Pellet Stove Heat

I visited our local pellet stove dealer the other day, and spent about 45 minutes with him discussing my options. Towards the end of the conversation, he made a statement that brought the conversation to a screeching halt for me. "Pellet stoves are not like wood stoves in the type of heat they produce. Pellet stoves blowout a constant 425 degree temp and dissipates the further you are away from the stove. Where a wood stove radiates heat constantly. They are two different ways to heat." This state with regards to pellets stoves made me think about my force hot air furnace.


Questions that I have as a result:

1. With pellet stove heat being blown into the room, does the one room get over heated in order for that heat to be disbursed around the house?
2. If you do not have an open floor plan, is the pellet stove going to work to heat other rooms?

Thank you

 

It depends on a lot on the house dimensions and rooms/stair placement. If you want heat in all rooms, the furnace would be the ideal way to go. Wood stove do have a better heat in total btu's but there are some pellet beast on the market too. You need to decide exactly what you want to accomplish with the pellet stove then go from there. Yes, the stove room can get rather warm to try to heat the other rooms, This is where fans can help but the furnace does a better job.

 

As Ivanhoe stated above, it all depends on how the house is laid out. In general, pellet stoves are "room heaters", but the heat can travel around. But don't expect to heat the house with one unless it's a VERY open floor plan, or you have a bunch of fans to blow it around, or it's a furnace/boiler type.

Yes, I guess you could overheat the stove room trying to heat the others, but doesn't that happen with a wood eater too?

Even placing a big btu unit in the basement doesn't always guarantee the heat will rise through all the rooms. Many have tried, a few have made it work.

 

X2 or 3 on what was mentioned above.

The only thing I will add is I just recently added a second stove and they are on opposite sides of the house. That floor is now very even in heat. The upstairs bedrooms can be 5℉ or so cooler and it is near impossible for me to even out the upstairs any better, unless I wanted fans everywhere.

 

Yes a properly installed furnace would be a better option for distributing warm more efficiently around the house. Now my install is far from properly installed. There are no cold air returns. Which means I am heating new air all the time to push it out to the other rooms in the house. Now before you start telling me the obvious, put in cold air returns, I've spoken with a local tin knocker that installs ducts, and he said there is not enough room in my furnace room for me to install cold air returns. As I don't have a basement, there is no extra area for me to move or expand the current room to make way for cold air returns. This is why I am looking at alternative options.

Growing up, we had a wood stove in our living room. It heated the door stairs as well as heating part of the second floor. Yes it would sometimes blow you out of the room. One thing I've learned from this site is that my dad was not properly seasoning his wood. He'd get his wood in the fall and burn it straight away.

Now the living room has stairs that go to the second floor. Much of the heat from the wood stove would go up the stairs and partially heat the second floor. I am concerned that during heavy cold spells, the pellet stove would struggle to heat the living room with much of the heat making it's way up the stairs.

 

hm....no cold air returns on a forced hot air furnace? I could see that as being pretty problematic. I WOULD NOT get a pellet furnace without addressing the no cold air return issue, as I don't know of any on the market that'll let you get away with no cold air returns.

As for heating the whole place, good points above, cept for a few points. I know of a lot of folks who heat their place with a pellet stove. I am one of them. Harman P61, have use no heating oil for heat in the past 16 years (still heat hot water with it)- I turn my thermostats to 50, heat has never kicked on. I heat about 2000 square feet, 2 stories...colonial saltbox. I use NO fans other than whats stock on the 61 for circulation. I burn 5-6 tons per year. I don't burn crappy pellets. That being said, the room the stove is in WILL be the warmest room, and the further you get away, the cooler it will be. In my home, I have a 5-8 degree difference between 1st and 2nd floor.....
Modern pellet stoves have thermostats which can help in regulating temperature....one advantage over a wood stove. They also tend to be cleaner. They are more adjustable. They can be vented thru the wall with a minimum of pipe. BUT they do require electricity. You cant really process your own pellets, so fuel costs might be higher as well.

