pellet/wood stove fireplace insert?

Highbeam · Dec 4, 2005

Even with the furnace blower, these things are space heaters meaning the room that the stove is in will be the warmest and most pleasant. You would not want to put a woodstove in your basement with the intent of heating your upstairs living space via the furnace ductwork.

In my previous homes, the hot air return intake was in the peak of the vaulted ceiling or directly above the woodstove. This increased the temp of the blower air.

Still, expect the different rooms to be different temperatures. This will drive an HVAC guy like you crazy but is one of the things I enjoy about non-ducted heat. Warm in the living room and cool in the bedrooms. It might be wise to move the furnace thermostat to a different area if you are looking to have it kick in for a cold kitchen. I think you'll find that after being in the 75 degree living room that a 65 degree bedroom will be cozy, especially with the electric blanket. The toilet seats will get cool though.

Sigarms · Dec 4, 2005

Can't do the electric blanket because of the pic posted /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif and they sleep with us for better or worse.

Nice thing thinking about this is if I go with a pellet stove, I can replace the 90% LP furnace with a 14 SEER heat pump with strip heat and use the pellet stove for primary heat.

Up until actually "running into" a pellet stove insert by "mistake", I was thinking I would still want to run with the gas furnace for primary heat on that floor (I should say secondary heat, using the heat pump for heat until I hit a set temp, where I'd then use the furnace for heat).

arthr31 · Dec 4, 2005

Best would be to find a local dealer who knows about them (jotul).
Nevertheless, they do make good woodstoves..

The wood insert stove that I have cannot burn both cord wood and pellet... too separate things.. -art

Highbeam · Dec 4, 2005

What's wrong with the pups? Mine always enjoyed the eblankets for the same reason I did. Maybe yours chew?

The folks I know who own pellet stoves are quick to point out that they will cook you out if you set them on max output. They will require a daily commitment to fuel and occasionally to empty ashes and clean. If you are gone for a week then you will need to have a plan B for your alternate which it sounds like you do.

I can't speak to your location, but in the NW we have an enormous supply of cheap wood pellets from our timber industry. I would recommend checking your region's supply.

The pellets are a tree hugger fuel too since the wood waste would have gone to the landfill and the burning of wood is carbon neutral since the carbon burning is made from carbon taken from the air while the tree was growing or something like that. Renewable resource and all that.

Sigarms · Dec 5, 2005

Went with a down comforter (sp?), no complaints /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

With the heat pump and heat strip, any time extended away shouldn't be a problem with heat.

Where I'm at in N.C it's cold (15-50 degrees) mostly between Dec. and Feb., as mentioned before, last year was out in shorts and a t-shirt running at the end of Feb.

Just that currently with 3 LP furnaces in the house with striaght a/c, those 3-4 months are killing me in heating bills.

Again thanks for everyones help!

Well, called for my first quote, a Harmon pellet insert stove. $3000??? Might need to rethink this is this is the going rate.

Highbeam · Dec 5, 2005

Remember what was said about the current state of affairs. Expect to be gouged.

There was a good mail order site, stovesdirect or something like that. I'll look again.

Highbeam · Dec 5, 2005

Yep, stovesdirect.com

I see pellet stoves with 81-85% efficiency ratings and woodstoves in the 61-65% range. Pellet stoves from 2-3000 and woodstoves from 1-2000. With extremes either way. They even have some combination corn/pellet burners but no prices listed.

dmccarty · Dec 5, 2005

Sigarms,

I'm in the triangle so I'm close to you.

We have been heating the house this winter with the wood stove. This is our first year in the house so the data is short. But what I have noticed is that with the wood stove in the living room, the bedrooms on the opposite side of the house are about 8-10 degrees colder. My thermastat is in the living room about 12 feet from the stove. The living room might get to 80 usually its 76-77. At night the living room will drop to 70-72 if I feed the fire during the night. I had a couple of nights were the temps fell to 68. The thermastat is set to turn on the heat pump at 67.

So far this heating season the heat pump has not run. It will today I think since the chimney sweep is scheduled to clean the stove and chimney this afternoon. Its a cold day for him to do it and it will be the first time the stove has been really out for weeks.

I have turned on the blower to move the air around the house. After 30 minutes or so the back bedrooms had gone up a degree. Not worth it to me to run the blower so I have not done it since. We are all on one level and we have a finished concrete floor that is a huge mass to absorb energy. When we thought about putting in radient floor heat the literature I read said to not waste money on putting in lots of circuits since the house would try to equalize in temperature all by itself. This seems to be working for us. The north bedrooms have gotten to 65 degrees. I'm not sure with the heat pump they would be any warmer if the thermastat is set to 68.

