Winter warming
- Thread starter Supra725
- Start date
cfranck1
New member
I am one of those pellet burners. My house is about 1200sqft and it heats it up just fine..
Its not an insert but a free standing unit. It came with the house when I bought it 2 years ago.
I will say that I can keep my house a whole lot warmer with the pellets then I could ever dream of with oil (which I use for hot water). First year I was in the house I spent 1600.00 dollars on oil, second year I burned pellets and use oil only for hot water - I spent around 650.00 on pellets and filled the tank up once at a tune of 1000.00. So I did save me some money.
Last year even with the "polar vortex" I made it 9 months without buying oil!
But went through close to 4 tons of pellets!
I have 3.5 tons in my basement as we speak for this year and want another ton, but there is a "pellet shortage" this year..
I'm not going to say that its that easy (set it and forget it) with the pellets, but a whole hell of a lot easier (to me) then wood is.. It's cleaner, very little creosote compared to split wood, less ash, no bugs, easier to handle (40lbs bags) and store. As long as the pellets don't get wet, they have an infinite shelf life..
You do have to clean the stove. It does run on electric, so if the power goes out and you don't have a generator it won't run. Electric motors can crap out of you, exhaust fans can go, and there are gaskets on the unit that should be replaced every few years too.
I belong to this All about pellet stoves and pellets and general info about the topic.
Great bunch of people.
Its not an insert but a free standing unit. It came with the house when I bought it 2 years ago.
I will say that I can keep my house a whole lot warmer with the pellets then I could ever dream of with oil (which I use for hot water). First year I was in the house I spent 1600.00 dollars on oil, second year I burned pellets and use oil only for hot water - I spent around 650.00 on pellets and filled the tank up once at a tune of 1000.00. So I did save me some money.
Last year even with the "polar vortex" I made it 9 months without buying oil!
But went through close to 4 tons of pellets!
I have 3.5 tons in my basement as we speak for this year and want another ton, but there is a "pellet shortage" this year..
I'm not going to say that its that easy (set it and forget it) with the pellets, but a whole hell of a lot easier (to me) then wood is.. It's cleaner, very little creosote compared to split wood, less ash, no bugs, easier to handle (40lbs bags) and store. As long as the pellets don't get wet, they have an infinite shelf life..
You do have to clean the stove. It does run on electric, so if the power goes out and you don't have a generator it won't run. Electric motors can crap out of you, exhaust fans can go, and there are gaskets on the unit that should be replaced every few years too.
I belong to this All about pellet stoves and pellets and general info about the topic.
Great bunch of people.
Supra725
New member
I am one of those pellet burners. My house is about 1200sqft and it heats it up just fine..
Its not an insert but a free standing unit. It came with the house when I bought it 2 years ago.
I will say that I can keep my house a whole lot warmer with the pellets then I could ever dream of with oil (which I use for hot water). First year I was in the house I spent 1600.00 dollars on oil, second year I burned pellets and use oil only for hot water - I spent around 650.00 on pellets and filled the tank up once at a tune of 1000.00. So I did save me some money.
Last year even with the "polar vortex" I made it 9 months without buying oil!
But went through close to 4 tons of pellets!
I have 3.5 tons in my basement as we speak for this year and want another ton, but there is a "pellet shortage" this year..
I'm not going to say that its that easy (set it and forget it) with the pellets, but a whole hell of a lot easier (to me) then wood is.. It's cleaner, very little creosote compared to split wood, less ash, no bugs, easier to handle (40lbs bags) and store. As long as the pellets don't get wet, they have an infinite shelf life..
You do have to clean the stove. It does run on electric, so if the power goes out and you don't have a generator it won't run. Electric motors can crap out of you, exhaust fans can go, and there are gaskets on the unit that should be replaced every few years too.
I belong to this All about pellet stoves and pellets and general info about the topic.
Great bunch of people.
luckily for me.. we rarely have a power storage during the winter months.. but pellet fuel is so much more cheaper than the oil we need to get the stove and water heater going..
I don't think you cool with all the epa and carb people lol.. i don't think the current fireplace we have will either..
MyHigh
New member
I'm curious where you got your information from, or how long ago you gained said info?
Propane is a domestic resource we get from refining natural gas and more recently shale gas. About 70% of our propane is dometically produce with the majority of the rest coming from Canada and Mexice, infact very little comes from the oil refinery in the Middle East. 20 years ago your facts might have been right, but in today's world America is the primary producer of LPG. If you have any more confusion I suggest you research a little more. ( Propane.com) might be a good place to start.
