A tad bit early I know

[jyoutz]

Skeets - ran same pellet stove for about 20 years. Burn about 5 ton per year and it’s our primary heat. Had a wood stove for many years before that.

There’s pros and cons. My pellet stove paid for itself each year while I was working. Now retired, I have more time to tend to a wood stove.

The good stoves are worth the extra money. @dirtydeed and I both have Harman XXV stoves; someone else does also if I recall.

Our stoves have top vent adapter option that plumbs it to a normal 6” wood stove chimney…….I think @dirtydeed runs his same way.

View attachment 175813

Probably my biggest ongoing concern with pellets is their availability and cost.

Many years ago (15?- after the 2008/09 recession) pellets were scarce and I was stocking up in May. Lately I haven’t had an issue with supply, but prices have escalated significantly. I’m at $450 +/- per ton, where it used to be $250 +/-

Yes, there’s 3 motors and 2 blowers. I don’t notice the sound, but we’ve had it 20 years. I’ve changed out nearly all the parts of the stove multiple times over the years. It’s had 100 tons through it…..

I had a pellet stove for over 15 years until we had access to natural gas. Every year I would buy a couple tons of pellets at the start of the season and stored the pallets in the barn. Buying by individual bags is too much trouble and cost more. As for stove brand, I was very pleased with my Quadrafire Stove.

 

[PHPaul]

We had a wood stove, wonderful heat, enjoyed doing the work of processing fuel from tree length. Bit of a mess but worth it. Distributing the heat was something of an issue, hot in the living room, cool on the other end of the house but cut WAY down on the oil bill.

Stove got old, warped and started leaking a bit of smoke, wife was not happy, therefore I was not happy.

Gave stove away, bought pellet stove. Between stove, accessories and two tons of pellets spent about $2K.

Wife won't let me use it. It's for "emergencies". We have reasonably efficient oil-fired hot water heat and a generator. If the emergency is of sufficient severity or duration that we can't run the regular heat, we won't be able to run the pellet stove either.

Sigh...

 

[Daylight]

Or you can do like I did and get a pellet/corn/grain/shredded wood central heating furnace. Totally silent and fuel is delivered by tank truck and blown into a 10-ton silo; no dust, no carrying.

POWERCORN 30/50

GUNTAMATIC Heizung, Pelletheizung, Holzvergaser, Hackschnitzelheizung I Wir heizen verantwortlich!

www.guntamatic.com

 

[chim]

One of the things that I’ve wondered is…. How you guys pay so much less than what I pay down here in Texas…where we drill, produce, compress, and pipe it all the way up N.E. for you guys to pay half-price.

In the words of Navin R Johnson, "...it's a profit deal"

 

[Botamon]

Gave stove away, bought pellet stove. Between stove, accessories and two tons of pellets spent about $2K.

Wow! A Harman P68 pellet stove sells for right at $5000 now.

 

[jyoutz]

Wow! A Harman P68 pellet stove sells for right at $5000 now.

Those are good stoves but I never had any problems with the 2 Quadrafire stoves I had and you can get them for around $3K.

 

[dirtydeed]

Yep. Same stove as RCW.

The stove was here when we bought the place and we use it all winter (burn approx 3 ton/year). My last place had a wood stove which I was very happy with. I had an endless supply of (free) wood to feed it there.

The pellet stove is convenient, and puts out some steady heat. I find it to be a bit noisy when you have the distribution fan up high. I think I'm on my third (or fourth distribution fan). They just don't seem to last longer than a couple of years. The maintenance on mine is a bit of a pain because of they way it was installed (alcove). So, I have to spin the stove in order to access the guts when necessary.



We have a sizeable home that is truly log constructed for the first floor. Second floor is stick framed with proper insulation. The logs used on the first floor however, are only about 5" thick, so the R value is quite low. The stove wont heat our home entirely on its own (to the temp that my wife likes anyway) so we still carry a significant electric bill to run the mini split systems.

With the frequency of cleaning and distribution fan replacement, I couldn't really recommend the stove model that I have. I don't know if the even make that one anymore.