# Pellet Stoves....who Has One



## battalionchief3

Ok, no pickin' on those of us who live where it gets cold. All of those living in Florida, Texas and So. Cal.

Just unloaded 2 1/2 tons, it will get me through the winter. Ours run 239$ a ton, thats me doing the pick-up. It is still cheaper then oil is and it will run you out of the house. Is 90 deg too warm inside during the winter? Everytime my father comes over that is the first place he goes, right in front of the stove.










Note: nosey dog in the foreground. I figure with 5000 lbs in the shed, it wont blow away. Do your self a favor, DO NOT EVER BUY A METAL SHED IN A BOX!!! It came in a box that was about 3' wide, 5' long and 8" thick. Some assembely required......


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## camping479

Wow!! that's a lot of pellets...... I love sitting in front of a wood stove or fireplace in the winter.

That's a dog?? I thought it was a kitty.

DD says "if it's smaller than a cat, it can't be a dog......."









Mike


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## Oregon_Camper

Will the 2.5 tons you just bought get you through a normal winter? Seems like a LOT, but I have no idea what it takes to run a pellet stove.


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## battalionchief3

1 bag a really cold day, half a bag on a kinda cold day. And a really cold/windy day, a bag and a half a day. I will have some left over at the end of the year. We only work 8 days a month though so we are home a lot so we use more then a 9 to 5er.


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## gerrym

Other than the cost that beats my woodstove- especially the hauling in of wood etc. How long does the stove run on a filling?


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## GarethsDad

gerrym said:


> Other than the cost that beats my woodstove- especially the hauling in of wood etc. How long does the stove run on a filling?


Most of the stoves that I've seen are self stoking. Just fill the hopper and a worm screw feeds the stove to a set temp. James


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## Oregon_Camper

GarethsDad said:


> Other than the cost that beats my woodstove- especially the hauling in of wood etc. How long does the stove run on a filling?


Most of the stoves that I've seen are self stoking. Just fill the hopper and a worm screw feeds the stove to a set temp. James
[/quote]

I've seen BBQ's like this too...


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## W Podboy

While you are sitting in front of your Pellet Stove on a cold winters day&#8230; I will be working on my new invention&#8230;. The pellet Air conditioner&#8230;. For those 85 degree December days here in So Cal&#8230;. I figure that 1 pellet a day should be about right&#8230;&#8230;

Just poking fun !!!!!

Wes


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## Carey

There is nothing like a firplace/stove for heat. It sure feels good on a cold day. I have a insert with a blower.. Burn about 3 cords a winter. Someday, maybe we will get a pellet stove, but for now we enjoy our insert. Although its a bit more work, and not as consistant. Cords of aspen, pinion, pine, and cedar(we love cedar!) are all about the same around here.. 150 bucks, so its prolly about the same wood versus pellets.

Beats burning gas/oil.

Carey


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## cookie9933

W Podboy said:


> While you are sitting in front of your Pellet Stove on a cold winters day&#8230; I will be working on my new invention&#8230;. The pellet Air conditioner&#8230;. For those 85 degree December days here in So Cal&#8230;. I figure that 1 pellet a day should be about right&#8230;&#8230;
> 
> Just poking fun !!!!!
> 
> Wes


Instead of developing that pellet air conditioner, maybe a better invention would be a device to prevent earthquakes, fifty-thousand acre wildfires, killer smog and house-swallowing mudslides. Sounds like paradise to me.









Here in Michigan, we don't have 85 degree December days. We just have a few cold days during winter.









Bill


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## NJMikeC

I have a Pellet Insert and have had it for 5 years now. I started looking at a wood burning insert. Then I got smart, pellets are way cleaner and way more efficient and no monkeying with dirty wood. I love wood burners but at the end of the day or more appropriately at the beginning it is real easy to fill it and turn it on rather then lighting a fire. My wife wouldn't be lighting any fires that is for sure.

