Negatives of wood pellet stove heating?

[poohbear227]

We are considering buying a house that has an energy efficient wood pellet stove to heat the basement (finished) and first floor. It has baseboard electric heat for the 2nd floor.

Are there any negatives to having a wood pellet stove as your heating system? This is our first home so we don't know alot about this stuff.

Thank you!

 

[PatsMom]

Biggest negative I can think of is having to buy and store wood pellets. And having to pour them into the stove. But I know many who do heat with wood pellets and they are very happy with the system and feel that the savings very much outweigh the negatives.

I heat with a traditional wood stove and we love it. We save a ton of money on oil. But it is a certain amount of work to split and stack wood, haul it into the house when needed, etc.

 

[poohbear227]

Biggest negative I can think of is having to buy and store wood pellets. And having to pour them into the stove. But I know many who do heat with wood pellets and they are very happy with the system and feel that the savings very much outweigh the negatives.

I heat with a traditional wood stove and we love it. We save a ton of money on oil. But it is a certain amount of work to split and stack wood, haul it into the house when needed, etc.

Thank you for your reply~I don't think we will mind having to buy/store the wood pellets. So, is it less expensive to have a wood pellet stove? Is it generally a safe and healthy system to have?

 

[poohbear227]

Do you know what size/amount wood pellets are sold in? Can you buy a bulk of them at the beginning of the season?

 

[PatsMom]

Thank you for your reply~I don't think we will mind having to buy/store the wood pellets. So, is it less expensive to have a wood pellet stove? Is it generally a safe and healthy system to have?

If it is properly installed, it is healthy and safe. You can find someone to inspect the installation if you want. You might start with a dealer in the type of stove you have. they would have access to the manufacturer's instructions on ventilation, distance from walls, etc. My wood stove is on a brick hearth.

It is usually less expensive to have a pellet stove. It is also more carbon neutral than heating with oil if that is a concern. We are environmentalists and our house is passive solar. We figure combining that with our carbon neutral wood stove is a definite plus. We burn very little oil, although we do have it available as a backup and for hot water.

 

[NewYorkRedNeck]

Pellet stoves are great to have. Very economical and only require a dry space the size of a pallet or two for the bags to lay on. One drawback is that you need electricity for the hopper to feed the fire. When the power goes out the stove will not feed itself.

 

[poohbear227]

If it is properly installed, it is healthy and safe. You can find someone to inspect the installation if you want. You might start with a dealer in the type of stove you have. they would have access to the manufacturer's instructions on ventilation, distance from walls, etc. My wood stove is on a brick hearth.

It is usually less expensive to have a pellet stove. It is also more carbon neutral than heating with oil if that is a concern. We are environmentalists and our house is passive solar. We figure combining that with our carbon neutral wood stove is a definite plus. We burn very little oil, although we do have it available as a backup and for hot water.

Thank you! It sounds great! The house we are considering is an extremely low price for what you get and we were wondering if the pellet stove was considered a reason for the low price. It's a brand new stove (bought in 2010) & working fine. We are now thinking the price might just be due to the housing market....

 

[poohbear227]

Pellet stoves are great to have. Very economical and only require a dry space the size of a pallet or two for the bags to lay on. One drawback is that you need electricity for the hopper to feed the fire. When the power goes out the stove will not feed itself.

So, if we lose our electricity does that mean we would have no heating source for the basement and first floor? (where the pellet stove heats)?? It's not very common for us to lose our electricity in the winter where we live, but if we did, would we have any options for heat?

 

[PatsMom]

The stove should shut down safely if power is lost. But the blower and auger won't work without electricity. But I wouldn't really let that be a deciding factor if you don't lose power often. Although your electric heat on the second floor would not work either.

 

[poohbear227]

The stove should shut down safely if power is lost. But the blower and auger won't work without electricity. But I wouldn't really let that be a deciding factor if you don't lose power often. Although your electric heat on the second floor would not work either.

Good point.....I just did a little Google search on the cost of a generator if we were to lose electricity in cold weather and a generator suitable for a pellet stove is actually only between $300-$400. That is a reasonable price for us to use as a back up.

Thank you for all of your help. My mother was scaring us saying the reason why the price of the house is so cheap is because of the pellet stove, but she doesn't know much about them.

