Anyone heat with wood pellets?

[D._Frederick]

When No.2 diesel hit $2.00 gallon, I started to look at the pellet stove and planned on using corn for fuel. Then the corn to alcohol doubled the price of corn, so I am glad that I didn't spend the 3 to 5 K for a stove.

I hate to think about going back to wood heat at the age of 72, was glad we finally to leave the wood heat after WWII.

[SwampDonkey]

I seen a pellet stove with 40 lb hopper for $1200 at Lowes. I don't know the BTU output. Those $3000 dollar units must be a lot bigger , eh? I guess one has to put size versus price into perspective when buying. I think pellet stoves will take off eventually. We don't have cheep coal up here, plus it would be taxed so high anyway that the consumer would see no relief. I think even the early trains around here ran on wood, it was everywhere along the railways and they got 1000 acres per mile of track from the government.  ;)

Mom's uncle burnt wood in the kitchen stove all his life and he told mom's aunt that the stove wasn't moving from the kitchen when she wanted an electric stove. She got her electric, but the wood stove stayed put. He used wood all his life and he died at age 90. He had an oil furnace to heat the main house, but most everyone in the family has an oil furnace for backup heat. I'll always use wood here, but I have oil as backup. I'd have do get pretty crippled to abandon wood.

[D._Frederick]

What I was looking for was a pellet burning closed system boiler, I now have an oil fired boiler and wanted one to use pellets. I found only one company making a boiler, but it was an open system. I wouldn't get enough heat transfer with an open system, since my system is designed to run at 180 to 220 degrees F. and they wanted over 7 K for there system.

[Coon]

From what I am seeing here with this pellet heater it's not all it's cracked up to be.... 

#1.  It's about -25 Celcius here right now before the wind chill and its cold in the house with the heater on no.3 setting out of 5.

#2.  The fan simply does not blow enough warm air for sufficient heating.  We have to use other household fans for this purpose.

#3.  There is great variance to the brand of pellets available on the market.  Differences include heat output/bag and amount of ash/bag.

#4.  In our area we have but only 5 choices for pellet sources within a hundred miles or so.

#5.  We are burning $10 worth of pellets/day presently @-25 Celcius with an outlook of $20/day range in -40 Celcius. 

All in all by the end of an average winter season I will have been able to cut and haul 2 seasons worth of wood cheaper than what its going to cost me this year. >:( >:( :'( :'(

[Furby]

Sorry to hear that Coon! :-\

[Coon]

Ya I am sure glad that I didn't buy the pellet heater.  We are renting the house from my wifes brother.  He put the heater in because it was going to be cheaper than to put the gas in.  We would have to get a completely new gas line put in from the street right on into the house along with a new furnace.  It was going to cost $10,000 plus so....  Going to have to break the news to him and it ain't gonna be pretty because we may have to find another place.  The wife and I have been doing some number crunching and it may be cheaper to rent elseewhere.  It's expensive enough with the pellets alone but with electricity too....

[SwampDonkey]

You never paid attention to the $275/ton pellet versus $80/ton firewood debate. ;D

Coon did you compare BTU output between the stove and a wood furnace?

[Coon]

Like I said Swamp  I did not buy the pellet heater.  My bro-in-law bought it without even so much as talking to us first.  I would have simply bought a wood stove of some sort.  Being in town we can not have an outdoor boiler here because of bylaws.  I have access to as much dry firewood as I'd ever need.  I'm sure I could find nearly as much green firewood as well and all at the low price of free...  Of course I'd have to cut it myself but love doing it anyways...

[Frickman]

I've been thinking about pellet stoves the past few days. Most people involved in the forest products business can easily get all the firewood they want for cheap or free, It's all around us every day, so why not take a load home at night. But what about folks in the suburbs or city? They may have no easy access to wood, or even a place to store it if they did. A pellet stove would work great for them. They can use it for suplemental and emergency backup heat, and the pellets are easy to haul home in the trunk or SUV. They can even store them in a hall closet if they want.

[Furby]

That depends on how fast they are going through pellets.
It would be a waste of time and money to have to buy a bag each day.
If you are going through a bag a day, you would need a larger storage area that could handle the weight.
I think the concept is there and good, but more efficient stoves and/or cheaper pellets are what is needed.

[SwampDonkey]

One of our members, Ken is involved in setting up a pellet plant with his marketing board area and the president of another marketing board area just announced they will be breaking ground in mid January to set up a plant in Miramichi City. All private investments. The Miramichi group said the government is behind the times and they weren't about to wait for them to get their finger out of their seats to provide financing. I believe they even have investment from Europe.

[Coon]

Well I finally got some pics uploaded today.  Figured I would put the pics I had promised some time ago, on here.

The first pic is with the stove off. 



These next wo pics were taken just after start up.  The flames calm down once the heater gets up to operating temperature.  At that point the pellets explode when they drop into the burn pot.

I will try to get some more pics tomorrow of the insides.  I have to shut it down and clean it again anyways. :(  Only takes about 5 minutes to do so once everything is cooled down.


Seems we have the heating capabilities figured out with this thing now.  We have it figured out to an average of  2lbs. of pellets/ hour for -20 C weather.  When we get -10 C weather we consume about 1 1/4 lbs/hr. 

