Thinking of going to a pellet stove, Harman p68

[cmb54]

Anybody have any likes or dislikes? Probably a Harman p68. I have 3 pellet mills within 70 miles. Yes  it will cost more than firewood ,but with todays tax credits and closing on 70 years of age I think its the right time. Some of the top end stoves have some very good features.

[jimbarry]

I have a Harmon Oakwood, a regular firewood burner.  But my first question for pellet stoves always is, will it run during a power outage?

[doc henderson]

will the pellets be cheaper than NG or LP or oil.  are you looking to decrease work to heat?  can you see the "fire" through the glass in a door, so you get to watch the fire?  is this for a special living room area?

[Spike60]

Buddy of mine is 82 and has reached that doesn't cut wood anymore stage. (unless I help him). So he has a wood stove at one end of the house and a pellet stove on the other end. As far as the wood goes, we only cut a cord off his property as we've culled all of the dead ash the last few years, so he bought 2 cords of split wood in addition to also buying pellets. Paid $500 for the wood. Would be $600 now and would have been $750/$900 if he had to buy all 3 cords which just gets him through the season.

Burns 80-100 bags of pellets a year, or 2 to 2 1/2 tons. Pellets have crept up the last couple years. He's now paying $7.79 a bag. So the cost is about the same for either stove. Should note that he doesn't buy the pellets in the most economical way. Usually 10-15 bags at a clip. Reason is to generate some "road trips" as he hardly gets out much anymore, especially in the winter. Might be due for another one this weekend.

[SwampDonkey]

If your going pellets, centralize it, not on one end of the house in hopes you're going to get heat to the other end. Much prefer wood furnace here with ducts, stove is central, heat out from there through ducts with forced air. Can you now get a pellet furnace? I've not seen any in these parts. All I've seen anywhere is just a small stove with an auger and a fan that basically heats a room, but not heating the rest of the house too well, unless 65F is well enough. If you have two floors to heat, it's gonna be chilly. Cold bathroom to. ;D

[Spike60]

Haha, cold bathrooms are no fun is right!    I use a space heater to warm mine up when taking a shower.

A furnace and duct work are quite an expansion of the project at hand though. Wish I had them myself to be honest because as you point out much better for heat distribution. But in the case of the OP I think it's more about simply replacing his current wood stove with a pellet stove so the results/effectiveness ought to be the same.

[SwampDonkey]

The advantage here was the heating was built into the design. But a stove alone here wouldn't put the heat out to the far ends of the place.

[NE Woodburner]

I burn wood that I cut from my property at my house and we have a camp a few hours away and have a pellet stove there. The pellet stove works well at the camp because we don't own enough wooded property there to cut our own and can't legally transport firewood from home since the camp is in a different state. To buy, stack and store firewood at the camp did not make sense to us versus buying a ton of pellets every other year.

Comparing the two I would say the pellet stove does not put out the heat of a woodstove, but pellets are easier and more convenient to use. Far less chimney worries with pellets versus firewood too. If I had to buy firewood I might consider pellets at home, but I have wooded property and actually like processing firewood so I will burn wood at home as long as I am able.

My pellet stove is a Quadrafire and it has been good and trouble free. We only use the camp on occasional weekends, so probably only burn 1/2 ton per year. It makes the camp more comfortable in cold weather and saves oil (we also have oil forced hot air system at the camp).

Someone mentioned pellet furnaces. A friend of mine stopped burning wood a couple of years ago and bought a pellet furnace. He loves it and it distributes heat nicely throughout the house.

Power outage was also mentioned. Some pellet stoves have a battery backup option that can buy you some time, but a backup generator of some sort is probably needed for long outages.

[cmb54]

Thanks guys, all valid points.

Doc, I have a propane range and dryer, Jan 10/22 i paid 4.90 a gallon, fortunately i dont use much. I am sure it has increased in price.
No chance of natural gas. Heating oil is $4.80 a gal. and kero is over $5.00

I have a Honda gen. if needed and I can set up a UPS battery system for times i am gone and the pellet is working.
Yes. I would like to not deal with wood and wife even more so.

The tax credits of 26% is  a help. That pertains to a UL listed pellet stove and or boiler and other install pieces. Stove pipe etc.

Also home insurance has no problem with properly set up UL listed pellet stove. Around here they want little to do with wood stoves.

[hedgerow]

I haven't seen a pellet or corn stove or furnace in my area in years. I haven't looked at the farm store to see if they even carry pellets any more. Years ago there was a factory about forty miles from me that built pellet and corn stoves but there long gone. Years ago there were a fair amount of pellet and corn stoves in the area. Insurance company's around here don't like wood stoves either. I have put several 90 plus LP furnaces in the last five years because the wood stoves were coming out because of insurance company's. I only use LP to dry clothes and for back up heat and water if my Garn fails. I topped my tank off last fall and it was $2.50 a gallon and I thought that was high. I am sure its close to five bucks now. 

[K-Guy]

But my first question for pellet stoves always is, will it run during a power outage?

My Quadrafire had an optional kit to run off a car battery but it will drain it in about 4 hours.

And no I don't recommend Quadrafire, their support sucks. They put a bad board on my unit and knew it when they sold it to me and wouldn't do anything when I had problems.

[cmb54]

K-G   The battery backup should have been able to shut it down if you lost power? Right?

[K-Guy]

I don't know, the control screen has a battery level on it and changed batteries from my truck to the wife's car battery before it died the one time I used it. If it was a common thing to need it, I would buy at least one if not 2 that have at least double the capacity. A generator is the better way to go and I got one last year.

[cmb54]

K-G, ok  thank you!