The OP mentions a constant heat output of 425 degrees with the pellet stove...not sure of brand, but that's not really correct- it will vary from no heat (if its an autoigniting stove), to whatever the set point is. Also, wood stoves don't radiate the same heat, but it ramps up upon loading and slowly dwindles until its reloaded.....they tend to have to be restoked more frequently than a pellet stove. Ive probably muddied the waters pretty well, sorry

 

If there is existing warm air ducts, there might be a way of adding cold air returns. Cold air duct is the easiest part of the system to install. Maybe a second opinion on the duct installment. Do you have a horizontal furnace? Crawl space for whole basement. Pics would be helpful on designing a system for you. Pics of the rooms upstairs living quarters for better stove placement. Sketch a drawing for us to see what you're up against......

 

Not a pellet furnace. A pellet stove. As for the cold air returns, without gutting the house, it's not going to happen. We've considered the complete gut. The furnace we have operates at an 86% efficiency. With no cold air returns, I half that to get my real number. Trust me I get it.

I've looked at pulling the forced hot air system, and replacing it with a forced hot water system. Average quote I received was 20K for either an oil or propane forced hot water replacement. Much better than a complete gut of the house, and I'd get a pretty good ROI. 20K is not in the budget right now. It's definitely on my radar in the next 5 years. On the first floor I'd have to gut the ceiling in order to get the system in place. We don't use the duct system for air conditioning due to no cold air returns.

Our house faces south. On the east side of the second floor is our family room with wood stove. That wood stove heats our family room as well as the bedroom right off the family room and the two bedrooms on the third floor. A pellet stove in our living room on the west side of the house first floor will heat our living room, dining room and kitchen. The heat would also go up the stairs to heat our bedroom and the bathroom on the west side of the house. I believe with the two in operation, and I don't think I'll need to run my furnace.

This season I've burned 4 cords of semi-seasoned wood along with a ton of Envi 8 bricks in the wood stove. With my hoarding efforts starting this year, I am three years away from fully seasoned wood. Once I get there, I believe my wood consumption will dip some. My expectations for a pellet stove would be on the order of 4-6 tons a season.

The pellet stoves I've been looking at are the Harman's. The two models I am looking at are the Advance Pellet and the XXV. The pellets I am looking at are the Barefoot pellets, http://www.barefootpellet.com. There is a supplier just north of us that I can purchase the 4-6 tons and pick them up 1 ton at a time as needed.

 

It explains with expectation of the pellet stove. Heating upstairs on the west side could be a problem as the wood stove isn't doing it already. Are you gonna have a air register between the floors, then it will happen. Fire code would be a issue. Following up the stairs wood/pellet heat would increase the temp in the already warm rooms and a big maybe warm the west side. A bonus having Barefoot pellets in your neighborhood.

 

boettg33 , just curious, what's the ton price on the Barefoots?

 

I have heard Barefoot is a good brand, so no worries there (I don't sell them). XXV versus Advance? Id say XXV, as it has an open heat exchanger design (exchanger cant plug off), is quieter, and has more heat output than the Advance. There's also rumblings of discontinuance of the Advance in favor of a couple new Harman things coming out.......

 

love me my Harman, but Im at odds with this.......sometimes not best to buy in the first year of manufacture, but Im told that the guys are testing the heck out of things at the moment

 

Have same unit as you..
also 5 tons or so per year...Oil for DHW only.

 

Thank you.

 

I believe through your advice here I am settling in towards a decision. While I can't process the wood pellets myself, the dealer I met recently will store the extra tons at his place at no extra cost. I simply let him know when I need to pickup the next ton. Add to this the simplicity of running the pellet stove vent out an existing window. That window will be removed and boarded up in order for the vent to have a location to go out.

 

There is no wood stove currently on west side of the first floor. It's been over 17 years since one has been down there. When we did have a wood stove on the west side of the first floor, it did heat half of the second floor.

 

Is this a temporary install through the window?

 

I'd have to call him. At the time I was still on the fence for a pellet stove.

 

No, I am going to remove the window and use the space to vent the pellet stove.