Comparing Wood Stoves vs Pellet Stoves
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- Опубликовано: 19 окт 2024
- We discuss the cost and efficiency of both modern wood burning stoves and pellet stoves as well as the drawbacks.
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When my parents passed away, they had a pellet stove in the house that was used all the time. I ended up with it. My house does not have a fireplace, so the pellet stove made perfect sense to me. If I was to install a wood stove, I would have had to come up with an exhaust system that went up over the house. With the pellet stove, make a 4-inch hole through the wall, run an exhaust pipe through the wall, and about 3-feet up the outside wall, plug it in, load the hopper and turn it on. Done. It makes great heat, and I don't have to run the furnace at all. Pellet stoves can be a little pricey but lucky for me, I inherited one. All in all, for me it is cheap heat.
Thanks for the well spoken, knowledgeable videos. I will have to put my 2 cents in though....I heat my home, 1700 sq foot ranch solely with wood. You are right on with the costs, pros and almost all the cons. I know alot of people who keep all their wood outside, as you say, "You don't want to come home from work in good clothes and lump wood in from outside everyday, or get up at 4am to light the stove." I don't do either. I have an indoor woodbin that gets replenished every 3 or 4 weeks. That keeps me from even putting shoes on to get wood everyday. Also, I never have to restart the stove in the morning. I load the stove at 10pm before I leave for work, load it again, depending on outdoor temps, at about 7am. The house is always still warm at 7am. Again, depending on temps, I may load again at 3pm, or just rake the coals up, and most likely toss a few pieces in about 7pm to keep indoor temps up until I load it again at 10pm. I seldom babysit it, usually gets going in about 10 minutes, then I can set the dampers and leave it for 8 hours or so. I agree with the mess also, but certain areas of the home get cleaned every 3 or 4 days anyway. Sorry for the long comment, just wanted to add my 2 cents. I should really start making some more videos....kinda shy on camera. Anyway, thanks for your videos, and keep em coming!!!
This is got to be the bob ross of wood stove comparisons. Probably the most relaxing and informative comparison video of anything I've ever watched.
Good job, you are right on your comparisons. I use wood pellet because I developed an allergy to wood smoke when I used wood stove for years. I also use LP gas to heat, Cook, close dryer. My pellet stove is gravity fed from hopper, does not use electronics ,( Wise-way & US Stove company). I use 2 tons a season in the mountains of western North Carolina, pay $4.45 a bag ( better price if you buy pallet and haul them yourself) , use 300 gal LP gas a year at $1.97 per gal , ( pre-buy deal in summer ) . Pellets is great heating, not maintenance free, but manageable. 1500 sq ft house. I still think good season firewood is best if you are able to harvest/cut/split yourself, and is more economical.
Very helpful video. I am moving from Britain to France and the house has a pellet stove installed so this was very helpful. Thank you. Best wishes for the future.
As I am getting older the woodstove becomes harder to maintain. But I have found ways to keep it going. I bought a small luggage handcart that I use to wheel a basic Walmart bin of wood in and out of the house from the wood rack. So I no longer have to lift bin. This also keeps all the bugs and dirt and everything inside . It may not look the nicest but it’s functional. I also have an electric wheelbarrow that makes moving the wood From the wood pile to the wood rack much easier. Because I sit at a desk all day I do enjoy splitting the word on the weekend, but it is getting more difficult. Thank God for a painkiller. Besides having an electric wood splitter, 3 mauls and several axes, I just purchased the best thing ever which is called the Kindle cracker. It’s great for splitting kindling. No more chopping my fingers off. Excellent review. Thank you.
Something that has helped me is a pike pole. I have videos on DIY pipe pole, it works better than a pickaroon, I never have to bend over to pick up my wood. I really like your idea of the bin and dolly. It sucks getting old, but we can adapt 👍
We live in Northern Maine and we have a pellet stove and use 5 tons a year. We turn the stove on any time we feel cool. That may be in late August or late into May. We have a 11 room house that is well insulated. It cost me around $1250.00 a year. We use to use oil and we used 900 gals a year and that includes hot water heating as well. Depending on the price of oil that was costing around $2700 and the house was never as comfortable with oil as is is with Pellets. This pellet stove heats the entire house. We also have had the pellets stove for 15 years.
I've had both and i keep going back to wood logs. I don't want anything that has to have a specific fuel from a store at their asking price during business hours. Pellets are a little cleaner and easier to handle but i spend a lot of time in the woods. I bring home hardwood almost every time i go out. AND i can cook on top of my woodstove. Even burn pallets if i desire. Just keep a chainsaw in your pickup and you'll have plenty of wood. Neighbors offer me wood all the time. Never had anyone offer me pellets. Lot of differences. I can burn some coal if needed. To me it's a no-brainer. I like seasoned birch here in Idaho. Tamarack and red fir are good too. By the way ,when the power goes off, so does a pellet stove. Augers need electricity.
That's no joke I've been getting 1 skid of pro pellets for 120 usd this year they are over 200 usd i was not to happy about that increase at all
Don't call yourself "dufus"! You're a smart man!
Thanks for the information. I will stick with a wood stove. I never knew pellet stoves needed power to operate.
I have solar power and a battery for the house. Lived off the battery for 8 hours recently.
Had a battery for the pellet stove and installed at same time as stove, would keep stove working for 20 hours. Then the solar battery would kick in to run it.
Still use my propane furnace in the winter sometimes, running both.
This house is not insulated. My grandfather built in in the 1930's. To keep his family safe he installed "fire stops" in the walls. Which means to insulate the house, with say blown in insulation, I'd have to have holes drilled about every 2 feet.
