Pellet stove questions

[383 240z]

The wife and I are thinking about putting an add-on pellet furnace, to the oil fed furnace that is our main heat source. We use fire wood in the den. Any owners out there able to clue me in on how long pellets last? A ton costs $198 here. trying to figure out what the fuel costs over the year will run me. At current rates oil is about $2800-$3200 per year. Keith

 

[mopar66]

I have a split level Ranch and I burn about 2 1/2-3 tons at a cost of about $700. It saves me from buying about $1600 worth of oil. So my savings is around $1000 per year.
It also keeps my house much warmer. Before using pellets I would try and keep the temp at 68-70 with the family always complaining it was cold. With the pellets my downstairs is between 75-78 and my upstairs is around 70. I leave my heat on 60 when nobody is home. The 1st one home turns the pellet stove on and the last one to bed turns it off. The furnace goes up only in the morning to take the chill out of the house for a short time. My furnace also supplies my hot water. Some people run there pellet stove overnight on a low setting but I choose not to. I could save even more if I did. Hope this helps.

 

[kmacht]

It depends on almost too many factors to figure out. How well insulated is your house, what temperature do you keep it at during the day and at night, where will the stove be located, how big is the house, what is your climate like, etc. In contrast to the example above of 2 to 3 tons a year I have a pellet stove that we use for supplemental heat in the house. It is a 2 story colonial that isn't very well insulated. We keep the heat at 52 during the night and 62 during the day. We run the pellet stove at night when home and on the weekends. When it is running the house is usually about 65 and the furnace only comes on for hot water. We use about a ton a year. It burns about 3 bags a week. The cost of a ton is $200 and it saves me about a fillup and a half of oil a year so about $1300.

Keith

 

[383 240z]

Ahhh yes. my old nemisis insulation. My home was built in 1817. every wall I tear the interior out of gets filled, but it is a long slow and labourious procedure. I'm really just looking for a burn rate. On a normal size furnace, set on medium how long does 100 lbs of pellet last. Keith

 

[BUDD]

i'm looking at using pellets for heat, in my shop and in my home, i have a free pellet fireplace and looks almost unused, the flue leaked around the cap and water made it's way into the pellet hopper, so it looks like it was only used a couple times, anyway, i want to built my own pellet mill, simple and can be electric, around where i live i can buy a large turck full of dry sawdust for $100 delivered, ready to be made into pellets, not everyone has the place or access to sawdust but if you do there is tons of info on making your own pellets.

 

[checkthisout]

The wife and I are thinking about putting an add-on pellet furnace, to the oil fed furnace that is our main heat source. We use fire wood in the den. Any owners out there able to clue me in on how long pellets last? A ton costs $198 here. trying to figure out what the fuel costs over the year will run me. At current rates oil is about $2800-$3200 per year. Keith

Go here: http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/

 

[Call me the Breeze]

Keith, We just put in a new Harmon pellet furnace this September. We live in Western NY. From the last week of September, til this past Sunday, we have gone through 1 ton. It hasn't been super cold this year yet, but the guy we bought the stove from said to figure a bag a day average. The hopper holds 4 bags of pellets. The low fuel light comes on when there is 1 bag left in the hopper. Depending on the weather so far, I have gone 7 days on 3 bags as the best, and I've gone 2 days on 3 bags at the worst. Over all I like the unit. Sure beats loading up the wood furnace 3-4 times a day, and is a more regulated heat. The downside is our old wood furnace would keep the floors upstairs nice and warm, where the pellet stove doesn't radiate the heat like the wood furnace did. The main reason we switched is my wife has asthma, and the smoke from the wood furnace really bothered her. The new pellet furnace doesn't bother her at all.

 

[lzenglish]

I don't know what part of the country you live in, but if you want to know the burn rate, I can tell you this: I own a whitfield pellet stove, that will burn a 40 pound bag of pellets for 24 to 36 hours on low fire. I'm glad to see you only pay 200 a ton, as the price out in good ole California has jumped to 300 plus a ton. Then again, it depends on what brand of pellets you buy. I prefer Golden Fire, for more btu, and less ash. I use around 2 ton's per year, with winter lows in the high 20's, to low 30's, and burning every day for 4 to 5 months.