BigNuge
New member
Lol....no sweat skip, I only work in the industry. Guess I would be slightly more informed than your Google search. But hey, everything on the Internet is true right???
While there are bits of relevant information in your post, the fact remains that LP pricing (retail/residentially) is among the most expensive ways to heat, it is fossil fuel, and it is not renewable. In fact, right now it is more expensive than #2 fuel (with some regional exceptions I'm sure). Here it is running $3.80/gallon.
LP: $3.80/gallon 91500BTU/gallon = $4.15 per 100,000 BTU's (this is how it's priced in the industry, you might not find it with your Google search)
#2: $3.06/gallon 140000BTU/gallon = $2.19 per 100,000 BTU's
Pellet: $225/Ton 17,000,000BTU/Ton = $1.32 per 100,000 BTU's
In the end, my point is buy locally. Wood pellet fuel is the best alternative heat source, that is also sourced & produced locally. It is efficient, clean, easy to operate & use.
Wood is a good source as well, however it has become increasingly more difficult to get, and significantly more expensive. Locally here it has become difficult to get good cord wood at all. With the government pushing & subsidizing biomass plants (thank you hippie tree hugger leftist morons), all of the wood suppliers are selling their wood to the highest bidder, and that's all subsidized...so guess who the highest bidder is. I have friends that have run cord wood for 20+ years, they ALL had trouble getting their Winter heating wood this year. Most had to use 2 or more different suppliers, and it was expensive as hell.
MyHigh
New member
Settle down hank hill, I was unaware I was talking to king of the hill over here. I was simply stating that the majority of our LP is locally sourced as well as wood. And I do agree that wood is a cheaper source of fuel, my comment wasn't cost related I just wanted to point out that it wasn't the "rag heads" making all the money. Furthermore, I'm sure last years artic freeze couldn't have had anything to do with the current price scare people are facing. Naturally all my data has come from the ol'enter web as you so mentioned "the Google" but your wrong it's from Wikipedia, so you my understand my sarcasm in my limited knowledge of this topic. :bash:
All BS aside, you are providing good information to those interested in pellets, the only problem is power as mentioned before, and if the east coast gets anything close to what happened last year it will be of no use. Personally I store 50 gallons of LP in two different tanks to run my generator if and when the power goes out, I chose LP because of its ability to be stored for a very long time unlike any other fuel source. And if I didn't live in my current state of Oregon where I can go and harvest 2 cord of wood for $20 I'd probably be looking at pellets myself.
All BS aside, you are providing good information to those interested in pellets, the only problem is power as mentioned before, and if the east coast gets anything close to what happened last year it will be of no use. Personally I store 50 gallons of LP in two different tanks to run my generator if and when the power goes out, I chose LP because of its ability to be stored for a very long time unlike any other fuel source. And if I didn't live in my current state of Oregon where I can go and harvest 2 cord of wood for $20 I'd probably be looking at pellets myself.
BigNuge
New member
LOL...One of my favorite quotes "I wasn’t flirting with her! I didn’t even mention that I worked in propane.”
I agree, LP definitely has its place. I am a big fan of it for cooking/clothes drying/water heating. I also want to do the dual fuel conversion on my generator so I can run it on LP or gasoline!
And if I had access to wood @ $10/cord I'd heat with it 100% of the time!!:thumb3:
1engineer
Moderator
As I mentioned earlier My primary heat source is a heat pump. We have at least a dozen power outages every season and last year we had no power for around 15 days total from November to March. We get the big heavy wet snows here, we live in rural areas, etc. A pellet stove is fine and inexpensive to operate. It is not very good when there is no power. This should probably be a two part question:
Best alternative source of heat, or
Best emergency source of heat.
When the power has been off for three days and the temps are in the teens the cost of the fuel is really not important. Especially when there is two feet of snow on the ground.
Around here we depend on ourselves and neighbors. We have no real emergency infrastructure. It goes: Me>Neighbor>National Guard. What's funny though is I live in a "big city" compared to most of the people here!
Supra725
New member
well.. looks like i'm getting a whitfield pellet insert..
my neighbor brought it from this gentleman that had been in the business for almost 30 years.. and I got a chance today to check it out..
I can get it for $1100 with an year warranty..
is that an okay price for an whitfield?
my neighbor brought it from this gentleman that had been in the business for almost 30 years.. and I got a chance today to check it out..
I can get it for $1100 with an year warranty..
is that an okay price for an whitfield?
