cherry

We have been looking at a wood pellet burner to be installed for the winter that is to arrive here .As this will be our first full winter here soon ,(we had the back end only last year )we do not really know just how cold it can get.Well we went to a demo and decided last week to have a pellet burning fire which gives out blown heat from a controlled pellet fed hopper in a controlled burner area .It is fully compliant with pollution level controls in Christchurch which I feel may be introduced here eventually as wood burners are extremely anti social in as far as emissions go .No need for wood storage as the pellets come in a nice clean 20 kg bag and all you do is pour it into the fire hopper and almost forget it once the settings are made other than topping it up as and when req`d.
Any knowledge of these fires or better advice welcome .I do not have wood storage and do not want to have to light fires to stay warm when it can be done at the push of a button.Lazy ?.YIS ,and why the F .not
Cost @$5000 fitted and working depending on model,

EXXY ? well no not really when you convert and think of the enviroment ,ps the heat ourput is sooooooo good its unreal.

Joshlin

Hi Cherry,

We currently have a log burner but last year enquired about a pellet burner.
Agree about the heat output, but if you get a power cut you've had it as the hopper/feeder is driven by an electric motor.
The costings we had here in Chch were a fair bit cheaper than $5k if memory serves.

Lee

sky

You can aquire a lot of free wood here too which = free heat
Pellet burners seem to burn like fury but not throw out that nice, rich, lovely quality heat that a wood burner does.

Kippers

We've just had a new wood burner installed.
We did look at the pellet burner but decided:

a/ the initial cost was too high
b/ pellets cost twice as much as firewood
c/ there is no alternative fuel, so you are very reliant on a continuous supply of pellets , although I was told you can burn loose corn
d/ need power, so no good in a power cut.

The advantages:

1/You only need to fill the hopper once a day
2/ they will burn all night on low, so you don't need an additional heat source
3/Less pollution
4/ a lot less work, i.e. no firewood to attend to.
5/you can fit a wet-back to the free standing and the inbuilt models (you can't fit a wet-back to inbuilt wood burners anymore).

Kip

cherry

I agree that a power cut would stop the burner from working however we do have a portable gas fire to cover in that situation ,funny thing is we have electric built in fan heaters and as a sudden thought that we had other back up quickly dissappeared hence the gas fire.We have a good bbq for cooking also as we are all electric here .Gas is piped on the roads but we dont want the extra expense of the gas pipe rental and the high costs of running a gas fire .We find home fuel here is not that cheap and as for a log burner we dont have the storage space for the wood plus the cleaning out of the burner and chopping the wood ,all the bugs living in it andthe "Pollution "
Thats why they are cheaper in CCH they get a grant to change them as the smog and pollution is a big isue there .Just starting to learn here about global warming and its a good thing too.We will risk it and buy the pellet fire ,how many power cuts do they get here anyway

sky

Think we had three with the snow

cherry

Whats "SNOW"
never got it for years where I lived in the UK,hell have I moved to colder clime