 

[PatsMom]

I'm not sure what part of the country you are in but here in NH where oil prices are high and winters are cold, pellet stoves are quite popular. I definitely wouldn't consider it a drawback in a house!

 

[shirleyb]

We just installed one, and hope to save quite a bit over our propane/electric heat.

 

[poohbear227]

I'm not sure what part of the country you are in but here in NH where oil prices are high and winters are cold, pellet stoves are quite popular. I definitely wouldn't consider it a drawback in a house!

I'm not far from you in the western part of Massachusetts. I'm not sure about the price of oil (we currently rent), but our winters can definitely get cold! This is the first house we have come across, in our house hunting, that has a pellet stove as it's only source of heat on 2 out of 3 floors of the house, so we just want to make sure we are doing the right thing.

 

[malibuconlee]

My in-laws have one in the downstairs of their farm house. They installed it a few years ago. However they also have a furnace that will kick on if they are away and the fire burns out.

I would question having a house with not other heat to keep the house warm and things from freezing if you were away for any length of time during the winter. H owever with the baseboards upstairs It should keep things warm enough.

 

[poohbear227]

My in-laws have one in the downstairs of their farm house. They installed it a few years ago. However they also have a furnace that will kick on if they are away and the fire burns out.

I would question having a house with not other heat to keep the house warm and things from freezing if you were away for any length of time during the winter. H owever with the baseboards upstairs It should keep things warm enough.

Thank you for that input. We generally do not go away in the winter for longer than 5 days (and even that is generally once a season), but that is good to know because I did not even think about what to do when we are on vacation. We also have two cats to think about when we are away. It is not a huge house (1530 square feet), but you think the baseboard on the second floor would be enough to avoid freezing? Is it safe to keep a pellet stove burning when you go away for a few days at a time?

 

[monarchsfan16]

We have 2 pellet stoves. Some are better than others, but I've found that the heat ours give off does not travel. It'll be warm about 2 feet in front of the stove, and then the rest of the house is cold.

As far as storage goes, we went through almost 5 tons of pellets this winter in southern NH, plus some oil after we ran out of pellets (buy pellets early in the season; by March they are VERY difficult to find). Each ton was packed on a wood pallet. This consumes one bay of our 2 car garage each winter.

 

[poohbear227]

We have 2 pellet stoves. Some are better than others, but I've found that the heat ours give off does not travel. It'll be warm about 2 feet in front of the stove, and then the rest of the house is cold.

As far as storage goes, we went through almost 5 tons of pellets this winter in southern NH, plus some oil after we ran out of pellets (buy pellets early in the season; by March they are VERY difficult to find). Each ton was packed on a wood pallet. This consumes one bay of our 2 car garage each winter.

Thank you-this is very helpful info. The house we are interested in does not have a garage, but it does have a decent sized partially finished basement (where the stove is located) with a separate room that I think could store that amount, but I would need to find that out from the current owner.

 

[malibuconlee]

Also wanted to say that my father-in-law has a pellet stove, but he doesn't burn pellets in it. He burns field corn. He's done this several years now, so I guess it hasn't done any harm to the stove itself. It's cheaper than buying the pellets.

 

[formill]

We have 2 pellet stoves-one at each end of the house and they heat the entire house and upstairs very well. We have a furnace (electric) that never comes on unless we are away,etc. but I would never rely on just the pellet stoves-too easy to forget to fill one or if it has a problem....clogged auger/needs cleaning etc is common. They can run on a generator or plugged into an inverter in your vehicle for short power outages-some have battery back up. We bought about 250 bags this year and had a harder time finding them after March so that is a concern as well-making sure you have enough pellets for the season. We buy them buy the skid (40-50 bags per skid each bag 40 pounds) and thought we had enough but this year stayed colder longer. We leave ours going when we are not home and feel very safe- there is zero smoke coming from vent that you can see other than at start up of the stove.
Here is a link for a forum where there is lots of talk about them.
http://www.iburncorn.com./new-forum/6-beginners-questions/7008-burning-straight-pellets The forum is a lot about burning corn but lots for pellets only too- we have one stove that will burn both corn and pellets (or other grains). Overall we love the pellet stoves -cheaper than oil or electricity- we are very warm but they are work - if natural gas was available to us we would not be using pellets.

 

[tvguy]

We have no burn days around here, so there are many days a year you can't use pellet or wood stoves.