In My Opinion:
I would not put too much money into a wood burner of any type today, as wood burning looks to be on the way out, due to the powers that be at the Air Quality Board, and EPA. They started this "check before you burn rule", in California about 5 years ago, and for the last 6 days, we have not been able to burn wood or pellets, at the risk of a 50 to 1,000 dollar fine per day, per instance. They say it is dependant on the parts per million of crud in the air, but who kowns! Now since the State is broke, and laying off Cops, and Code Enforcment Officers, they are leaving it up to your neighbor, who sees smoke from your chimeny, to turn you in on a 1-800-snitch hot line! Then they send a pencil pusher out to take a picture of the smoke from your chimney, and shoot it with a thermal temp. meter, and send your fine in the mail. I'm curious to know how many members in other states have this same B.S. Law?

Wayne

 

[Highbeam]

We have a law like that all around the puget sound that is abused by our local clean air departments. I am currently under a stage 2 ban which means all solid fuel burning is prohibited.

1000 dollar fine for burning unless it is your only source of heat.

 

[PECVD2]

Yup Learn English has got it right. Quality of pellets really matters. Big box pellets at $2.97/40# are low BTU high ash producers. Hardwood with no bark fillers are~$7/45# and are higher/st BTU but you pay for them. Around here (high desert) a 40-45# bag per night is norm.

 

[peghead]

My area is under no wood stove ban. Or pellet stove ban. If you burn wood in an inclosed container it's O.K. Your not suppose to burn leaves. Anyhow, pellet stoves burn clean, I can't figure that the local government would enforce not burning a pellet stove and wood burns clean if you don't dampen the exhaust. But a lot of it has to do with pollution credits. Many local state governments get funding from the federal government through pollution credits, which I think is a bunch of ****. They will tow your old car off here if it doesn't have plates or insurance on it. Just a way for the local governance to get money! It's always the little guy who pays! Ain't right!

 

[BUDD]

just to add to my post about making my own pellets, i just got off the phone with a trucking company that delivers sawdust for horse bedding, 7 tons of dry sawdust dropped off at my shop will cost me $276.00 plus tax, the cost of making a pellet mill will be mostly my time as i have everything and the skills to make it, i have a 10HP 3 phase motor and a few reduction drives, so if my mill makes 500LBS an hours say thats about 30 hours, i,m not sure what the cost of 3 phase power is here but that cost, the sawdust and my time would give me 7 TONS of pellets, give or take, i wouldn't burn that much in a year.

 

[kmacht]

What kind of machine are you building that can do 500lbs per hour? Looking at the ones for sale on line that can process that fast cost in the $10,000 to $15,000 range http://www.makeyourownpellets.com/pelletmilld.html

Even if you could build it for half that you would still have a long payback period with pellets selling at $200 a ton right now.

Keith

 

[BUDD]

i'm thinking of building my pellet mill along these lines, http://www.pelletmill.net/wood_pellet_machine.html

 

[NitroPress]

I suggest you try a pellet basket. It goes in your woodburner and lets you burn pellets, which are generally a lot cheaper, cleaner, easier to store and easy to buy in small lots when you need them.

We have a Napoleon insert and while it's just a trifle more effort to burn pellets in a basket than it is to burn cordwood, it's easy to manage and produces heat output on a par with the best wood load. We burn cordwood only on evenings we're going to sit and admire the burn; for heat it's pellets, and just an evening fire takes a huge load off the oil furnace.

There are a couple of makers, www.Pelleteer.com is the original (as far as I know) and they have a variety of sizes. I was unsure about trying something that might have been a non-workie PITA, but I'm impressed with the whole deal. I'm hitting POST on this and heading up to start the evening's pellet fire...

 

[joe (pa)]

Here in central pa the stove runs nonstop from about November till about March. Before the pellet stove the oil bill was about 600 a month to make it 67 downstairs. I live in an old farmhouse probably poor insulation but my breckwell pellet stove makes it about 78 downstairs and about 68 up. Go through about 2-3 bags a day in the heart of winter.

 

[mrobins297aaa]

I have the united states stove model 6300, burns corn, pellets, cherry pits even old cat or dog food (dry stuff)

on the lowest setting it burns 5lbs./hour
on the highest setting it burns 13lbs./hour

I've been burning 24/7 during the heating season heating my house using mostly corn until last year when corn got to expensive so since last december I've been burning pellets.
this is my 4th year burning and I've averaged around 12/13 tons of corn/pellets per year

these are the lbs. per day I've used during winter burning 95% corn and 5% pellets
nov-mid dec. 143 lbs. per day
mid dec- end of feb. 190 lbs. per day
march -april 114 lbs. per day

My annual propane bill before I started burning was around $5400 with combination of propane and corn/pellets its been around $3800........so its been worth it.

