Anyone have a pellet stove?

We are considering getting a pellet stove for our home. We also considered a wood burning stove but the chimney we'd have to build is just too expensive. Does anyone have a pellet stove? How well does it work? Is it worth it? Recommendations also welcome! TIA.

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?

My parents do and it works really well.

Warms up the whole house.

ETA: it also doesn't leave any kind of smell. They live in the Hudson Valley so I'm not sure who installed it.

Message edited 9/5/2014 5:19:16 AM.

Anyone have a pellet stove?

We've had a pellet stove for about 6 years I think. It works really well. It allows us to keep our oil heat really low, like at 50 so it rarely comes on. The pellet stove warms about 75% of our house to the point where we aren't using our baseboard heat. We usually buy a ton of pellets at the beginning of the season. Last year we bought them at lowes for $207 and somehow we have some leftover even though it was so cold.

We usually do not run the stove when we are not home, but I know people who run it 24/7. We have a small shop vac that is dedicated to the stove to clean the ash out every couple of days. It's very low maintenance overall. The pellets are easy, you just dump a bag in the hopper and it will run for at least 24 hours straight, you can stop it and start it as often as you'd like. It does need electric to operate so it will not work in a power outage.
My DH installed our stove but there are places that sell them that will install.

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?

Anyone have a pellet stove?

England stove works. We bought at lowes but they are sold other places.
We have never had an auger problem. My DH and my uncle service it regularly. Which includes changing gaskets, cleaning the burn pot and auger and cleaning the chimney.
Last year the electric igniter went bad, we ordered it online but DH never got around to putting it in so he just lit it with a torch every time. He's putting it in this weekend so we're ready. The part was $50 I think.
Our house is an expanded ranch, a little over 2000 square feet. Two bedroom upstairs, three downstairs, all living areas on main floor. We have a great room with vaulted ceiling( living/dining combo) with our kitchen open to that. The pellet stove is in the center of the outside wall of the great room.
It heats that entire large space, it's heats most of the first floor bedrooms except the one farthest away, a lot of the heat comes up the stairs which are in the great room, so our master bedroom is very cozy. The other rooms upstairs are our office and gym. Since we don't need them warm all the time we close the doors.
Most suburban house layouts don't lend themselves to complete heating with a pellet stove but it's an excellent way to keep your house warmer than most people can keep a house on oil alone because of cost.
We typically get 3 150 gallon oil deliveries now per winter, compared to 5 or 6 before the pellet stove
Hope that helps!

Message edited 9/5/2014 2:45:27 PM.

Anyone have a pellet stove?

Thank you - that information was very helpful. One more question if you don't mind - how tall is your chimney/exhaust for the stove? I've seen some that come straight out of the wall and that's it and others that come through the wall and go ten feet high.

Anyone have a pellet stove?

Ours comes out of the wall low, behind the stove then goes up about 9 or 10 feet but it's not taller than my roof. It has a special angled cap on it that blows the smoke away from the house. It's made of special chimney pipe.

Anyone have a pellet stove?

Thank you for all this information. It is really helping me decide where we should put the stove.

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?

We installed a Harman XXV last year & was the best investment. We never ran our baseboard oil heat with exception of just running it through in the upper part of our house. When ours was installed they came & told us the most economical spot to put it so it would give us the most. It heats our 2300 sq ft house rather nicely. The house is never below 74, upstairs is about 71. We use programmed space heaters in our bits rooms only bc we close their doors at night

We buy our pellets from Home Depot. We used about 4 tons for the entire winter/spring but our stove runs 24/7 unless we are away for the night. We also have a dedicated shop vac for cleaning which ranges from every 5-7 days. It's extremely low maintenance & I fund the air is not dry like normal heat. We've saved a ton from. It using oil

Anyone have a pellet stove?

Thank you for that information - that is one of the stoves we are considering. We also have oil and it always costs us $$$$$$ for the winter so we are looking into other options.

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?

We have a wood stove, not a pellet stove, but the idea is the same. It was the best decision we ever made. Our house has high vaulted ceilings and no matter how high we had the heat, the main area was always cold. The wood stove does an amazing job at heating the house. We love it!

Anyone have a pellet stove?

Can someone give me a price breakdown for this? I have a original Levitt with one zone heating. Would it warm the two bedrooms upstairs? Did your electirc bill go up a lot?

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?

Anyone have a pellet stove?

We bought a used one off of craigslist and my DH and my FIL installed it. It cost us $500 I think plus the cost of supplies (tile, etc) to extend our hearth. It would definitely be able to heat a Levitt house. Normally, we do not turn on the fan for the stove so it has not increased our electric bill.

Re: Anyone have a pellet stove?