Advice needed for a Pellet stove please,..:)

[crazyeyez]

Hello everyone,...thanks for taking the time to assist me with my venture to try and save some money on natural gas costs.
My situation is simple.
I have a man selling a Kozy 100 top load pellet stove with 40,000 btu rating.
I can get a ton of good quality grade pellets for $4.75 per bag $250. per ton.
My questions to all or any of those who have these stoves are the following.
My home is a bi level and the down stairs is allways cold,..I wonder if it would be wise to place the stove in a central wall area down there and keep the furnace blower on to circulate the heat to the upstairs? Also my home is 900sq feet up and about 750 down, how much pellets would i be burning to keep my home warm? Any thoughts would be appreciated by current pellet stove owners.
James :monkey:

 

[czeigler]

We have a pellet stove. I have it in the basement and heat 3 floors with it. It is an englander stove with a max BTU i think of about 58,000. I burn about 4 ton of pellets a season and usually buy them in May or June. Down here in PA they run about $185 and up depending on when you buy them.

Also the clearances are a lot less than a woodstove. It doesn't get as hot to the touch either. It is a lot cleaner and safer as well. It doesn't need a chimney, but does need special piping that is a little salty though! Still cheaper than putting up a chimney.

It has a blower that blows the air out the front and i have it rigged up to work with my engineered duct work. I know Harman has models that are made just for duct work if you want to spend a little more...about 4x's what i paid for mine. I only have two vents active in the household ductwork with an inline booster fan in each. I have never had a problem with the basement being any different temperature than the rest of the house. Our house is a little over than 2500 sqft.

The way i rigged it up was using 6" duct work inside the flexible insulation stuff for the trunk line and the runners. 1 goes to the riser for the 2nd floor and 1 goes to the 1st floor. I have an inline booster fan at the end of the runner at the riser. If that makes sense. sort of sucks the heat from pellet stove and pushes it up.

At the stove the 6" metal duct work stops just above the stove and the flexible insulation continues at a 90 degrees down to the front of the stove and is connected to a right angle piece of duct work. I clamp both right angles together and they hook into my door handle.

I will try and provide some pictures. I might not be explaining it the best to give you a good mental picture.

We built our house about 4 years ago and I would have liked to install a OWB but the wife doesn't really like the looks of them and i was really that knowledgeable on them either. Since then a few friends have installed them at their houses and if we do ever build again, it will be a OWB. I have no problem getting the wood as i do now. I try to cut enough to sell and pay for my pellets.

The pellets cost a little more than coal but they are a lot cleaner. If pellets prices keep going up, i might even look at trading the pellet stove in on a self feeding coal stove now that they have power venters on now too!

If I build another house... I WILL HAVE A OWB.

anyway, just thought i would throw my 2 cents out there!

 

[crazyeyez]

Great,...Please keep the advice comming,.........

Thanks all, Anymore advice is greatly appreciated and I await any and all responses.
James :monkey:

 

[HUSKYMAN]

My friend has one and burns a bag of pellets a day, so thats about $150 a month plus the cost of the stove. Make sure you will not be further ahead to just buy more insulation or a higher efficiency furnace. Make sure you are not just trading dependence on gas for dependence on pellets.

The thing I hate about pellet burners is you dont know what the price of them will be in the future. The same goes for corn. At least with wood the price is always pretty close to the same.

Pellets are good for those who either dont have the time for wood or the physical ability. Otherwise I am not a big fan of them

 

[lxt]

I have an englander also, my house is in renovation mode & has been for a couple years so this stove was bought to keep costs down as we were putting holes in the house here & there while adding on.

My pellet stove has helped out greatly!! I just wish pellets were still $100-125 per ton, BTW my house is around 4200 sq feet, stove is located in the lower part/basement of the house this area alone is around 1750 sq ft divided with walls, it does me good!! I bought before they became so popular, stove & 1 ton of pellets was arond $12-$1300.00 delivered!!

good luck & stay warm!!

LXT................