 

[theoldwizard1]

just to add to my post about making my own pellets, ...

Do you have to add any "binder" (glue, water) to the sawdust, or do you just run it through the mill ?

... 7 tons of dry sawdust dropped off at my shop will cost me $276.00 ...

Are yout prices for soft wood or hard wood sawdust ?

 

[RMR&C]

Do you have to add any "binder" (glue, water) to the sawdust, or do you just run it through the mill ?

At the local pellet mill here they mix in green (high pitch content) saw dust with the dry to hold it together better. I took a quick tour of the pellet mill the other day....was very interesting.

 

[Tim Kennedy]

383 240z: 40 miles north of Pittsburgh? - getting close to me - I live in Prospect

240z - Datsun guy? Got a 69 2000 roadster in the garage.

 

[BUDD]

the videos of mills i have seen do not use a binder, or should i say most, i'm not going to use a binder, lignin is the natural binder allready present in wood, heres a site with some prices and info on makeing pellets,

http://www.alaskapelletmill.com/flat_plate_pellet_mills

Do you have to add any "binder" (glue, water) to the sawdust, or do you just run it through the mill ?


Are yout prices for soft wood or hard wood sawdust ?

the sawdust i'll be getting will be from Douglas Fir, on the west coast there is very little hard wood and it is not the best firewood out here.

 

[Bull]

Bye-bye oil. I was bending over the barrel to the tune of $2700 per year, and at that cost was keeping the t-stat at like 60 when we weren't home and 64 when we were home. We were NEVER warm, and since I hate the cold, it sucked.

Installed a Quadra-Fire this year. Pellets are $250 per ton. The amount you use will depend on a lot of factors. But, I would say that on a cold, cold day, you might use several bags per day. Milder days, you might only use a bag. I'd estimate that we will use between three and five tons, so between $750 and $1250. This should save me a ton of money over time, and I am much warmer/happier. Also feels good to have an American stove, burning American fuel.

We set the downstairs t-stat (which is programmable; so nice!) to 68 when we are around. The furthest room away (upstairs bedroom) is maybe 61-63 at that setting. House is old, poorly insulated, and not very large...2k square feet maybe? I can't recall.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Even hardwoods have a small amount of sap in them. This is what binds your pellets.
I didn't believe it until I watched a special on TV. Pretty neat stuff.

IMO pellets will be the future of green heating and less propane use. A truck will pull up and dry-shoot(used to move dry-powders like flour) them into a storage vessel in your house. I love our pellet stove, I burn 4 ton per season and save about 30% or more on my propane bill, no brainer.

 

[383 240z]

Tim Kennedy. I'm in Industry Beaver Co. Only Prospect I know north of the city is near Portersville. That you?? This pellet idea looks like it just might just be the hot ticket, no pun intended. The PO of this house never had proper cold air returns installed, so we will be having a HVAC guy coming to look at what we need. I got a check in my pocket from my gas lease I'm pretty sure this is were a big chunk of it is going. Keith

 

[NitroPress]

just to add to my post about making my own pellets, i just got off the phone with a trucking company that delivers sawdust for horse bedding.

You want hardwood sawdust for pellets. Most bedding sawdust is softwood.

 

[BUDD]

I would like to use hardwood sawdust, but there are almost no hardwood trees growing on the west coast, the maple and alder trees that do grow here do not make good firewood, i guess they just grow too fast and are not dense enough. i have cut down lots of alder that was 24" or more on the **** and over 100ft tall, you can't even give it away as firewood most times.

You want hardwood sawdust for pellets. Most bedding sawdust is softwood.

 

[lessersivad]

I suggest you try a pellet basket. It goes in your woodburner and lets you burn pellets, which are generally a lot cheaper, cleaner, easier to store and easy to buy in small lots when you need them.

We have a Napoleon insert and while it's just a trifle more effort to burn pellets in a basket than it is to burn cordwood, it's easy to manage and produces heat output on a par with the best wood load. We burn cordwood only on evenings we're going to sit and admire the burn; for heat it's pellets, and just an evening fire takes a huge load off the oil furnace.

There are a couple of makers, www.Pelleteer.com is the original (as far as I know) and they have a variety of sizes. I was unsure about trying something that might have been a non-workie PITA, but I'm impressed with the whole deal. I'm hitting POST on this and heading up to start the evening's pellet fire...

The link you provided went to a "godaddy" site.

Here is the link I found;

http://www.thepelleteer.com/

Looks interesting enough. Thanks.