Heating with Pellet Stove???Wth?

[NHmitch]

My insurance company had to approve the wood stove, and it was hard to find one that would insure a house with a wood stove, and livestock. Lucky for me, I live and New Hampshire, and this is pretty commonplace, but most companies require inspection from the fire department, and you have to meet building codes, and fire codes to install a wood stove or a pellet stove. It is due more to them wanting to ensure that you have the proper clearances from fire-resistant wall surfaces, and the proper chimney and chimney clearances installed. My insurance company required that a licensed contractor installed the stove. Lucky for me, my brother's friend was a contractor, and we did it ourselves. to save money. They also required that the top of the chimney clears the peak of the roof, for proper draft. They want to make sure that you wood stove, or pellet stove chimney do not mix with a oil furnace chimney, as this can have very bad consequences, not only from creosote buildup, but from a potential co2 leak in your home.. When we bought our home, the main source of heat, was an oil furnace, and the secondary heat was a wood stove, that was piped into the same chimney in the basement. They made us remove that wood stove, and cap the hole properly before I could buy the house, and insure it. We had to put in a second chimney for the wood stove, and it had to be triple walled pipe, in the attic, and where it passed through the roof.

 

[Oaktree]

I live and New Hampshire, and this is pretty commonplace, but most companies require inspection from the fire department, and you have to meet building codes, and fire codes to install a wood stove or a pellet stove. It is due more to them wanting to ensure that you have the proper clearances from fire-resistant wall surfaces, and the proper chimney and chimney clearances installed. My insurance company required that a licensed contractor installed the stove. Lucky for me, my brother's friend was a contractor, and we did it ourselves. to save money. They also required that the top of the chimney clears the peak of the roof, for proper draft.

When I bought my current house about 8 years ago we had the new woodstove professionally installed. It was $500 well spent...we put the stove in a corner of the living room, and this erstwhile post & beam house has solid wood walls in all 4 corners, riight where the chimney was being installed. They must have gone thru 4 Sawzall batteries and a couple blades cutting that hole thru 6" thick wood! Took 2 guys the better part of the day to do the installation. Chimney is stainless steel insulated and runs up the side of the house (a lot easier & less messy to clean than one going thru the roof).

The brick center chimney was never even a consideration...no liner and it has several offsets...don't even use it for the oil furnace anymore.

 

[NHmitch]

That sounds like a really good set up. Besides the bend just above my stove, the pipe goes straight up, so it is pretty easy to clean, except for my steep Cape style roof. That is fireboard behind the stove that is painted to match the wall. The chimney in the house has been repainted since this photo.

 

[clemsonfor]

Put in a St Croix revolution pellet furnace this year and So far it is way better than the propane furnace it replaced. in thermostat mode it runs constantly blowing heat into the house constantly keeping the kids room warm for once. Cost to heat the house this year was around $740 dollars as my propane bill last year was twice that. I also have a Lopi pellet stove to heat the other side of the house. and have had no issues with that as well. I cut 8-10 cords a year for my fire pit and camping, but if I had to do it to heat the house, it would become work and I get enough of that at work.

8-10 cords for a fire pit!!! are you burning it in 8ft logs or something? Thats a ton of wood to stand and look at, you must be haveing a fire every day of the winter?

 

[Combustix]

8-10 cords for a fire pit!!! are you burning it in 8ft logs or something? Thats a ton of wood to stand and look at, you must be haveing a fire every day of the winter?

I don't burn every day but when I have a fire it's a warm one, I can burn 1/2 a cord in no time.

 

[soulasphil]

We don't have bulk pellet delivery available in my area. That pellet pumping truck in the photo is expensive and I'd bet the largest reason. Also, since we use stoves, it is easier to dump a 40 lb sack of pellets than to try and fill a bucket from a heap and then dump that bucket into the stove. I suspect in Europe that there is some sort of auger system to supply the boilers from the silo automatically.

