Off Topic -Pellet Stoves

[Mark Page]

Had a Vermont Castings wood burning insert installed when our house was built. It's never worked properly and we are going to go with a pellet stove.
Has anyone had experience with them good or bad?

 

[BMod]

Pick a good name brand, stay away from big box stoves if possible. They all have querks, and have electrical parts in the them be it blowers, and sensors and such, that can go bad. That said, I have a 11 year old quadrafire castile stove burning shelled corn. I only had to failures, and both were last season. I had the convection fan died, and the brain box had a triac go bad. blow was $125, and triacs (I replaced them all) were about $10. A good site on the net to ask questions on is Hearth.com | Wood Stoves, Fireplace, Pellet Stoves, Gas Stoves and More - Forums! Lots of folks with different stoves, with good advice........

 

[Whatswrong]

A few years back I spent many hours researching pelley/grain stove Quadrafire was the one I concluded to be the best although I never bought one they are a little more pricy but appear very well made.I ended up buying an EPA energy efficient wood stove for many dollars less and when I keep it burning whenever I am at home I can cut my fuel consumption by 2/3.

 

[Johndeere3720]

We got 2 pellet stoves in my Dad's house and 1 doesn't work. The other heats the whole house. However the one we are using to heat the house got bad pellets in the auger and locked it up. Eventually the fire made its way into the hopper and set 40 lbs of pellets on fire in the house. We fortunately got the fire out before any serious damage was done. The next day I spent several hours behind the stove, pulled off the motor, pulled the auger out, cleaned the auger and the shaft, and put it all back together. We learned our lesson on why you don't buy cheap pellets and it is running great again. :thumbsup: Buy a name brand, you will have a better experience vs. big box stoves. :thumbsup:

 

[Egon]

When using pellets such as corn [animal food] would it not be more efficent to process them through an animal and then burn the efflent?

 

[Craig Clayton]

I have been sitting on the fence for several years about purchasing a pellet stove. I have read and looked at every model . I even went and bothered a local dealer. The problem I have is the cost of the pellets / BTU 's/ dollars. I heat with electric and I am in an energy efficient house. When I do the comparsion charts the pay back is not as fast as I would like. Plus a pellet stove is still a combustable device in the house.
I would really like to install an outdoor EPA II outdoor wood furnace and keep the flame outside.
The one thing I found is if you install a mulitfuel pellet stove you can burn the cheaper grades of wood pellets. In talking to sellers of pellets they do have a problem with quality control from the manufactures of pellets.

Craig Clayton

 

[Whatswrong]

When using pellets such as corn [animal food] would it not be more efficent to process them through an animal and then burn the efflent?

100 years ago they burned manure but I'm not sure of how many BTU's that has ,maybe you could just eat enough pork and beef to keep warm.

 

[whistlepig]

We have one of the older Whitfield pellet stoves that came with our house. We have not had any problems with it. We use it for back up emergency heat and it is ideal for that. It doesn't draw much electricity and the portable generator runs it easily. The bags of wood pellets can be stored for years. Ours doesn't have the automatic ignitor controlled by a thermostat. It's either on or off. The soot has to be cleaned out of the firebox every 24 hours of burn time which takes about 15 minutes to do. There are very clean burning with little soot if you use premium pellets. We really like ours.

 

[Egon]

I was think back to the Open Prairies with no trees.

Burning chips!

 

[Mark Page]

I did a work sheet on various fuels. Electricity was the worst followed by oil. Cordwood @ $200 per was the best and only saved $132 per season over pellets.

 

[Whatswrong]

I was think back to the Open Prairies with no trees.


"Me also."

 

[whistlepig]

We have a fireplace but never use it because of dust. I would love to have a pellet insert for the fireplace because they burn so clean. I think the pellets are much cheaper if you buy them by the ton. We don't use the pellet stove enough to buy a ton of pellets. I think the pellets are going for about $189.00 a ton around here.