I re-wired the thermostat to our dining room which is the south side of the house. As long as the sun is shining and it doesn't dip below 25 then the downstairs furnace won't come on very often. I leave the doors open in the bedrooms upstairs and it provides some supplemental heat up there as well although that furnace runs more often.

If I was to try and heat my whole house with pellets then It would require 2 stoves. Thought about it but they are a little expensive especially now.


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## Sayonara

are these pellet heaters complete stand alone deals or are they fireplace inserts? what are the sqft limitations?


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## 2500Ram

Sayonara said:


> are these pellet heaters complete stand alone deals or are they fireplace inserts? what are the sqft limitations?


Google is your friend (lots of reading on what stove you want and sqft but no, they need a exhaust of some type, chimney like or gas stove type but it must be double wall pellet stove pipe $$$, $90 a 45* bend when I installed mine and if I remember correct almost $600 for the pipe alone but it is code required for a reason, they get HOT!!!)

I have had a pellet stove for years and my parents as well, love them. $239 a ton is a good price. Yes they are self feeding and mine is self starting and on a thermostat as well. It will heat my 2700 sf house with the furnace fan on to circulate the air, but I have made a large cold air return in the basement and blocked the other cold air return vents in the house so it can only pull the air from the basement/ pellet stove air.

Here is my insert Quadrafire 1100i about 10+ years old









My hopper only holds about 1.5 bags or 60lbs of pellets and it will burn that in a cold day but normally I feed it once a day every day with a 40lb bag and it will start and stop all day long as the temps fluctuate. Maintenance is a breeze, they are 98% effective on burning so there is little ash, but they do require a weekly cleaning. While cool a 2 minute vacuum on the inside to remove the 1/2 inch of ash around the burn pot and a cosmetic cleaning of the glass. Twice yearly once in the beginning and once around Feb for me, a dismantle of the stove, pulling it out, cleaning it with a vac, the ash pot rarely has any ash but the chimney needs cleaning (my stove leaves a lot of ash in the chimney due to the chimney design







)

It's a nice warm heat vs gas/furnace heat, but the price has gone up $2+ a bag in the last few years and it's not as cost effective. I still use my stove for comfort heat but not for primary heat unfortunately. It's a tossup on savings where it used to be hands down 1/2 as expensive to burn pellets but the market (gas companies) caught on so that's not the case anymore.


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## Oregon_Camper

W Podboy said:


> While you are sitting in front of your Pellet Stove on a cold winters day&#8230; I will be working on my new invention&#8230;. The pellet Air conditioner&#8230;. For those 85 degree December days here in So Cal&#8230;. I figure that 1 pellet a day should be about right&#8230;&#8230;
> 
> Just poking fun !!!!!
> 
> Wes


Hey...heat makes ice in the Outback frig...why not at home.


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## Sayonara

Im wondering since I have a gas FP insert with the 2 wall pipe if i could switch it out with a pellet stove or FP. 
i have 5300sqft and the cost of running 2 furnaces in the winter is exceeding $500/mo. maybe something like this would help offset. plus we usually are running one of the gas firplaces anyways, i could just run this more efficiently. 
Thinking out loud... ill stop my hi-jack. sorry.


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## 2500Ram

Sayonara said:


> Im wondering since I have a gas FP insert with the 2 wall pipe if i could switch it out with a pellet stove or FP.


It's different pipe, gas vent pipe is double wall but pellet pipe is double walled with a rope type insulator between the walls.

You'd have to read a sticker on your current pipe to see what it's rated for.


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## GarethsDad

Sayonara said:


> Im wondering since I have a gas FP insert with the 2 wall pipe if i could switch it out with a pellet stove or FP.
> i have 5300sqft and the cost of running 2 furnaces in the winter is exceeding $500/mo. maybe something like this would help offset. plus we usually are running one of the gas firplaces anyways, i could just run this more efficiently.
> Thinking out loud... ill stop my hi-jack. sorry.


