Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Pellet Stoves Worth It?

I dunno, maybe not.

We have one, a Breckwell, which is supposed to be a good brand. So far, I'm not convinced the thing was a good buy.

We used to have a box stove. That thing heated the whole damn house! Sure it was a pain in the ass chopping wood and such, but man we burned something like $300 of oil annually at about $1/gallon. And that was for hot water too.
Well, tired of chopping, bought a pellet stove in 06. Put it in the semi finished basement in place of the box stove.

First season I consider a complete bust. The damn thing barely heated less than half the basement. We had no hoses running outside, cuz the dealer and Breckwell said it wasn't necessary to pipe in outside air unless the stove was installed in a small building, such as a trailer. Well, I noticed that it made the other side of the basement much colder and didn't do diddly to heat the house. I knew that it would suck in cold air and blow it up the chimney, but like an idiot I believed everyone when they said it would "heat up so much that it would compensate."
In a pig's ass it did.

I also realized that it was sucking cold damp air in from any crevice or crack in the house. Yeah, damp air, hmmmmm, can you say mold & mildew? I sure can.

So last summer I borrowed a small jackhammer and punched a hole in the basement wall and ran a pipe outside for the firebox. Now it would suck in outside air to feed the fire and pump that up the chimney, while the other fan would circulate inside air around the fire box to heat the house. Seemed perfect right?
Not quite.

Yes, it was a big improvement. No more outside air drawing into the house, but not a lot of heat for the dollar either. Actually, I think it's been a financial loser.
At the lowest setting, it still barely heats half the basement. The other side is no longer freezing because of the cold air not being drawn in, but it aint nice and warm either, and it still seems to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the house.

At that lowest setting, it burns 1 bag of pellets in 24 hours. Now a bag of pellets costs a little over $4, so to run it every day for 30 days would be $120 if I'm kind and calculate with the price lower than actual.
Hmmm, $120/month to heat half the basement.

If you're still with me, keep reading, it gets worse.

Really, on very cold days, it doesn't really heat that half the basement at that low setting. There's a baseboard radiator in the basement on the pellet stove side, and the thermostat is just a few feet away from the stove, set at 64 degrees F. On very cold days, the temp drops below 64 degrees and the radiator kicks in, or I should say, the nasty, global warming, filth spewing oil boiler kicks in.

Now consider that that nasty oil boiler runs us a approximately $100 / month to heat the rest of the damn house and the hot water! Yeah, we have a programmable thermostat upstairs and set it at 62 evenings and 68 days, so we keep the house pretty cool, but still.

I have not been very scientific in my analysis, it's all just eyeballs and check writing, so I could be off on my estimates.
But still, $120+ to heat half the basement, and not fully at that, and $100 for the whole house and hot water? Screw the ozone layer, my wallet is more important.
One more thing I need to mention here is that our boiler is only about 4 years old, and is super efficient. Our old boiler would probably have run up twice the cost or more.

Before I give up on this stove though, I'm going to punch another hole in the wall and suck in outside air for heat too. I'm not sure this will work, I mean, if the outside temp is something like 10 degrees F or below, will that little firebox be able to heat it up before it blows into the house? I don't know.
But my desire is to give the house "positive pressure," to blow a constant flow of warm air into it. If this works, then I think the stove will be worthwhile.

If that doesn't work, then I believe that the pellet stove was a complete waste of money.

7 comments:

R.A. Porter said...

Damn. That sounds terrible. Can you easily install a wood burner if you decide the pellet stove really can't hack it, or is it too cost prohibitive to back it all out?

2old4this said...

Forget backing it out.
A new wood stove would cost about as much as the pellet stove, and we'd be back to choppin' so forget it. Wood stoves are now required to have catalytic converters, and they cost dear.

I have left it off, and run totally on the oil for a couple of weeks. I find that the pellet stove does warm our bedroom right above it a little, so it does cut down on the oil consumption just a skosh. Not enough to pay for itself though.

One funny thing here, I focused on pollutants vs. the oil heat, and that's just asinine. In truth, our oil burner is incredibly efficient and probably spews less pollutants into the atmosphere than the pellet stove! The reality is that if you have a modern, high quality oil heater, you are polluting less than just about anyone outside of electric heat from nuclear, wind or hydroelectric power. Geothermal trumps all, but I don't live near Mt St Helens.

I have no choice but to wait until this summer to run outside air into the house and see if that improves the efficiency.

Anonymous said...

I bought a pellet stove to go green. Worst investment ever. After on 3!!! years, the auger does not work(England Works 2006) What ever happened to products that lasts??? I have a 1940 Zenith Radio that works!!!
Aside from that getting pellets is a job in itself. One bag(40lbs) capacity of the hopper lasts 12hours tops on low. The bags are $5 to $8 per bag. That is NOT cheap per month. Here's the worst part. You cannot see through the bag, so if the pellets are damp and ruined you don't know until you put it in the stove....which can clog up the stove and ruin the stove(repari bills!!!)
Lugging the bags is not worse than lugging wood. Pellet stove is not really that much cleaner either.
I am dumping my pellet stove for a good old fashioned wood/coal burning stove. Plant a lot of trees to eat the carbon. Screw the glogabl warming crowd.

2old4this said...

I hear ya!
I followed this post up later, don't know if you saw it:

http://imokyoure.blogspot.com/2008/09/pellet-stove-revisited.html

It still doesn't heat so well. Ours uses 1 bag in 24 hours, so half of what yours uses.

We also found that you have to be very careful who you buy pellets from. The store we bought it from sells good quality, but Home Depot sells real crap for about the same price. Stay away from them!

We are stuck with this turkey as we really can't go back to wood.

I too say DON'T BUY A PELLET STOVE!

Anonymous said...


I was lucky to find this imokyoure.blogspot.com blog. I'm so amazed by your way of thinking and writing. Have you thought about writing a book?

Serge said...

Unlike wood, the pellets which this stove needs isn't dirty and dusty and could be packed in easy to store 40 lb bags making it an efficient space saver at the same time.

Anonymous said...

Pellet stoves are not worth the money, and the pellet stove dealers are not honest about it. I took a hit and returned mine and got back what I could. DO NOT BUY A PELLET STOVE!!!