Been thinking about getting a pellet stove to supplement the $oil$heat$ this winter and am wondering if any one knows if it would be better to install it on the first floor of the house or on the second floor in the living area?
Do they produce enough heat that it would rise to the second floor?
My next door neighbor Bob has one. I'd ask him about it if it didn't mean commiting to a two hour discussion mainly revolving around 9/11 conspiracy theories.
I am sure you can get them in a wide variety of sizes, but I do know my sister has one, and they are rather effective, you would just need to size one to your needs.
Where do you get the pellets and how much are they? There are also stoves that burn corn, but that's gone way up too.
I think that with my 50 trees that fell down last April, I'm gonna be doing a lot of wood heating this year. HF has a splitter onsale, but it's only rated for 10" logs, and I have branches bigger than that.
I've found that a small muffin fan salvaged from some long dead computer down next to the fan and pointing to the upstairs adds 3-5 degrees F to the upstairs area.
Before corn prices went through the roof there was a movement back home in SD to add pellet stoves and then run them on corn. Add a big hopper outside, chute it in, then use one of the auto-feed augers to load the fuel right into the stove as needed. Once the outside bin was filled the whole system is as automatic as propane or natural gas, just get a local farmer to bring you a trailer of corn when required.
They are available in lots of different sizes, just need to get one appropriate for your needs.
I had one in the basement of my old one storey rancher. I would locate it far enough from any sleeping areas, as they don't tend to operate very quietly. Between the auger and fan, you're going to hear it running. And they can crank out quite a bit of heat, so you're probably better with it on the first floor.
While heat rises, it will only do so if there is a good pathway. This can involve ducting and fans. Don't count on a pellet stove in the kitching to have it's heat walk into the next room and then go venturing up the stairs.
Pellet stoves vary quite a bit on burn size and efficiency, buy accordingly.
Pellets are not cheap, especially in the heating season. There are frequently shortages of them. As in every darn year. There is a tremendous difference between pellets as well. Burn rates, btu/lb, and residual ash. As well price.
Were I to buy a pellet stove today I most assuredly would seek a multi fuel unit, particularly a corn burner. Not that corn will be cheaper, it probably won't. But it's another fuel that may be available when the pellets are not.
Noise varies tremendously with the different stoves. Some manage to sound like a blender running continuously, some manage to clank remarkably loud when the pellet drops, and a few are quite quiet. I'd really want to hear the unit running in the store, cranked up, without the salesman yakking and bothering me. Give it a good five minutes.
I've run corn pellets in my wood pellet stove. They make more heat, but they generate a whole lot more ash. We ran our pellet stove pretty much non-stop for several months last winter, and it only needed to be cleaned out every 2-3 weeks. With the corn, it was more like 2-3 days. The stove is really low maintenance, simply dump a new bag in the hopper once in a while. The fan noise isn't a big problem (we have two swamp coolers running in the summer, with similar noise levels), you really only notice it when it's off. Some of the clanking noise seems to be pellets getting caught in the auger and getting crushed, as it's a noise that only shows up once in a while.
Buy the pellets in the summer or early fall. Much better prices. We have a pretty well-stocked shed in the fall.
My son in law has a pellet stove. It costs him more to heat his house than it costs me on natural gas. Homes are roughly the same size and I don't have to empty any ashes or feed the furnace. And there is the initial cost. Just my 2cents.
Around here, almost everyone that had a pellet stove got rid of it within two or three years. Unless you get a high dollar one, they are loud(auger and fan). Pellets vary in BTU output , ash, how fast they burn, as well as cost. Last year, pellets ran $220-$240 a ton-if you could find them. Fifty 40 pound bags would last less than two months. I know in other areas wood has gone sky high, but here we still pay $40-$50 a cord, cut, split, and delivered. I'm going to look for one of the waste oil burners. With six cars in the family, I'll stay warm just recycling our oil changes(and everybody else in the neighborhood).
BBsGarage wrote:Been thinking about getting a pellet stove to supplement the $oil$heat$ this winter and am wondering if any one knows if it would be better to install it on the first floor of the house or on the second floor in the living area?
Do they produce enough heat that it would rise to the second floor?
In a word: No.
I love my pellet stove. It's a Quadrafire and it's on the first floor of my house. It has completely replaced oil heat on the first floor, but it has no effect on the second floor. The house is about 2800 square feet.
They work best with a big open floor plan. Don't expect to heat four bedrooms on your second floor.
When I bought mine about four years ago, I was all enthusiastic about burning corn. BUT, at that time, corn as fuel was only practical if you were in the mid-West. Now, corn prices have gone through the roof. Also, most stoves need to be started on pellets and then switched to corn as the pellets light easier. My stove has a thermostat and kicks on and off as needed, so corn is not an easy option for me. And one more thing about corn vs. pellets: Mice eat corn but they tend to ignore bags of pellets.
When considering a pellet stove, I always tell people to think of them as a wood burning hot air furnace. They don't radiate massive amounts of heat like a wood stove. You can touch an operating pellet stove (but not the glass or chimney pipe!). But they are easier to regulate than a wood stove. When I lived in Maine and heated a large colonial with a wood stove, the house would be 120 degrees at bedtime and 40 at 7am. The pellet stove produces nice steady heat as needed.
Pellet stoves blow hot air and they are noisier than you might expect. Very easy to clean, load and live with, though. My wife will fill the pellet stove. She wouldn't go near a wood stove. Or a wood pile.
iceracer wrote:My son in law has a pellet stove. It costs him more to heat his house than it costs me on natural gas. Homes are roughly the same size and I don't have to empty any ashes or feed the furnace. And there is the initial cost. Just my 2cents.
Dont have the option of natural gas, and heating oil is touching $5 a gallon. Just imagine what the price will be in the winter. 
BBsGarage wrote:Dont have the option of natural gas, and heating oil is touching $5 a gallon. Just imagine what the price will be in the winter.
Probably lower.
Dollar for dollar, regular wood is hard to beat. And you might want to consider coal along with that wood. Coal burns hot and long, which is darn nice for cold winter nights.
I loved burning coal when I lived in England. We had wood in the fireplace so that pub patrons thought it looked nice, and a nice bed of coal so that we didn't have to constantly add to it.
I have a pellet stove insert in our wood fireplace and it has saved us a good deal of money over the last 4 years. I'd be broke with if I ran solely on oil heat. I pay $249ish for a ton of pellets, cheaper if you plan ahead off season but not by enough to make me run out and save $15 bucks. I probably burned 60 bags over the course of the winter in Southern Maryland. We have a 2800 sq/ft split level home with an upper floor over the room with the stove in it. It raises the temp in the main floor by 3 degrees, more if I augment that with a small box fan on the stairs pulling warm air up. The bedrooms above the room with the stove in it are warmer but not toasty. Generally, a bag of pellets lasts us about a day and a half depending on how crazy my wife gets with the feed. I keep it very low, almost to the point of shutting off. Our furnace will generally turn on once over the course of the night with the pellet stove running. It will run pretty regular without it.
Pellets were in short supply two years ago after the news started the pellet stove craze here in the DC area. Now, I can get a ton whenever I want it. I use ONLY Lignetics brand pellets as they produce more heat and half the ash of the other junk brands they sell locally.
My unit is a little louder than my other 3 neighbors' units. I spent less than half of what they did though. Ours is not auto start and doesn't have a thermostat. We can watch television comfortably right next to our stove.
Our stove has added a huge amount of comfort and saved us a decent amount of money over the cost of oil. I will never go without a pellet stove after owning this one.
My $ .02.
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