If your FP is Nat or LP then the pipe is typically "B" vent pipe. Wood burning or pellet stoves will have much higher flue temps and need to rated for the higher heat "All vent or Z vent pipe" This is double walled stainless steel pipe. There is also triple wall pipe that bring in outside air for combustion. James


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## Sayonara

Ah crud. Thats a bummer. Guess the family will have to get used to the 56* temps this winter.


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## Oregon_Camper

Sayonara said:


> Ah crud. Thats a bummer. Guess the family will have to get used to the 56* temps this winter.


They better pack some extra food in the house living in that kind of extreme weather.


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## Sayonara

With a house full of women, im sure the cost savings initiative wont last long. The temp will be back up to 70 in no time.


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## Oregon_Camper

Sayonara said:


> With a house full of women, im sure the cost savings initiative wont last long. The temp will be back up to 70 in no time.


Hehehehehehe....we have 2 boys, so I'll never have those issues.


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## battalionchief3

Ours is put in with B vent pipe. We also dont have an outside cold air intake, it uses room air. That is what the instrucstions said and the installer. We did have a free standing wood stove but Im WAY too lazy to cut, split, dry and carry all that wood. Grab a bag, it feeds and lights itself. I clean it with a paint brush and a shop vac. Maybe your fire code is different then ours. The pipe gets hot but I can grab it and not leave skin on it like a wood stove. Oh, its hot and you will let go but I have never had even a 1 deg burn off the pipe. We heat the whole house and love it.


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## NJMikeC

Don't know crap about B vent pipes or anything but they just ran 3 or 4 " corregated stainless up my existing crap zero clearance fireplace and it passed our NJ codes. I suspect that the exhaust pipes are to a degree a function of the type\quality of the stove and Pellet stoves pipes get no where near as hot as a wood burner due to their immensely better efficiency.

Go to this site harmanstoves.com and look at the requirements. I would guess you could get away with minimum changes to your gas fireplace. Note of caution--- your in Michigan and as said before don't try to use it as a primary heat source. Do what I did put the thermostat in a south facing room and your heater won't kick on much at all and the pellet stove will still give you that 70 or better degrees your looking for at far less of a bill if you tried to run it at that.


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## fourwalls

Those stoves are great until the power fails. Then the house fills up with smoke and you think you have a major problem. The electric runs the auger and fan so it smokes until the pellets that have already fallen are burned. Good luck to all who have them I will stick to my dirty old wood stove and keep warm when the power is off also.


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## battalionchief3

We have lost power ( very rare) and we have never had a smoke issue but im sure some would. Mine is in an existing chimney with a BIG draft. It smoked a little but the chinmey sucked most of it out.

Back up generator......


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## renegade21rs

camping479 said:


> "if it's smaller than a cat, it can't be a dog......."
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> 
> Mike


No, actually, my father used to say, "if it's smaller than a football, it's not a real dog ..."


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## GlenninTexas

renegade21rs said:


> "if it's smaller than a cat, it can't be a dog......."
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> 
> Mike


No, actually, my father used to say, "if it's smaller than a football, it's not a real dog ..."








[/quote]

We folks in the warm(er) southern states don't need to make fun of your cold - not when there's a tiny little dog to make fun of instead.









Regards, Glenn
PS. I've noticed thast whenever I poke fun at it being cold up there we get hammered down here, so I'm going there again.


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## cookie9933

GlenninTexas said:


> We folks in the warm(er) southern states don't need to make fun of your cold - not when there's a tiny little dog to make fun of instead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regards, Glenn
> PS. I've noticed thast whenever I poke fun at it being cold up there we get hammered down here, so I'm going there again.


Maybe some folks like the cold. People in my neck of the woods (yes, we actually HAVE woods here) are made of sterner stuff. Consider:

+70°F (21°C) 
Texans turn on the heat and unpack the thermal underwear. 
People in Michigan go swimming in the Lakes.