I did have the roof insulated but there was only 4" of space. Insulated the knee walls.
Someday I suppose I'll switch to vinyl siding. Rip all the wood off, insulate (checking wiring and plumbing first), then siding.
I love living in the house my Grandfather built!!!
Not cheap. After spending $200,000 on the whole farm (40 acres), I stopped counting.
Grandfather and Grandmother did very few upgrades to the house, only painting and roofing when needed.
I could go on ... but I'll spare you.
@@veramae4098 Sounds so amazing to me to live in such a home with the good energy of your ancestors. Hope you never have to do vinyl siding and are good and warm in your place for all the days to come.
Good video ! I have burned both firewood and wood pellets and you are correct when you say that there is no heat like a wood burning stove. I do feel that the pellet stoves can be a good second in this respect. Another thing to keep in mind is that with a wood pellet stove you are using a waste product that may not get used otherwise. In some areas the pellet stoves are modified to burn corn, making them a dual fuel stove. Keep up the good work.
Good Video! Few points from my experience: A Wiseway Pellet stove eliminates all the electronics. Our local hardwood pellets (which are made by a local oak wood company, but only sold through local retailers) are $205 per ton. They are low dust and low moisture. We should use about 3 ton or so per winter, but we have a smaller house. The farm supply we are purchasing them from will deliver them still sealed and wrapped on the pallet, which will provide a good amount of weather protection. But we are going to use a heavy duty tarp to add additional protection.
Last winter local wood delivered cut and split _(even though we still had to re-split a good portion of it)_ was $50 a rick here, and that is the average price. But we couldn't find anyone who had good seasoned wood. Almost all the wood we purchased was wet and/or green. Had a really hard time burning some of it.
With that said, in the past we have always used a regular wood burner. And until last year, we have for the most part always went out, cut, and split our own wood. But my Dad is 80 years old, and doesn't need to be getting up during the night to reload the stove. And I had two major injuries in the last year and half, and just not able to go cut and split wood anymore. So I'm going to have to switch too.
We always liked a wood burner not only because how warm the heat is, but also because it works no matter what, especially if and when the power goes out, which has happened here fairly often, some times for days or even a week. But Most pellet stoves do not work without power, and a "power backup" for them is more or less a ridiculous option unless you just want a few extra hours. A small fuel efficient honda generator would be a much better back-up power option than the pellet stove "battery inverter" systems.
However, we found a NON-Electric pellet stove, the Wiseway Pellet Stove, which is now being sold by US Stoves. Really Nice Design, a lot of people like it. But since it is not electric, It does need to be installed correctly. As its proper operation is completely reliant upon it creating a proper self driving draft since there is no blower. Which to do so the vent pipe must be installed correctly for your application (chimney size, length, ect). If the proper draft isn't achieved, then you'll have issues.
Just thought I would throw that out there as another possible option for some :-)
Thanks so much for your post about your non-electric pellet stove. That gave me a lot of hope. How are you liking it today?
@@_Ag- This will be the 3rd winter I've ran the Wiseway Pellet stove in my house, and the 4th winter in my Moms house. For both of our houses, I buy about 5 ton/pallets of pellets, we usually burn about 4 to 4-1/2 ton per winter. Which is pretty decent for two small homes. My moms house is small, but has high "vaulted" type ceilings, so it has always take more to heat.
Pellets this winter cost me $225 per ton but my local farm supply gave me a discount. Normally they cost $265 per ton now. But that just varies on where you live and etc. My Moms house takes about 1 to 1.5 bags per 24 hours. My house takes a bag a day, maybe less during lighter weather. I bought 8 ton a month or so ago, and still have about half a ton left over from last winter. This should be enough for two winters.
I did store them this time in a metal shed, car port that is enclosed on 3 sides with gravel floor. Just to keep them out of the weather. Don't have to dump the water off the tarp, or the ice /snow. Or load pellets into the trailer on my lawn mower in the rain etc. We have woods right up to where I had them sitting before, and mice did like to build nests in the lower parts usually. They would eat into some bags, i guess just seeing what was in them. But once opened, the pellets would absorb humidity, sometimes a couple bags, sometimes several bags per pallet. I've always bought between 8 to 10 ton of pellets at a time, which was enough for two winters. And the second year always had more damage simply because it sat there longer. Hopefully in the metal shed, the mice will be less likely to get in them as much.
The stoves work well, but there are issues at times. Just like a regular wood stove. But there is no creosote to deal with, and no having to climb on roof to clean the chimney. But the stove still has to be cleaned periodically. I use an ash vac _(made for pellet stoves which have very fine ash)_ to clean out the firebox and everything in the lower part of the stove and where the window is. We made wood covers with some flexible "bubble wrap" style insulation on the back side, to place over all the openings on the stove to seal it up as best as possible. I then use a Milwaukee Fuel cordless leaf blower at the firebox, to blow the ash that I can't get to with the vac, out of the rest of the stove and out the top of the chimney. I do this about every 3 weeks during 24/7 use. Of course you have to shut the stove down and let it cool before you can clean it.
I dump the ash pan usually every day, but often its only half full. Which that pan is only about 3 inches wide by maybe 10 inches long. I just keep a metal pot by the stove to dump ashes in, then take the pot out every couple weeks and dump it when it starts to get full.
