Pellet Stove Questions, Recommendations?

[Pat Barry]

I am looking into the possibility of purchasing a pellet stove for our cabin. I am trying to determine how long a 80 lb pellet hopper will last before it requires refilling. I know this is not an easy answer but I'm hoping some of the folks with pellet stoves can tell me how often they need to reload their stoves (daily, weekly, etc). I'm also curious as to how long it takes to get a pellet stove started and putting out significant heat from a cold condition. We currently have a propane stove (35K BTU) that works marginally at keeping our cabin warm in winter (with a reasonable duty cycle). I'm hoping to get a bigger pellet stove (~50K BTU for example) with a blower. I was hoping that I could run it continuosuly at a low temperature while we are away for a week, and then crank the temp up and have the place warmed up in a fairly reasonable time. Anyone with experience have any thoughts to share? Also, any recommendations on the brand?

[Roger Nair]

I have a Harmon stove that I have not used in three years, I'm not likely to use it as a major heat source. Fuel is expensive, the stove is not a radiant heat source rather is dependent on circulating fans and I prefer quiet, noise is produced by fan and fuel feed. It takes some time to go from a cold stove and room to cozy and to use the auto fire igniter seems very long compared to a wood stove charged with dry kindling. I cannot know what your requirement would be for a weekly charge, climate, insulation and airtightness will rule. My house is not tight and in moderate winter weather with the thermostat set low, I need a bag per day to maintain low sixties, when cold 2 to 3 bags daily. It's never really cozy from radiant heat, the heat is in the breeze. I'm east of the mountains, climate is like Washington and Baltimore.

[John Lanciani]

Wood pellets are +/- 8000 BTU per lb. A 50k BTU stove will use over 6lbs per hour running full bore.

I run my stove (also a Harmon) 24/7 and average 40 lbs a day over the course of the winter here in central MA. I have a 1500 sf. raised ranch that is fairly well insulated and tight and I keep the living space at 70+ deg. all winter. Unlike Roger, I find the stove to be a great source of radiant heat once it is up to temp, and that's why I only shut mine down once a week to give the fire pot a quick cleaning and once a month for a thorough cleanout of the ash. I do agree with Roger that they are noisy, though I don't find it to be obnoxious.

[Bruce Volden]

I bought a corn/pellet stove about 20 years ago. Initially used it to supplement the forced air propane furnace in our leaky 100+ yo farm house here in SD.
I worked, OK (noisy), but the price of corn fluctuated badly and I switched over to pellets entirely (better burn too).
Moved 10 yrs. ago and put it in my newly constructed spray foamed shop. The 10 ft. ceilings and 800+/- sf floor plan required about a 4-5 hour warm up but after that I was good to go. I'd go through 1 1/2 bags a day (long days) and stayed quite comfortable-think shirt sleeve.
A power outage killed the "mother board". Company wanted $8-$900 to replace it!!!!!
Sold to a guy who turned it into a smoker. Installed a Fisher Baby Bear wood burner-----best thing happening!
No, I'll never own another one.

Bruce

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

We installed a King brand with 120 pound hopper when we were in a early 1900's farmhouse rental that was our sole source of heat. Keep in mind this farmhouse had zero insulation, original windows and no foundation and it replaced a scary old worn-out wood stove. The pellet stove had 5 heat settings which we also tweaked at different times of the year. At the lowest setting in the warmer months, we could fill the hopper and go maybe 7+ days on Level 1 without needing to fill it. In the winter months, we increased the feed rate and could go potentially 2 days with a full hopper on Level 1. For the really cold days on Level 5, we could use all the pellets in the hopper in a 24 hour period and we were still cold due to all the drafts blowing through that horrible rental! We could easily go through a one and a half pallets of pellets per month and then some.

The stove did have an auto-ignite feature. We had to replace the $$ ignite switch multiple times every few months and finally gave up with that and use a propane torch to light it. Depending upon how cold it is, our pellet stove took 5-10 minutes to crank up and have the blower turn on.