[Hoss]

Coon, I used that exact model and brand of pellet stove for three years. It heated our large two story house fine but the price of pellets kept going up every year. Last spring there was about a two month period that pellets were not available at any price. Pellet manufacturers used to get the sawdust to make the pellets for free or next to free and now they are paying dearly for the material. They also must pay for fuel to dry the material before they make the pellets. A pound of pellets (depending on the species they are made from) generate about 8000 BTUs. That stove on high burns about 5 pounds an hour putting out about 40000 BTUs in an hour.  It met our heating needs fine but I finally concluded it was too expensive. We still have our big wood stove in the basement for when the power goes out, but we took the pellet stove out and spent alot of money for a heat pump. Where we live in Washington State electricity is expensive---but a heck of a lot cheaper than most anyplace else in the country. Hoss

[Qweaver]

Coon, here in WVa pellets are running $184 (plus tax)per 50 bag pallet at the local feed store.   That works out to $3.91 per bag.  So if we burn a bag a day on average that works out to $117 per month for heat. Plus whatever electricity the fans and auger use.  Perhaps $130 a month total.  Not cheap really...especially if we average more than a bad a day.  We do have several pellet makers in the area and it might be possible to buy in bulk and get them even cheaper.  I think I'd have to buy @ 40 ton to get that price break tho'.
With 4 people in our family using these stoves and selling them out of our small business, I may try it next year.  I can hook up to a gas well thats on our family property and buy gas at wellhead price and that may be what I do later on.
Quinton

[SwampDonkey]

Your lucky on the gas price. Here the utility wants to inflate the price to subsidize their construction for the export market. We have a very short history with gas in this region. But, I said from the start that the people who sign onto it will soon be faced with price hikes. When your used to taking it the hard way, it's not hard to see it coming down the road.

[Coon]

The stove is not as bad as I had thought earlier on.  It is however costing us way too much of our income. 

I biggest concern I have is the quality of the pellets.  Some brands burn very efficiently and produce lots of heat while the other brands just plug up the holes in the burn pot.  Once the holes are plugged you get very little heat.  The best pellets we have found seem to be the ones made closest to home.  Never had a single problem with the burn pot with them.

Got some more pics of it to upload later too.

[Dana]

Pellets are 156 for higher ash residue and 180 for low ash residue here. My brother-in-law bought a stove last week and likes it a lot. He figures he is spending $4.00 a day to heat a average sized house.

[SwampDonkey]

Do they have any with forced air like a furnace? A stove alone wouldn't heat this place to my comfort level.

[Hoss]

Coon, When I was using that pellet stove I tried to burn pellets made from soft woods like Douglas Fir. The hard wood pellets create more ash. I cleaned the burn pot and ash drawer about once every ton of pellets I burned. You can tell when the burn pot's holes are getting pluged up because the pellets don't burn as clean and the flame goes from red to a deeper orange. It's then time to get out the screw driver and clean the burn pot. I'm convinced the cheapest heat is a wood stove if you can get the wood for free and cut it yourself. All other types of heat seem to cost alot.
Hoss

[SwampDonkey]

From what I've read, and this is by no means the official word, but the difference in ash content between the standard pellet and premium is 3% vs 1% ash content. They said the premium pellet is made of the core wood only and the standard includes the bark, they also suggested that pellets made from farm produce makes more heat. Probably means straw and corn stalks and maybe even corn. I was always told that the bark has more heat value than the core wood.  ;D :D :D So maybe both is true.

[HOOF-ER]

Coon, I have a pellet stove insert that I have been using free standing. Temporary turned semi -perm :D (Only paid $200 for a St Crouix) It is strictly for wood pellets, but...... I mix about half corn with the wood pellets. Burns hotter with the grain. I have burned pelleted cottonseed hulls also. They were ok. Same problem you have I burn more than they say. I will use about 60-70# per 24hrs. Ash content is higher with the grains. They also produce clinkers so I empty the pot 2x per day. Become very effecient at that. Use a leather glove and take less than a couple minutes to empty. Very easy to start a fire up while the stove is still hot. With high grain prices would like to find something cheap to burn!!!

[Coon]

The pellets we are burning right now must be higher ash content.  These are called Firemaster and are made in Burnaby, British Columbia. They are made from softwood also. We tend to have to empty the ash pan and clean the burn pot after about 240 lbs or so.  The other brand we've used we can burn about 400 lbs.

Swamp.  This heater has built in fans in it but they don't push enough air.  From the way it looks they should have use bigger ones that push more cfm.  There is enough room in there for em but wood probably make it run too cold and creosote things up.

[SwampDonkey]

I also read that the fans on the average pellet stove consume 100 kwh per month, that's not too bad when your rate is 0.098 cents per kwh. My furnace probably uses 150 kwh in the coldest months. In this mild weather the fan uses only running about 14 hours in a 24 hr period. It hasn't been on since 4:30 am this morning and still isn't on now at 7:30 and I don't plan on stoke the fire before 9 am.  ;D

[wtf]

We got one last year to take the chill off the basement. Does a good job. Heats about 1400 sq. ft. It's an American Harvest brand. Have about $1400 in the stove and the vent. My pellets are a lot cheaper than what your paying tho. MIne only cost about $175 per 50 , 40Lb. bags. I'll burn 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 bags a day.

Russ

[boulderridge]

I have a Harmen pellet stove. I used to burn wood. In South Central PA, I pay $170/ton. I heat 2000 sf, empty the ash pan 3 times a winter and burn 3 -3 1/2 tons a winter.