The only thing I need to replace is to buy a new pellet burn basket. Which is just the small metal basket where the pellets actually burn, before dropping on down to the secondary burn plate. The original has burned away quite a bit now, which is normal wear and tear. It would probably still burn this winter, but the two middle "bars" have gotten pretty thin after 4 years. But these baskets are available as replacement parts, as well as some companies on ebay sell "upgraded" baskets with higher quality stainless, which is more resistant to the high temps.
You will also have to adjust the baskets at times. The adjustment is how wide or narrow the bars in the basket are from each other, the wider they are apart the hotter the stove burns, the narrower the cooler it burns. The adjustments aren't hard, just something to learn. Just need a simple dial caliper, I use a digital version. Cost me like $20 back probably 10 years ago, use it for a lot of fine measurements. You can buy them on amazon or most local auto parts stores. It shows the adjustment in the manual.
End point, I like the stoves. Warm heat, less maintenance than a wood stove, but still no electricity needed unlike most other pellet stoves. So even with the power outages here, we always have heat. My Mom has learned how to operate her stove pretty well, she likes it a lot better than a regular wood stove, and she doesn't have to worry about the chimney catching on fire since there is no creosote. I fill it for her, but if she has to add some pellets she uses a large farmers grain feed cup to add a few hours. Fill it at night, and it will burn at least until afternoon the next day. My house I fill it at night, and usually refill it the next night.
With that said, I do still have a wood stove over in my shop. And if things happen to where I can't buy pellets, especially with how the world is right now... I can still reinstall my regular wood stove and use split wood if the need arises. But this is also why I like buying enough pellets for two years at a time. Would give me more time to split and season wood if the need arose.
hope this helps.
@@Yhrim70 Wow, what an amazingly helpful and very generous reply! Thank you so much. I loved the depth of detail you provided and the range of tips you gave. I’m screenshot-ing all of it to save.
Appreciate you spending your time helping strangers out like this. I hope you and your entire family have a lovely, peaceful fall and winter and beyond. 🤍
Definitely well spoken! Appreciated from Mongolia.
I've run a Pacific Energy Spectrum wood stove for the past 30 years with excellent results. No need for electricity and dead silent. But this is for a seasonal cottage where continuous heat during the winter is not an issue. FWIW, I have burned both dry and really wet birch and have not had an issue with creosote in the chimney. Reading the comments here my concerns with a pellet stove would be the dust from the pellets and the noise of the auger and fan. I hadn't even thought about circuit board or motor failures but those or real considerations. The only maintenance on my wood stove has been the replacement of the firebricks for a cost of about $30.
Excellent review. Pellets are subject to availability in supply chain. With any disaster or national crisis like COVID, depending on demand, may have temp shortages in future if pellet manufactures are challenged within their Ops.
Hello. Thank you for the well discussed video. I like how you compare wood vs pellet. Thank you and God bless!
really great video with easy to understand differences.
Excellent video. An honest and informative review.
Perfectly explained, clear, smart, you are a fire source professor 👏👏👏👏👏
Thank you! Just the information I needed.
After living in the northeast for 28 years and having used both a wood stove & pellet stove to heat a home, I can honestly say that for me, the pellet stove is by far the better option when it comes to convenience, maintenance and cleanliness. I much prefer handling 40 lb. bags to chopping, splitting and carrying wood into the house. As long as you have a dry place to store your pellets, you don't need to worry about bringing bugs into your house either.
Had a Harman and now a wood stove. As far as convenience, yes pellet is more convenient than wood but most people choosing between the two most likely are not considering convenience. If you want convenience than natural gas is the most convenient and cheapest. The reason wood wins everytime is a few reasons. Wood is not dependent on others to utilize. Requires no electricity to use. Pellets are susceptible to a number of factors that can affect availability and price including cost of oil, natural disaster etc.
@@VoteRedAmerica2024 By the time you source everything to make pellets, make them and bag them for storing, the convenience argument is dead.
@@thearmy88ify You hit it spot on man. I have a gas furnace and a wood stove. For days where I got some time or want the extra heat. I start a fire and load up the stove. The days were I’m super busy or just plain lazy I set my thermostat. If I go out of town do you want to come to a cold house/start a fire? Now if the power goes out your kinda screwed with a pellet (unless you got a backup). Burning wood full time is a lot of work but part time is nice plus the added benefit of heating your home when power goes out is a added perk. What do you have at your home?
This is pretty much dead on. I heated with a wood stove for 18 years but when I built my new home I went with a pellet. A cord of wood is about the same as a ton of pellets. I still have a lot of dead trees on my property, all seasoned oak. I'm now 73 and the chain saws have gotten really heavy but my younger friend is 65 and healthy so he helps a lot as in doing most the cutting. I do a lot of the splitting and my wife burns the slash. I end up helping her though.
Now days my friend takes the wood, he still uses it.
The 40 pound bags of pellets get transferred into 5 gallon buckets so my wife and I can haul it in and load 20 pounds into the hopper.
My home is 2000 sq ft with a vaulted ceiling. We use a ceiling fan too.
The stove heats the front half of the house just fine, the back half not so much, neither will a wood stove so no difference.
I prefer the constant heat from the wood burner but the pellet stove isn't bad, just different.
In power outages, we have a generator. Because of PG&E we need the generator all year long.
I also have forced air if needed?
So, in my younger days I preferred a wood burner, in my dotage I prefer the pellet.
My pellets are delivered and stacked. Those days are also over.
I order two ton a year, never use that much but I have them. Last year I had almost a ton from the previous winter. This year I have 10 bags left.
I'm outside of Yosemite at 2000 feet, It does snow and get cold!
I take it youre by Groveland?