+60°F (16°C) 
North Carolinians try to turn on the heat. 
People in Michigan plant gardens.

+50°F (10°C) 
Californians shiver uncontrollably. 
People in Michigan sunbathe.

+40°F (4°C) 
Italian & English cars won't start. 
People in Michigan drive with the windows down.

+32°F (0°C) 
Distilled water freezes. 
Lake Superior's water gets thicker.

+20°F (-7°C) 
Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and woolly hats. 
People in Michigan throw on a flannel shirt.

+10°F (-12°C) 
Philadelphia landlords finally turn up the heat. 
People in Michigan have the last cookout before it gets cold.

0°F (-18°C) 
People in Miami all die... 
Michiganders lick the flagpole.

-20°F (-29°C) 
Californians fly away to Mexico. 
People in Michigan get out their winter coats.

-40°F (-40°C) 
Hollywood disintegrates. 
The Girl Scouts in Michigan are selling cookies door to door.

-60°F (-51°C) 
Polar bears begin to evacuate the Arctic. 
Michigan Boy Scouts postpone "Winter Survival" classes until it gets cold enough.

-80°F (-62°C) 
Mt. St. Helens freezes. 
People in Michigan rent some videos.

-100°F (-73°C) 
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. 
Michiganders get frustrated because they can't thaw the keg.

-297°F (-183°C) 
Microbial life no longer survives on dairy products. 
Cows in Michigan complain about farmers with cold hands.

-460°F (-273°C) 
ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero in the Kelvin scale). 
People in da U.P. start saying, "Cold 'nuff for ya?"

-500°F (-296°C) 
Hell freezes over. 
The Lions win the Super Bowl !!


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## camping479




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## Sayonara

cookie9933 said:


> We folks in the warm(er) southern states don't need to make fun of your cold - not when there's a tiny little dog to make fun of instead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regards, Glenn
> PS. I've noticed thast whenever I poke fun at it being cold up there we get hammered down here, so I'm going there again.


Maybe some folks like the cold. People in my neck of the woods (yes, we actually HAVE woods here) are made of sterner stuff. Consider:

+70°F (21°C) 
Texans turn on the heat and unpack the thermal underwear. 
People in Michigan go swimming in the Lakes.

+60°F (16°C) 
North Carolinians try to turn on the heat. 
People in Michigan plant gardens.

+50°F (10°C) 
Californians shiver uncontrollably. 
People in Michigan sunbathe.

+40°F (4°C) 
Italian & English cars won't start. 
People in Michigan drive with the windows down.

+32°F (0°C) 
Distilled water freezes. 
Lake Superior's water gets thicker.

+20°F (-7°C) 
Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and woolly hats. 
People in Michigan throw on a flannel shirt.

+10°F (-12°C) 
Philadelphia landlords finally turn up the heat. 
People in Michigan have the last cookout before it gets cold.

0°F (-18°C) 
People in Miami all die... 
Michiganders lick the flagpole.

-20°F (-29°C) 
Californians fly away to Mexico. 
People in Michigan get out their winter coats.

-40°F (-40°C) 
Hollywood disintegrates. 
The Girl Scouts in Michigan are selling cookies door to door.

-60°F (-51°C) 
Polar bears begin to evacuate the Arctic. 
Michigan Boy Scouts postpone "Winter Survival" classes until it gets cold enough.

-80°F (-62°C) 
Mt. St. Helens freezes. 
People in Michigan rent some videos.

-100°F (-73°C) 
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. 
Michiganders get frustrated because they can't thaw the keg.

-297°F (-183°C) 
Microbial life no longer survives on dairy products. 
Cows in Michigan complain about farmers with cold hands.

-460°F (-273°C) 
ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero in the Kelvin scale). 
People in da U.P. start saying, "Cold 'nuff for ya?"

-500°F (-296°C) 
Hell freezes over. 
The Lions win the Super Bowl !!
[/quote]
Thats GREAT !!


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