Our house has good tight windows. But they are not R25 walls. Each north bedroom has two windows. One is 5'x8' and the other is 6'x8' so there are big "holes" in the walls heating/cooling wise. So the stove at the other end of the house keeping the north rooms at 65ish seems pretty good. And I'm not using power to warm them.

Later,
Dan

5030 · Dec 5, 2005

Looks like our house, lets see, 2 labs one golden and one chocolate and one chilabrador...I don't know who was on the stool for that one.

Our pups sleep in their own "houses" in the kitchen and laundry room. The cats 5 of them sleep everywhere but not in the bedroom. No animals there

The horses sleep in the barn. Somehow, I think that 7 Percheron Draft horses would be pretty hard on the floor beams but my wife would have them inside if she could.

Check out www.englanderstoves.com. That is where mine came from via Quality Farm and Fleet which is TSC now.

Sigarms · Dec 5, 2005

To "quantify" fuel usage to an extent, anyone here have a wood stove, and if so, how many of cords of wood do you use for the stove during the winter months?

Due to the price difference at this point, leaning towards a wood stove.

LMTC · Dec 6, 2005

We have heated exclusively with wood for 20 seasons. Small one level house, 1700 square feet. Heated with a Kent (New Zealand, no longer available stateside), in Ohio winters, house fairly exposed, but we do have 6" insulation sidewalls and 10-12" in the attic. "Typical" use is 3.5-4 cords. Once used a hair over 5, and the least was a little over 2. Bear in mind we have a fairly open floor plan, our house is easier to heat than the typical house of the same size. And this is fairly accurate as we stack/store our wood in by the cord under a wing.

Also heat a 20x30 shop in the barn with wood x 20 years. Used several asstd. old stoves, bought a QuadraFire 5 years ago. I have to keep the shop from freezing even when not using it, as we store "freezeable" things in there....so I usually build a small fire in there each evening. That IS INCLUDED in the wood usage above. I estimate I use a cord in the shop. While the Kent is one of the most efficient stoves I have ever seen (and 20 years ago Consumer Reports rated it light years ahead of other stoves), the QuadraFire is impressive. It will not shut down as low as the Kent, but it heats quickly and puts out an amazing amount of heat for the amount of wood it consumes.

dmccarty · Dec 6, 2005

Sigarms,

I have to guess on my wood usage. I split the wood and then stack it on pallets. I then use the tractor to move the pallets up to the house as needed. At this point we have burned about a cord. I'm guessing we will burn at least two or three more cords before spring. If its two cords that would be good since I have that much split. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

But I'll keep cutting and splitting. What is not used this year will be for next winter. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Later,
Dan

Highbeam · Dec 6, 2005

Growing up, we always assumed 6 cords per year. Came out pretty close. Our long and mild winters make a long heating season even though it is not bitter cold out.

"Due to the price difference at this point, leaning towards a wood stove" Be careful here since it is like owning pet horses, the cheapest part is the horse itself.

Take a look at some of the sites out there. THere is a good site called thehearth.something. Good information about wood burning from people obsessed with it. I'll look for it.

dmccarty · Dec 9, 2005

I found this article today on corn stoves. Some of the interesting qoutes are:

( We've been sold out for almost six months," said Mike Haefner, president of Minnesota-based American Energy Systems. "We're going to be building eight times as much next year just to try to keep up, but we already have 50 percent of that sold." )

( Haefner said there were about 65,000 corn stoves sold in the US last year. He expects about 150,000 will be sold this year and at least 350,000 next year. )

Corn Stove Sales Rise Link

Its gotten colder here with the temps touching the 20's and with high maybe touching 50. My house temps drop during the day so its harder for our wood stove to catch up during the evening and night. The chimney sweep was here Monday and the heat pump finally came on for the first time this season. Its been running off and on if we can't keep the stove running.

I'm looking for a thermostat that we could set to run at a certain hour for a certain time. So far no luck.

One of these corn stoves might be in our future when we add the garage and sun room someday.

Later,
Dan

5030 · Dec 10, 2005

I feel for you. It's 15 here maybe touching 20 and the wind is strong, blowing our last snow across the roads.

It's sad (and not on thread) that there will probably be quite a few folks on marginal incomes or public assistance freeze to death this winter in the northern United States.