So jealous you’re outside of Yosemite. Hope you have a warm and peaceful fall & winter ahead.
Excellent video! I totally agree with the first pro of the wood stove: "It's charming!"
I have been in the stove business for 28 years, working out of my house selling and personally installing stoves. I am in Vancouver, WA. I am Jeff's Contracting. I am 72 old and it is about time for me to retire. If someone is local enough and you need to save money I may be able to help you. I can get products for people and explain how to install if you are handy enough. I have done wood , pellet, gas,electric, and gravity fed non-electric pellet stoves and ductless heat pumps.
So kind of you. Hopefully someone near you took you up on your offer to share info.
i was just pondering this subject the last couple days. got a 2400sq ft shop and wanted something to break the chill in the winter there in eastern washington. Great comparison and information.
THANK YOU!! I am looking at purchasing a Pellet Stove. However, I wasn’t sure of the comparison.
I have in the past while researching pellet stoves seen some that had a battery backup. Pellet stoves do tend to be noisy. With a blower and auger to feed pellets running and the plinking sound of the pellets dropping in the burn pot. I would suggest a Harman pellet stove. Probably most expensive on the market. But if their pellet stoves are even close to as efficient as their wood stoves. I would recommend them. Due to heating my home since 2004 with a Harman wood stove. Outstanding stove pure and simple. Also their pellets stoves feed into the burn pot not drop them in. They have videos on their web site. And thanks again for a great informative video. You`re teaching an old dog some things.
Yes, pellet stoves tend to make a little racket. The blowers for both of our wood stoves rattle as well.
I also agree that Harman stoves are a cut above. Thanks for watching.
Solid info thanks helped me make up my mind.
Pellet stoves are becoming more common over here in Bulgaria.
Everyone heats with wood outside of the cities. Pellets may be convenient but with the added electronics, reliance on someone to make/supply pellets (of a useable quality) and need to fit an UPS to the power supply, I still like wood.
I can cut my own if required and no electrics to fail.
The one thing I do look to is the gasifying wood stoves. They use standard wood and can be programmed to a point like a pellet boiler.
Very interesting I appreciate the time you took to put this video out to educate people also I'm not quite sure if I missed it I could probably watch the rerun but the benefits of having the wood cook stove is also being able to cook on it and warm up water which is also saving on electricity bill if you have to do that with electricity and I'm sure you cannot do it with a pellet stove how can you
Sir, you did some serious damage to my wood-stove vs pellet stove ignorance factor. So well done. Now, can you do a video series on One WIfe vs. 2? I bet you could pull it off. LOL kidding of course.
😆
Thanks.... good info. crunching the numbers, very helpful!
Great video, answered all my questions. I think having a pellet stove and a wood stove would be ideal.
Good info. Thanks for the video. In my areas a cord of seasoned oak is $450 per cord. At that price I haven’t lit my fireplace in 3 years. We are using gas furnace central heat. Thinking of converting wood burning fire place to natural gas insert. Love burning wood but at $450 per cord in my area, it doesn’t seem worth the expense.
I have a regency f3502b (Kingston) I regularly get 18plus hours burn time with it here in Australia,No 4 am wake up for me, load it right up at night get it roaring and turn it down. It’s 87% fuel efficient and 1.1grams an hour. It uses their hybrid technology and has a catalytic converter on it. I totally recommend it. If you want American and not Canadian, I think the lopi cape cod is similar.
I have a wood stove. We all love it. My kids, my wife, the dog the cats everybody who lives in the house.
Very helpful thank you!
thanks so much i needed this,,,no pellet stove for me ,,,
There is absolutely nothing like the heat of a wood stove, I’m so lucky to have grown up with traditional home heating
I have a good wood stove, and I have a pellet grate. Bradley Burner seems to have gone out of business, so now I’ll have to fabricate a pellet grate every season or two, but I like the flexibility of being able to use pellets or firewood. Good video. I’m actually wanting a comparison of wood vs pelllets in my stove. This helps. Thanks.
My brother in law has used a pellet stove to heat his house (1200²) for the last 15 or so years. He uses an inverter and one deep cycle battery, power outages is not an issue. We live Canadian winters and his cost is about $5/40lbs. He's probably firing up the stove as I write these words as the cold temps have made their way here (0c or 32f). I personally don't care for all the trouble heating with wood involves......I love my thermo-pump (free outside ambient air to heat my 3,000² house). By the way, I was blown away when he mentioned that he pays $250 a cord of wood, again wood around these parts goes from $90 to $125 a cord. Interesting topic !
Thanks, very good info, I live close to the 53rd parallel of latitude, 1200 sf house and average 4 tons of pellets a year for my Hartman furnace, yes there is maintenance of cleaning about once every two tons, takes me about an hour for a real thorough cleaning, I have a shout to slide them into the basement and need two people. At my age now I hire able bodies. Last year the price was $965 for a years worth.
Used a 15 year old pellet stove(Lopi) to heat about 1200sq-ft at 8000' elevation in CO. Winter is at least 7 months long. When it was zero degrees, I used about 50-60 pounds per 24 hours to maintain 67 degrees in the home. On average, I spent about $140 per month on pellets($5/40#). Clean up was easy. Dump the ash box about twice a month. That was my experience with a pellet stove.
Great, truly useful and informative video.
This is very helpful. I have been curious about pellet stoves but never knew that they needed electricity to work. Makes one nervous about the too common power outages that happen in my area. Seems like one more thing to stress about.