I am really surprised you don't have those trucks for delivering heating oil or pellets in bulk. I was convinced we had imported the idea and the machinery from the US !
Pellet heating has been developped in Europe mostly by countries in the North like Denmark or Sweden that have cold winters and lots of pine trees. Because energy is very expensive here and they have not yet clamped taxes on wood, many people accept the initial higher cost as I did myself to lower their fuel bills. The idea is also riding on the current environmental craze.
Yes we use an automatic pellet feeding system, either a small blower or a worm screw. I use the latter, a long screw the whole length of the bottom of the silo, then a pipe to the boiler. Failed only once when there was too much dust mixed with the pellets and the system had to be emptied and cleaned.

 

[keegs]

I understand that grass pellets are in use in Scandinavia. I think they're using a variety of canary grass that grows well in the northern temp zones and also has the properties suitable for pellet fuel.

There's been some efforts here in the NE US to come up with a recipe for producing grass pellets but I don't think they're widely available nor are they as trouble free as wood pellets. Of course a crop of grass matures in < 70 days in most parts of NE US and a tree probably takes 70 years to grow to maturity.

Anyone hear/know whether there's a future for pellets made from grass?

 

[Combustix]

Okay just so Im not full of #$*& here's a pic

 

[NHmitch]

I am really surprised you don't have those trucks for delivering heating oil or pellets in bulk. I was convinced we had imported the idea and the machinery from the US !
Pellet heating has been developped in Europe mostly by countries in the North like Denmark or Sweden that have cold winters and lots of pine trees. Because energy is very expensive here and they have not yet clamped taxes on wood, many people accept the initial higher cost as I did myself to lower their fuel bills. The idea is also riding on the current environmental craze.
Yes we use an automatic pellet feeding system, either a small blower or a worm screw. I use the latter, a long screw the whole length of the bottom of the silo, then a pipe to the boiler. Failed only once when there was too much dust mixed with the pellets and the system had to be emptied and cleaned.

That is an impressive system! It looks like a grain elevator type of design. We have pellets readily available in the NE United States, however they are sold by the pallet load, and in the 40lb bags like Highbeem posted. We do have bulk oil delivery, however that is more expensive to heat with than pellets. I was burning about 100 gallons of oil a month at one point, and it was costing us a small fortune. We actually had a pellet factor catch fire just down the road from my house for the second time in a year, so I am sure that this will drive up the price. I burn 100% wood in my house, but it is messy, and I have to clean quite a bit of ash out of my wood stove each month. I like the idea of pellets, however I have access to 280 acres of forest about 4 miles from our house, so as long as I can split wood and harvest wood, I will continue to heat with it. I have heated for the past 4 years for free, other than the price of gasoline for my chainsaws. New hampshire is a tax free state, so we do not have a tax on wood pellets, and they offer up to a $6000 credit for buying a bulk biomass furnace, like a pellet furnace or stove. They do tax oil, and gasoline very high, but not nearly what you pay in Europe. They do sell an alternative for wood stoves called eco bricks. They are compressed kiln dried hardwood sawdust, and they are a good choice to burn in your traditional wood stove. They are similar to pellets, however they are sold in a packs of 8, and you can get a pallet delivered. They say that they burn 2.5 times longer than wood. I may have to try them. My neighbor has been heating with them , and said that they take up much less space than a cord of wood, and are very effective.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/redstone-trade-ecobrick-pack-of-8-1001261

 

[clemsonfor]

I understand that grass pellets are in use in Scandinavia. I think they're using a variety of canary grass that grows well in the northern temp zones and also has the properties suitable for pellet fuel.

There's been some efforts here in the NE US to come up with a recipe for producing grass pellets but I don't think they're widely available nor are they as trouble free as wood pellets. Of course a crop of grass matures in < 70 days in most parts of NE US and a tree probably takes 70 years to grow to maturity.

Anyone hear/know whether there's a future for pellets made from grass?

UM , not the case. We can grow pine trees to the first pulpwood rotation here in SC in 14-17 yrs. They can grow the same loblolly in half that time in brazil. I KNOW this is fact especially about out local trees as im a forester here in SC. Round wood and logs is in the tank pellets will give us another market for small wood that is the only thing that is stable these days even if quotas are terrible. Logs are half what they brought about 5 yrs ago!! Pulp is about the same.

And on top of that there is enough wast wood residuals in a normal harvest to produce from 12-30 tons per acre of residuals. This would be green chip weight. It would have to be hauled to a mill and processed even finer from the chip stage into a smaller dust then compressed.