mandymoochops

With the basement being somewhat done its time to think about the winter heating.

We originally were going to go for a wood burner, but hubby mentioned a pellet stove.

Does anyone have them or knows what the advantages of one of these over a wood burner might be?

nldfc

Every one of the pellet stoves i have seen working personally has been crap to say the least - Wood burner all the way

mandymoochops

Crap in what way? Do they burn longer / slower / cooler / faster / crapper

Siouxie

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/a...llet-stove.htm

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls excel spreadsheet showing comparative btu's etc.

Funky Florist

Back in the UK I worked with AGA Stoves. Without doubt I would go for a wood burner every time. They're nicer to look at, more flexible with fuel choices and more practical. Pellet stoves generate a lesser amount of heat, often need an electric fan to distribute the heat and aren't anywhere near as pleasant to live with!

We had a Charnwood wood burner in the UK and along with Jelly Babies, is one of the things I miss!

Just my two-penneth!

MillieF

Friends of ours have had pellet stoves. We spent the weekend with them last winter and they seemed to be always fussing with it and filling it. I have a plain, big, bog standard square cast iron, wood, job. A friend of our sons family though installed a 'Swedish' wood stove, it's lovely and when we went there it was really warm and toasty, but they never seemed to be filling it. It sort of sits into the room so the heat doesn't disappear upwards. I am going to find ot more about them. Good luck!

SivoxII

Wood Burner ... baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar none!!! .. Authentic and Effective.

All the best.

Beaverstate

With a pellet stove you can easily buy, AND STORE a whole winters worth of fuel, neatly stacked on pallets in your garage. Also a pellet stove allows you to load and go, the feeder releases a measured amount over time. If you own , or have access to a large amount of free, or very cheap, dry firewood that may change things. Either way both are very polluting.

iaink

With a pellet stove what feeds the pellets in when the power goes out?

If the auger needs power to keep feeding fuel to the business end I would steer clear. In a rural area in Canada you need a heat source you can count on when the power goes out.

Id go with the woodstove myself, especially if I was on an acreage where there is the possibility of cutting your own trees.

Pellet stove does have convenience in its favour though.

We have a fireplace insert with fans to circulate the air. Its OK, but its not a woodstove. When the power is out it keeps the near area warm enough, but the booster fans clearly make a difference and keep less of the heat from going straight up the chimney. When it comes to the end of its life I expect a real woodstove to take its place. We supliment with oil forced air anyway.

iaink

Its carbon neutral! Trees gets chopped down, burned, CO2 is released, new trees grow. Oil and Gas cant compete with that, and most electric heat is very innefficent if you look at the conversion rates too.

Also new EPA rated woodstoves have some sort of secondary burning stages to reduce soot emissions AFAIK.

Tangram

New ones have a battery back up but they are expensive. If the power goes out, you're screwed.

Almost Canadian

Are new trees able to distinguish carbon in the air from trees and carbon in the air from oil and gas?

iaink

It must be Friday, right.

If you dont burn a tree, eventually it will fall, rot and CO2 is released anyway. Burning it accelerates that process, and will produce more CO2 I expect, but it also creates demand that results in more trees being planted, that will (eventually) take that same amount of released CO2 in from the atmosphere. Assuming a constant demand for firewood, the CO2 released by burning the trees adds some CO2 over and above just letting a tree die and rot naturally, but its perhaps balanced by the CO2 fixed by the growth of new ones to replace them as fuel.

Fossil fuels, oil, coal etc, on the other hand would otherwise be permanently fixed sources of Carbon that are being rereleased to the atmosphere, adding to the overall CO2 level. Any replenishment of the original source only recaptures that carbon over geological time frames, if at all.

No, the trees dont care where the CO2 comes from, but thats not the point, the point is that burning wood adds a lot less CO2 overall than would otherwise be released by burning fossil fuels, and it encourages more trees to be planted which will recapture the CO2 released by burning.

MikeUK

It can still be carbon neutral but still polute

Incomplete burning and production of soot are polutants http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv...d-bois-eng.php

Oink

Pellet stoves are so Canadian. They've got ten billion trees about but they want a tv-dinner version of a stove. Go with a wood burning one all the way. It's authentic, nicer heat and not poofy.