What should I know about pellet burners before I buy one.?

Question

Propane is costing me $100 a week to heat my house to only 60degrees. I'd like to supplement my heat with a multi pellet burner. Any advise?

Answer 1

Several things to thinks about: 1. Do you lose power often? If so you might need a back up generator to run the stove. Most stoves have two augers and two or three internal fans. So no power no stove. 2. Exhaust. The vents for pellet stove are very exspensive. 3. Ash removal or I should say ease of ash removal. 4. Availablity of pellets. 5. Storage of pellets. Pellets need to stay very dry.

Answer 2

If your spending $400.00 a month on propane to heat your house you have other things going on. First how big is your house? Second, how well insulated is it? Third, how old of a furnace do you have? Have you called your propane company to have them check your service line to make sure you do not have leaks? How good are your windows and doors? If I was you, I would figure out why it cost so much to heat your house, rather than add more heaters. Do you have a high efficiency furnace?

Before I would waist a bunch of money on a pellet stove, I would try and figure out some of the above questions. Lets say for example that you do not have adequet insulation in your home. A pellet stove WILL cost you a lot of money to operate also, if all the heat is just going through the walls. Find out why it cost's so much before making a decision.

Answer 3

Find the cost and amount of pellets needed on a per hour basis. Inquire as to what the needed accessories are. These are things like chimney pipe and such. I bought a Franklin fireplace for $150 and had almost $1000 in pipe to meet code and insurance requirements. Insurance is important also. Some companies charge extra on your policy if the stove is freestanding and not a built-in. Chimney exiting the roof or the wall also makes a difference.

Answer 4

Sounds like your house is not insulalted properly. Perhaps you should have it checked before investing in a pellet stove.
Have someone check out the R-value in the walls, attic, doors and windows. Insulaltion is cheaper in the long run than supplemental heat.

Answer 5

Pellet stove have a electric motor that feeds pellets to fire.
If electricity goes out the stove doesn't work.Check the spec's and see if you can manually feed the pellets if you need to. My friend put one in his living room and now is moving it because even on low it was way to hot.Now it will be in the basement and we will cut registers in floor for the heat to flow up.
Good Luck

Answer 6

They run on electricity, so if you lose power, you lose the heat! Try a small wood stove instead!