A car battery will work to generate power when the power is out!
great video thank you
Its all about heat retention and minimizing the heat losses in your property. The subject is seldom covered. Seriously research the subject and insulate to the maximum and watch your fuel consumption plummet. Great video thanks.
I have a pellets basket into my woodburning stove. Works perfectly. Very conventient and clean with the pellets.
Forgive me because all I’ve ever used is a furnace/oil heater, but are you saying you use pellets in your wood-burning stove?
@@_Ag- Yes I did. It’s an emergency solution. You need to be careful as it gets very hot, and the glass might break. I only put half the basket full of pellets. After that winter, my woodshed is full, and I don’t need to use pellets.
@@ibislife Thanks for your reply and the watch out bit as well.
Very happy you didnt just rip into pellet stoves. I have both pellet stove and a wood stove. The pellet stove is great when we are gone for 15 hours a day. But the wood stove is tremendously better to sit near comfortably. Pellet stoves are LOUD.
Nope not a hater. If not used as a primary heat source, they are an excellent backup when one is away from the home for more than a few hours. Thanks for watching.
We have both as well, however, I would not agree with the loading of pellets being cleaner then wood, the amount of dust can be unbelievable if someone just cuts and dumps a bag of pellets into the stove. The annual maintenance of a pellet stove is still more then with the wood stove, but you are still cleaning either one yourself each week, if not more often.
Pellets do tend to become a short supply towards the end of winter in my area, but most people don’t know that a pellet stove can burn any pelletized organic woodland material or shall I say an organic biomass pellet. This includes pelletized bedding material ( generally soft woods/ and grasses) so if your local supplier of heating pellets runs out, bedding pellets and also some feed pellets can burn in the stoves. But as stated if electric goes out as it did here during Hurricane Sandy, you better have a generator. Now your cost of heating has gone up for a bit of time. However I know there is at least 1. Pellet stove that is gravity fed, and with out electronics, but I don’t know much about this stove, what I do know is that the lower end units sold by the big box stores are more work to maintain the the upper end units, with control board, auger, or blower unit issues. This is the reason I am switching over to wood, after remodeling my home, I will install an outdoor wood burning boiler for heating the house, but again insurance and building codes will be an issue.
@@gettintheresafelywithpatf2869 I agree with the dust! it's terrible. I run a hepa filter beside the pellet stove at all time. Also I very carefully cut the bags open and dump them into my Harman p61. Our wood stove is way easier to maintain. I would like an outdoor boiler myself but they burn an outrageous ammount of wood, don't they?
very educational Have you ever heard of a Rocket Mass Heater ? Now this a very efficient way to heat a home with either wood, pellets even coal. Also you will use far less fuel than conventional wood stoves or pellet stove and no electricity required.
Video starts out "This is Part 4 of a 3 part series." Ok ..... :-)
I was like wait, what?
You clearly dont get it
This guy is sharp! Knows his stuff.
Excellent video. Keep it up!
no one mentioned that if your firewood gets wet , it will still burn fine but if pellets get wet , now you have sawdust , which your pellet stove WILL NOT be able to use
P.S. I live in southeast Texas ,winters are mild compared to elsewhere but I've been heating with wood exclusively for over 30 years & have no complaints
You forgot to mention that wet firewood dramatically increases the amount of creosote you get, they dramatically increasing the chances of your house burning down. Pellet are stored inside a house or garage anyway. Nobody stores pellets outside where they can get wet SMH
Interesting. I have a wood stove that is over 40 years old. It has a blower and is ducted into my oil furnace plenum. Still have the manual and it states that is 80% efficient. It was may by a now defunct family owned company called Johnson Energy Systems. It keeps the house warm and will maintain an inside temp of 74 whenever the outside temperature goes down to 0°F.
We’ve used wood before in an old home so when we moved, we looked into buying a pellet stove for maybe the convenience. After exploring our options there was an all out deal breaker for me in not choosing a pellet stove. And that was that we have power outages here and there in a Season... once we learned that if you have no electric..you have no Pellet stove without having to run a generator, we just stopped our research. We have a generator but only run it if power is out for an extended period of time. And I can live without lights and most other modern conveniences but Ive always been comforted in knowing we didn’t have to worry about being without heat when those occur... Although wood is generally a co-heating source throughout the year and not our only one, we try to use the wood more - especially when oil prices soar...but we aren’t strapped to getting up at 4 a.m. to reload the stove or stuck making sure it is lit every minute of every day if we go out or away....But I do love the smell and look of a wood fire... a win win all around for me! Wood all the way.
Plug it into a UPS, I struggle with power outages also but I use a 2000 watt UPS and get around 3 to 4 hours of usage if it will be out longer I have a deep cycle battery with a pure sine inverter.
Just found your channel and subcribed. Excellent content cheers m8!
I prefer my woodstove. I can burn some paper waste, cook on it, it works well with any wood I find, often at low cost or free. Low tech, dependable and beautiful to watch.
Bless you too for a very informative video
Very good presentation and as a pellet stove owner/operator, you are accurate as use and cost, however, I have a wiseway( now owned by US Stove Works), that is gravity fed pellets, no electricity required to operate. I dearly love my stove, 2 years now, 40,000 btu
I live in Ma . 1300 sq.ft. ranch . Pellet stove only . I go through 4-5 tons (Nov-Apr) . $1000-$1250 annual fuel cost . Electric cost to run stove is relatively low . I think $20 a month .
