Sizing a Pellet Stove

[SS MAYFLOAT]

I purchased my home in 99. The first 3 years I heated with a combination of wood and oil. Oil at that time was around a dollar a gallon. Afterwards when the oil started to rise, I started burning more wood. For the last 4 winters it has been about 95% wood over oil.

My furnace has an output of 89,000 btu. My wood stove is made by Combustioneer. No longer in business, but were a locally manufactured woodstove. This woodstove is installed in the basement. It will heat the whole house nice and toasty. I have no clue of what the btu rating is on it, but I imagine it is close to 100K if not a bit more.

My house is 1200 square feet single level with a basement. So I need to heat both areas which I figure would be 2400 square feet. At first I was leaning towards a 52,000 btu unit from Tractor Supply. I'm not sure if I will be happy relying on this for my primary heat source. Checked on ebay and it seems that those that are selling theirs is to go to a larger unit. This has got me thinking maybe I should go ahead and plan on a larger one for a whole house application.

I never have had the opportunity to be around one to see them in action. Just not sure how to compare the heat from the woodstove to the pellet stove. Any information would be helpful,,,,,,Thanks....SS

 

[Plainsman]

Re: Sizing a Pellet Stove

I inquired about a pellet stove this year and I asked the dealer how long a bag of pellets would last. He said that if the pellet stove was all that I used, it would take 1 bag a day. At $5 a bag, I didn't see a real savings coming my way.
I also supplement the gas heater with wood, but I only have a fireplace witch is no where as good as a wood stove.

just my .02

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Sizing a Pellet Stove

I would estimate that I would burn on average 85 gallons of fuel oil a month if oil is all that I used. It would be higher during the coldest months but lower on warmer months. If it cost me $5 a day in pellets, that would be cheaper than $8.40 for 2.8 gallons of oil @ $3.00 per gallon per day.

 

[MrBigStuff]

Re: Sizing a Pellet Stove

I heat with wood. I have two stoves but typically only use only one of them 98% of the time. Awhile back, I entertained the idea of switching to a pellet stove. I went through the same calculations and found that no pellet stove could come close to the BTU output of my plain old wood stove (and they cost a lot more too). Finding data was a difficult task BTW. The other downside was that the pellet stove needed an electrical supply for the auger feed. Aside from the installation issues, if we lost power, we lost heat. That is a problem I do not have today. No matter what happens, we are warm. There were only two upsides to the pellet stove for me; easier stocking of fuel and a thermostat control for house temp. They weren't enough to get me to switch and the uncertainty of it being able to heat the house after a significant investment to make the change scared me off completely.