pay real close attention to parts, not important now but it will be later on, as the average persons option was buy a new stove when my burner plate went, it was a tricky part not easily fabricated.

BTW I heat 3400 sq ft on my natural gas stoves and unless it gets below -5~-10 we run around $60 per month on 2 gas stoves, 1 commericial restraunt range ( 6 burner w/ pilot lites ) and gas water heater. When it gets real cold we bump to $ 75-80 per month.

 

[Iowa Roo Mom]

<----- Clearly needs more sleep. I just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out what a "pullet stove" is.