Our gas furnace bit the dust in November leaving us with only our pellet stove as a heat source. Our electric use to power the pellet stove went up by about $60 per month, higher during the coldest period. So, as well as the cost of the pellets ($4 a bag here), we had added electricity costs as well. We also lost power 4 times and woke up to a very cold house and used blankets until the power came back on and the stove could be used again. Not a very nice thing since we live in Northern Idaho and pipes can easily freeze while there is no heat. Needless to say, we are trying to figure a way to use the stove without power or how in the world we could afford one that doesn't use electricity. Without a blower, the rest of our home would be mighty cold. So, we are doing research to figure this out.
I’m sure you’ve solved this for yourselves by now, but I’ve seen people suggest a Honda generator or even a car battery (!) for this situation.
Sorry but as a pellet stove retailer / installer a chimney at least equal to a wood burning stove, I sell both types. A main reason is if the pellet stove stops working (power failure) the fumes can be blown back into the house causing carbon monoxide posioning.
Are you saying that people who use those pellet stove wall pipes to vent are in danger of CO poisoning and you suggest actual ceiling chimneys for pellet stoves?
Nice Video ,Only Experience I Have With Pellet Stoves Is ,Two Of My Neighbors Had Them ,Constantly Replacing Electronics,Not Reliable , I’ll Take My Wood Burner ,It Doesn’t Care If The Power Is Off ,Just Feed Me Once In Awhile ,Thank You For Your Videos !!!
Did your neighbors buy the cheap pellet stoves from Homedepot, Lowes, Tractor supply, etc., or did they one one of the better quality brand pellet stoves? You get what you pay for. You said with wood stoves that you just need to feed them once in awhile. Ha Ha Ha, you have to feed them constantly! I am putting another log on almost every hour during the winter. I also have a pellet stove that I only have to spend two minutes to refill the pellets once every four (4) days. With wood, I feel like I am cutting, splitting, stacking, and storing the wood six months and burning the wood the other six months of the year. LOL
I've had a St. Croix pellet - corn burner since 2003, the only thing I've had to replace is the brash bushing for the auger, cost me $12.00 for the part, did the R &R myself.
dgc1929 ,That is very good reliability !!!
Informative.
Love our 100 year old Crown wood stove and water heater, so cheap if you can go get the timber yourself direct from the bush.
great stuff Thanks
Let’s not forget about the maintenance of pellet stoves vs a wood stove, this is something that the sales men never mentions when purchasing a pellet stove. And can be quite extensive or expensive, also how long do they last.
Let’s not forget that the bags of pellets is also loaded with dust that when you open the bags escapes into the room.
Are you going to do something on a wood boiler?
a lot of pellet stoves can burn corn as well. They are great in the corn belt here since farmers have corn.
do you know if someone makes a multifuel stove that can burn wood, pellets, bio fuels like corn etc all in one unit?
A comment below mentions a Bradley Burner. I've heard about burning corn but don't know much about it. Heard also corn can be stinky, dangerous and smoldery. I'd like to know more too though.
@@jamesrice6096 price of corn has almost made them obsolete.
liberator rocket heater
Someone mentioned pelletized fall 🍁 🍂leaves here in this comments section and the pellet stove that takes this type of fuel. (I’d find it for you, but I gotta run right now. No more YT for me!)
Good info thanks!
I can re-use the pellet bags for trash bags reducing the trash bags I would normally purchase. The ton of pellets I purchase cost less than the maintenance of the chainsaw I once used.
i would totally agree that red oak bar none is the best to burn. that wood burns like Hades itself lol. the density of red oak is where it's at, ash runs a good second, leaves a large coal bed.
One thing to remember - if you don't have a regular furnace, you cannot be away from your house for any meaningful amount of time during heating season unless you drain the pipes. Neither a wood stove nor a pellet stove is going to let you go away for more than a day or so if it is below freezing. You need some kind of backup system for both stoves.
Think of both of these things as a way to trade a fair bit of your own time and effort for money. They can save you a bunch of $$ over the long run, but they are a lot more work than just turning on the furnace and setting the temp you want it to maintain.
I have a Pelpro pp130 which holds 3 bags/120 lbs of pellets, with a thermostat kit I can set it to 50 degrees which is more than enough to keep everything from freezing and it will run for a week. Also you can get a 200lb hopper extension for the pp130.
I would also be curious on seeing a comparison of wood to Anthracite coal
me to
Hold on, if you’re saying that the home would consume one bag per day, then how do you end up with 7 tons for 4 months of heating? Hypothetically, say you have 4 months of 30 days of heating. That equates to 120 bags consumed in those 4 months. One ton consists of 50 bags. So you would actually only be consuming about 2.5 tons, not 7.
This also adds to $600 in pellets.
I too was a bit perplexed by his math here. I came up with the same numbers, but I also have the experience. I heat my 2000 sqft. house with a pellet stove, and pellet furnace. Are use the stove on those 40° days in the fall and spring, and the furnace through the frigid winter. The furnace has a higher demand for pellets compared to the stove. My heating season is approximately 5 1/2 months. I use 4 1/2 ton of pellets per year.
I had a similar question and also posted this reply:
I question your math. I have both a wood burner and a pellet stove. I like the pellet stove much more. A 40 pound bag costs $5 and lasts one day. 30 days in a month means $150 per month (30 X 5 =150). Unless you live in Alaska, you will not be using your pellet stove for 10 months out of the year. You claim up to 6 pallets per year. 50 bags per pallet times 6 pallets equals 300 bags which equals 300 days of using your pellet stove per year. Your estimate of 3 pallets is much more realistic. 50 bags per pallet times 3 pallets equals 150 bag which equals 150 days or 5 months of using your pellet stove. So, if you only need to use your pellet stove during November. December, January February and March then your cost would be 3 pallets at $250 per pallet for a total of $750 (which is what your low estimate was).