 

[BMod]

We got 2 pellet stoves in my Dad's house and 1 doesn't work. The other heats the whole house. However the one we are using to heat the house got bad pellets in the auger and locked it up. Eventually the fire made its way into the hopper and set 40 lbs of pellets on fire in the house. We fortunately got the fire out before any serious damage was done. The next day I spent several hours behind the stove, pulled off the motor, pulled the auger out, cleaned the auger and the shaft, and put it all back together. We learned our lesson on why you don't buy cheap pellets and it is running great again. :thumbsup: Buy a name brand, you will have a better experience vs. big box stoves. :thumbsup:

That must have been a positive pressure stove, most are negative pressure to guard against this happening. What make a model is this stove? Most positive pressure stoves, now have kits to convert them to negative pressure.

 

[soulasphil]

I had a pellet heating installed last summer and the results are very good : quite warm in the house, lots of hot water, everything controlled electronically.
The pellets are blown in from a truck in the yard and I buy several tons when it comes to keep the price down.
All I have to do is inspect the boiler room and take out a very small quantity of ashes every fortnight.
I dream of producing my own pellets in a distant future, but my first step will be to acquire a small generator because at present, when the electricity is out, so is the heating system.

 

[whistlepig]

Although it rarely happens I have had the auger jam with pellets. It quits feeding the pellets, the fire goes out, and the stove shuts itself off after it does a cool down cycle.

 

[Dmace]

We bought our house new with a pellet stove installed. It's a Harman brand P38+ (43,000 BTU's). I researched them when we first moved in and it seems to be a top of the line brand. We've used it for 6 years now and have not had a lick of trouble. I use it whenever the temps are below freezing to supplement the oil fed forced hot water heat. We go through about 2 tons a year and I found it saves around $200-$400 per year or more than half a tank of oil. So it's practically free to use plus it gives you that nice dry heat and the smell of a hardwood fire place. I give it a good cleaning once a year in the fall where I completely take it apart and clean everything from the auger to the blower motor. Also, throughout the winter I clean the inside of the stove with every other bag or so. I used cheap soft wood pellets ONCE and never again. They were tough to start, made a ton of ash and barely any heat. Now I get the Maine Wood Products pellets from Tractor Supply and LOVE them.

Here is a picture in "Turbo Mode" (43k BTU's)

 

[BMod]

I had a pellet heating installed last summer and the results are very good : quite warm in the house, lots of hot water, everything controlled electronically.
The pellets are blown in from a truck in the yard and I buy several tons when it comes to keep the price down.
All I have to do is inspect the boiler room and take out a very small quantity of ashes every fortnight.
I dream of producing my own pellets in a distant future, but my first step will be to acquire a small generator because at present, when the electricity is out, so is the heating system.

Very nice setup! Do you worry at all about moisture getting to your pellets from the concrete floor and walls?

 

[ddb123]

I have a Whitfield pellet stove that came with my house. Recently it started acting up. Instead of feeding pellets in at continuous intervals, it waits until the fire is almost out and then dumps in way too many, so that a lot spill over the sides. Then it stops and won't feed again until the fire is almost out again. It does this two or three times and then goes into fault. Any ideas? I don't know where this thing came from as it came with the house. I have a PDF owner's manual but that's it. I did clean it all out already.

 

[Luremaker]

I have a Cozy Comfort by Grain Stove in my 2400 sq ft shop. Installed it 4 years ago and its been great. I have burned corn, pellets and rye in it. I burn through 2-3 tons of fuel per season. This year I am burning wood pellets from Home Depot at a cost of $198.80 per ton. I get the most heat burning a mixture of 60% corn and 40% wood pellets. This stove is a very basic stove, no fancy circuit boards. There is an on/off switch, a feed rate knob, and a blower rate knob, thats it.

 

[Dmace]

I have a Whitfield pellet stove that came with my house. Recently it started acting up. Instead of feeding pellets in at continuous intervals, it waits until the fire is almost out and then dumps in way too many, so that a lot spill over the sides. Then it stops and won't feed again until the fire is almost out again. It does this two or three times and then goes into fault. Any ideas? I don't know where this thing came from as it came with the house. I have a PDF owner's manual but that's it. I did clean it all out already.

Sounds like the auger feed control is gone. If it's anything like my Harman then both the blower and auger are variable knobs on a circuit board and subject to fail. The replacement board with both controls for mine is about $150. It looks like yours may be a little more: Replacement parts for Whitfield Pellet Stoves