Re: Frugal Heating - Pellet Stoves

"Ryan Franzen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 >Has anyone installed a pellet stove to use as a primary rather than gas?
> If so, how much cost savings did you experience?
>
> Any other comments always welcome!

I just installed my first pellet stove last week so I don't have any firm
numbers yet.. However I will share some of my throughts and reasoning for
converting  from wood to pellet.

My house is a 28 year old double wide MH (tin shack), 1200sq/ft., but it is
well insulated with storm windows on some of the larger windows. It has a 15
year old heat pump/AC that works well until the temp gets down below 40,
then the electric elements kick in.. There is no way I can afford to heat if
it is mostly with electric.  I'm located in western Washington state and
there is no natural gas available and propane is no longer affordable
(prices are subject to OPEC).

The previous owner  of the house had installed a wood stove and I had used
it and the heat pump for the past 7 winters. If the temp. was 40 plus I used
the heat pump during the day, wood in the evening and let the fire go out
over night with the heat pump set for about 50 deg. The heat pump would come
on occasional towards morning but mostly it would be in the electric mode
due to the outside temp being too low.

Well I finally got tired of the constant "quest for fire wood". It would
usually take about two cords of wood to last the winter.. The price of
cut/split seasoned wood is about $140 a cord but can go higher in the winter
(I only have room to stack/store one cord).

Several years ago the lumber companies stopped issuing firewood permits for
individuals to collect wood in the clear cuts. I don't have enough timbered
land to provide my own.

I started shopping for a pellet stove but the price for a basic stove was
about $1700, more than I could afford. I found a local one on eBay for $670
and another $100 to install it. (double walled vent pipe is very expensive
but I found some used ).

I shopped around for pellets and found the stove dealers were the most
expensive while the local ACE hardware normally gets $139/ton but happened
to have them on sale last week for $129/ton.

Using that price, I roughly calculated that I could heat my house on a half
a bag (20 lb) a day using the heat pump in the day time, like I had with the
wood stove. So that would be about $1.39/day.

As it turns out, once I got the stove running I have been running it all day
and leave it running into the night.. Sometimes I just let it run out of
fuel since and restart it in the morning. Other times, if it has enough fuel
in the hopper, it is still going in the morning.. (sure is nice to get up to
a toastie warm house.)

If I had a more modern control system on the stove I could set a thermosat
or timer to restart the stove in the early morning.. Mine has all manual
controls, so I'm limited to a static setting when I go to bed at night.

For right now, I'm very happy with this type of heating system as my primary
source and will  use the heat pump for back up or convience heat.

I think the cost will work out to be about the same as cut firewood..  I
really won't know for sure until I finish this winter and get some costs and
averages...

It is pretty easy to deal with and at times it puts out more heat than I
need, even on the lowest setti