Where do you live that your natural gas bill is only $40 to $50 per month? What temperature do you keep your thermostat at? My pellet stove keeps the house at 73 degrees all winter.
Do wood/hay/straw have same heat value or do they wary and by how much?
I HAVE OWNED MANY DIFFERANT PELLET STOVES THE HARMAN P 68 IS LIKE A WOOD STOVE ITS THE BEST ON THE MARKET THE HARMAN P 68 IS EXPENSIVE BUT WELL WORTH IT . YOU CAN BURN ONE TON OF PELLETS BETWEEN CLEANING . I BURN 3 TONS EVERY WINTER
Just got one.thanks
I have a neighbor with a pellet stove. He buys a pallet of however many bags each year. I was shocked to learn it's pellets or nothing, and the power goes out sometimes. I think he must have a wood backup because of the huge wood pile he has also.
If the power goes out, you lose the use of an oil burner, natural gas and propane too. Why were you shocked to learn a pellet stove uses pellets or nothing? An oil burner uses oil or nothing, propane uses propane or nothing, natural gas uses natural gas or nothing. Most cars use gasoline or nothing.
hi...i live near montreal canada i used to burn 10 cordes of wood at 125$ each plus delivery i switch to a pellet stove last year and my cost is 125 bags at 750$ tx included,i have a drolet edison model top of the line witch cost me installed 1600 $ (cheaper then my wood stove) battery back up included it can run 20 hours whit out power from grid witch give plenty of time to start the generator if need too,i don't know where you take your numbers?? and i heat my house at 25c -77f whit 30 ponds a day
March 2020 - Due to the Covid-19 Plandemic pellets were not available within a 100 mile drive of Boston. I had to drive all the way to Maine. This year I ordered 6 tons to be delivered in October just to be on the safe side as the lock-downs will be even worse in Blue states this year.
Why would a virus affect a pellet company?
@@dgc1929 All I can tell you is when Democrats lockdown their states again pellets will no longer be available in the Northeast. But with 6 tons to get me through the winter I don't care.
Pellet stoves are more environmentally friendly yes, I also live near a big pellet mill and it has a big stack running 24/7 so im not sure why they advertise "clean energy ". Its only clean when you're burning them. I can see the smoke from that stack for miles lol
I have had wood stoves my entire life. the kitchen wood stove was a sole source of heat when i was a child at the cabin. i see as my entire family ages, the pellets maybe better no cutting and splitting. ---- im just tring to figure out a way to kick start with a generator and not have to run it continuously during a power outtage.
There are some central heating pellet burners and you can heat the entire house only with a fire and are very efficient
Thank you for your observation. The 2 main reasons why I do not like pellet stoves is
1. You are tied to a consumable. A wood stove can burn pellets or other media. A pellet stove is not versatile as a wood stove for burning things.
2. As mentioned you need electricity to run the pellet stove which in a way defeats the purpose of having something to warm you in an emergency.
Finally Wood... is... FREE in my area so again IMHO the pellet stove is glorified wood stove that the corporations have found a way to make something that is free to a consumable item that you need to make the pellet stove to function.
How about using both wood and pallets at the same time? I do
That cord of wood for 250 must be a bush cord which is 3 face cord, most people up here in northern Canada pay 100 buck a face cord or 300 a bush cord plus delivery if you don't cut your own or pick it up your self. Face cord is 4 feet high 8 feet long by 16 inches length of block or wide, bush cord is 4 feet high x 4 wide feet x 8 feet long
I have a propane furnace, a pellet stove by Comfort Built and a new wood burner open not an insert. I cut my own wood on my land or get it free. My labors fuel and time along with fuel for log splitter equal $10 per full cord. Long story short I heat my 2300 square foot home in Northern Michigan for almost nothing! And when I’m tired or don’t feel like it i run the furnace or pellet stove.
When your electricity goes out during a Winter storm, you know, when you MOST need a woodstove heat, what good is a damn pellet stove?
There is one pellet stove on the market that does not require electricity. U S Stove Company.
That was the deal breaker for me in not choosing a pellet stove. We have power outages here and there in a Season... and we wanted this as a way to not have to be without heat when those occur... as well as our co-heating source throughout the year. Not to mention I love the smell and look of a woof fire... a win win all around for me! Wood all the way.
@@dalebannon8503 yes, but you can’t cook on it if you needed to!
@@Ladythyme we had 2 pellet stoves, after hurricane sandy, they were a choice we made, to have “quick heat after our 3 boilers got flooded, at this time we had our oldest daughter, 15 months old, and expecting our second child. What my wife didn’t want were bugs and bark all over the place, but we didn’t realize the amount of dust these pellets come with, and each time you open a bag, you create a small cloud. Now with that said, cleanliness is mute between pellet and wood, but servicing the pellet stoves, ordering parts, waiting for parts, and cost of parts, make these machines NOT WORTH WHILE compared to a wood stove. Let’s also not forget about supply of fuel, in February and March, pellet supplies dry up in N J , so you either burn bedding pellets( soft wood) or use electric heat, vs having an ample supply of fire wood, that if you run low, cord wood can still be had, or you can find standing dead trees to heat with.
Also when the fire dies in a wood stove, they continue to radiate heat for a few hours, a pellet stove cools quickly because it doesn’t have the same physical mass as a wood stove has built in with fire bricks and heavier metals vs the folded steel of a pellet stove!