Right now, we are running a bag of pellet fuel every 12 hours. The house is right at 70'. The dogs are curled up in front of the pellet stove sharing the space with our boots and gloves drying and staying warm.

WhyNot · Dec 11, 2005

I installed my Breckwell P24I 2 week's ago and could not be happier. Mine also uses 1 bag every 12 hours and keep's the house at 70 unless the wind is blowing. I am not sure if I am saving any money because pellets were $5 a bag and that was buying 3 ton's. Didn't have much choice to pay it though because the place where I bough mine was the only place that had any and when I left they only had 2 ton's left and were not sure when they were going to get anymore.

Mickey_Fx · Dec 11, 2005

( To "quantify" fuel usage to an extent, anyone here have a wood stove, and if so, how many of cords of wood do you use for the stove during the winter months?

Due to the price difference at this point, leaning towards a wood stove.

)

To help you with your research take a look here http://hearth.com/what/specific.html Tons of useful info and fuel cost comparison calc is a great help.

On a weight basis wood doesn't vary too much in energy content but for cord wood we buy by volumn and not weight.

For me, now wood pellets are the cheapest fuel source by a good margin. If you live where shelled corn is in demand and have good sources, corn is likely going to be the cheapest as commodity price for corn is running $2/bu.

I replaced a wood burning insert 2 yrs ago with a pellet stove and haven't regreted it a bit. I still have several cords of fire wood I'd like to sell.

Highbeam · Dec 11, 2005

"On a weight basis wood doesn't vary too much in energy content but for cord wood we buy by volumn and not weight."

True, but you can specify the species of wood. I wouldn't pay the same for a cord of cottonwood as I would a cord of madrona. Of course, this assumes you buy your firewood in a ready to burn state which increases cost tremendously over cutting your own or even having log loads delivered to be processed by you.

DennisArrow · Dec 12, 2005

Here in N.W. Ga it has been a pretty cool December so far. In the mid 20's and up to 50's in the day. My home is an A frame with LOTS of glass on the front facing west. Great heat gain on sunny days. Trees protect me from the gain in the summer. The glass conducts a lot of cold though. Two heat pumps, one on each level. My basement has no heat but never gets cold enough that I can't work work in my shop down there. Just in case have a kerosene portable blower though.
Have had a Waterford wood stove for 6 years now. It has a glass door on front for excellent radiant heat. It is located in the living room and the heat rises easily to the second floor. The bedrooms in back are about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. As it it just my wife and I sleeping on the second floor, this is not a problem. In fact I keep the bedroom upstairs closed off, except at night to keep it cool.

I typically use about 2 cords of wood a year. 4X4X8'. Living on 10 acres of oak and hickory helps a lot. God himself brings down enough trees for me a year to split. This year for instance, I have still to finish up a 30"x 70' log of hickory to get cured.
I keep my woodpile covered with a tarp. If I split the wood like today, it is cured enough by late February so that it burns fine. Yes, some may say that this isnt long enough. How I guage this is by the tar build up on the glass door when I shut the stove down for the night. NO BUILD UP=CURED. I clean out my pipe, usually unnecessary, once a year. The cap does get some soot build up that slows down air circulation through the stove.
To make a long story short. I keep the lower thermostat on 55 with the upper off. The lower seldom comes on. If you have the wood available, do it...............Dennis

gav64 · Dec 12, 2005

I have a jotul kennebec, same as tamarack insert with blower. I installed it this year while a woodstove would heat better i did not want to add a flue pipe and did not want to lose the "fireplace". Not often these days does a product live up to your expectations but this jotul unit does. It came packed better than any product i have ever purchased, fit and finish were excellent and the instructions were clear and precise. They are not cheap but I wanted to install once and be done, the style is better than most out there, i like the arched glass doors. It was the largest unit I could fit in my fireplace, it does not burn as long as I would like (4-5 hours)heats for about 7,but that is a function of it's size. My house is 1700 square feet, two floors, not the best set up for wood heat with fireplace being at one end. I bought it to supplement my fuel bill, not totally heat the house and to burn up the shorts and root flares (ugly wood) that I have accumulated over the years, I sell most of the good wood bagged in 1 cu foot units ( gas station wood). I am really happy with the decision so far, no oil deliveries yet but it is early in the season, i figure a two to three year payback. This is just a bridge untill my oil furnace craps out then i will go to a tarm wood fired boiler with oil back up (real expensive). glenn...