The benefits we had with going with the pellet stove was at least we did have some control over the heat settings and it was much cleaner then the original wood stove and you didn't have to get up multiple times a night to add wood to the stove.

ps. I forgot to mention differences in pellets! We found it was best to try out several different brands of pellets and do some thorough tests. We cleaned the stove, then tracked how fast it went through 1 bag while on Level 1. Then we checked to see how much ash and mess it left in the pellet pot, cleaned the stove and tested the next brand. We found certain brands to burn very clean and last long, while other brands were very messy, left thick ash in the pot and burned much faster and put out less heat.

[Steve Peterson]

We put in an Austroflamm Integra pellet stove with a 145lb hopper and it would last about 2 days during the peak times. We averaged 1 bag per day and maybe 1.5-2 bags when it was really cold. The pellet stove was the only heat we used in our 2700sf house. Propane was way too expensive for us.

At the time we purchased it, most other stoves only had a 55lb hopper which would be very annoying. You either have to wait until the hopper is nearly empty or else you would only be able to add a partial bag. A large hopper is a great feature.

Our stove had auto ignite and you just pressed a button which was another really nice feature. We only open the front door about once a week to clean out the ash tray.

I don't know if we could keep a small fire going for an entire week even with our 145lb hopper. Some models have an option for a thermostatic control, but that seems like it would put a lot of stress on the igniter by cycling on and off all the time. You should have a propane backup set to 45 or 50 degrees that can kick in if the inside temperature gets too low.

We often set a low flame if we are going out for 1-2 days. This lets us have a warm flame a few minutes quicker when we come home. It usually takes 2-3 minutes to ignite, about 5 minutes to get a little bit of heat, and around 10 minutes for a really warm heat.

Steve

[Jerry Bruette]

My old cabin was heated with a wood stove, woodmizer I believe.

When we decided to rip it down and build new we wanted something that could be turned on and be left to itself for an extended time. At first we considered a pellet stove and almost bought one. After shopping around and being told by two different sales people at two different stores not to get a pellet stove we went with propane. Both of these stores had pellet and propane on the floor for display, the sales people both told us the same stories. The headaches with cleaning weekly, the augers jamming and auger motor burning out, cost of pellets vs propane, the pellets bridging in the hopper and not feeding, hauling bags of pellets, needing electricity to run, etc.

We installed a Regency model U39-NG1 propane fire place and so far it's been trouble free. We keep the thermostat at 40 when away and it doesn't take long to bring it up to 68-70. It requires no electricity to operate, works during power outage- pellet auger won't, and has an aux. blower if you want to use it. It does have a pilot light which I was leary of at first but now it doesn't bother me, keeps the spiders and other critters out during the summer months.

My cabin's heated space is about 900 square feet and I'm located about 90 miles north of Green Bay,WI. I use it mostly for deer season, nine days in Nov., and a few weekends during the winter. The 250 gal. propane tank will last a whole year.

Cost of propane stove with pipe was in line with cost of pellet stove with pipe.
I'm very happy with the propane stove and happy I didn't go with pellets.

[Pat Barry]

I'm glad I posed the questions because all this feedback has me thinking that a pellet stove isn't ideal for my task. Like Steve brought up, I do have the propane stove set for around 45 F, to keep everything inside from freezing. I was hoping a load of pellets might keep the place warm (40-45) for a couple weeks - boy was I out of touch.
I'm thinking now that a better choice might just be a bigger propane stove. the one we have now has the built in blower and it is noisy - I think that's because its a small fan running at high speed and that makes for more noise. Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[David Dalzell]

We live in the high Sierra Nevada mountains of California. We have an airtight wood stove that keeps the house warm in the worst of cold temperatures. We originally considered buying a pellet stove, but the electric frequently goes out during snow storms. No electric - no pellet stove.

[Bert Kemp]

Its funny no one's mentioned a coal stove. I cut my own wood on my land for almost 20 years. Split it stacked it, then carried it into house put in stove. House gets hot then cools down put more wood in house get hot then cools down, the clean ash's out. 20 years then I get a pellet stove and ok this is nice but when the temp gets below 20 outside the pellets just wouldn't keep the house warm for every 1 degree drop in outside temp the inside would drop a degree so when it was like zero outside the house would be 60. Then I got a coal stove OMG was this nice, set the temp at 70 and house was 70 didn't matter if it was 20 below outside the house was cozy. If I ever move back to the N east the first thing I buy is a coal stove.