So in my opinion, a “wood Stove” is far better then the best Pellet stove!
@K Gray forget the thermostat, that is what dampeners, and windows are for! So what good is all the high tech gadgets when the power is out, what good is a pellet stove or your furnace/ boiler? At least I can heat my home, boil water and cook without spending a fortune on other devices like generators!
I’ve had both and they’re both great systems. Either is going to beat electric, gas and oil every time.
@4:39 ended my interest to ever have a pellet stove. But, I see someone is comments mentions non-electric pellet stoves. I would consider that. I have central heat and air and gas logs . Interesting and informative video.
yep, just made a comment a few min ago about the Wiseway Pellet Stove which is Non-Electric. Its now being sold by the US Stove company.
The woodstove shouldn’t be compared to a pellet stove. One requires electricity. We see what happened with the toilet paper crisis, imagine the grid truly goes down. No power, no delivery, peace be with you.Woodstoves are well worth the exercise it requires to have fuel on standby. Also, the radiant heat he speaks of, pellet stoves aren’t even close. I’ve had both in my house. 2018 pellet stove, run all day, $5 bag pellets every two days with a max house temp in a mild winter of 68 degrees. Now I light a fire in the woodstove at 6PM with a house temp of 60, within 1.5 hours the living room is 78 and back rooms are 68. In my brutally honest experienced opinion, pellet stoves are an absolute waste.
can you run pellet srove off small solar panel and how
Yes and no. You need a fairly large battery bank and that can be hard to charge during the winter when there are few sun hours and many days with clouds. There are a number of solar forums where you could post this question and get a variety of answers. Norther Arizona sun and wind is one of these.
The thing is I have oak firewood coming out of my ears. I can't sell enough. I do give it away but I try my best to burn as much as I can in my Jotul 600. Even with 28 ft vaulted ceilings I usually keep my house close to 76 degrees.
Jotul 600s are some strong burning stoves. Thanks for watching.
@@American-OutdoorsNet you made a damn good tutorial. But when you've got wood you burn wood and a whole lot of it. This makes me wealthy beyond compare.
I was going through 12 to 15 cord of wood per winter here in northern Canada. Now I have a pellet furnace and go through around 9000 lbs of pellet that cost me 1400$ cad including sale taxes.
get a more efficient stove. a double burn model. we have those in idaho.
dufus My pellet stove is currently running about 3 time a day since mid September and will run until April or May next year. During January, February I go through about 2 bag a day. It is around -20 to -30 degre celcius during that period. I have a two story house that is 54 feet by 24 feet with a basement. The Enviro Maxx heat that place very well above 23-24 degre celcius all the time. Great stove!
4:09 "pellet stoves require electricity to run" Not the Wiseway. It is also EPA certified. ruclips.net/video/Kjyf4dBViic/видео.html
It is also easy to make your own pellets. A pellet machine is only a couple hundred dollars. All you need is access to softwood trees or fall leaves to make your own.
Fall leaves?! Thanks for mentioning this!
"4 of 3" . . . Like!
I ha e found that stoves made of hardwood burn slower than stoves made of pressed pellets.
How to you "find" that out? A pellet stove usually burns for 24 hours on one bag of pellets. What's the longest that your wood stove has burned? BTW, which stoves are "made of hardwood"and which stoves are "made of pressed pellets"? You do realize that the pellets are pressed wood right?
@@RobertJohnson-th2yf I was speaking of the materials the stoves were made of not what they burned.
@@gregwarner3753 My question is the same then. You replied that you were "...speaking of the materials the stoves were made of not what they burned." So, what materials were the stoves made of? If you actually do have some mental condition, let me know and I will stop. LOL
@@RobertJohnson-th2yf it was a bad joke using a ambiguous sentence structure. One way to read it was what kind of fuel was burned and the other was what the stove was made of. A stove made of wood or pellets would not last very long as it would burn up. Actual stoves are made of noncombustable materials like steel, cast iron or ceramics or some combination of these. The complexity varies from a box with a chimney to automatic furnaces.
I think that firewood fuel provides more heat because in most stoves more can be burned in a given time. Pellet stoves are for a longer term more even heat.
I have come to like both. At the camp I love the wood stove (pacific energy super 27 in my opinion the best stove i've ever had) and at home a harmon p43. im too busy at home for wood full time, and the pellets the kids can turn on, you can turn it off if it gets too hot, and run it in thermostat mode if you wish (i dont, i find it easiest to adjust the burn and blower). My only beef with the pellets is the constant noise of the blower... but its not bad if low, and the harmon unlike other stoves has a thick top and actually does radiate heat like the wood stove. I also enjoy the lack of mess with pellets... theres no dust throughout the house, and depending if i run the stove all night or not, i can go a couple days with a bag of pellets... they are incredibly easy, clean, and pretty efficient... I also don't have to store 3-4 cords of wood... i can get 10-20 bags at a time and throw them in a closet... pretty freaking easy.
Just 3 cords of wood a winter wow. In a house we used to have with a combo electric and wood furnace we were going through 10 plus bush cord a winter of mixed hard and soft wood but mainly hard. I hated living in that house!
@Homesteader Workouts Inefficient stove and a very large inefficient house of 3400 sq ft. Glad I sold it.
Thank you. My brother's girlfriend had a pellet stove and it breaks down several times a season.
Is there a backup heat source?
@@jamesrice6096 portable K1 heater!
Is she diligent about cleaning her pellet stove?
@@gregkienle3378 not sure. I don't live with her.
My suggestion would be a better pellet stove, as they say, You get what you pay for.