pellet stoves (Yarmouth, Newport: how much, houses, buying)

[cordoba11]

I would like to hear peoples opinions[ good & bad] about their pellet stoves. cost of fuel, ease of opperation, heat ouput, length of burn and the such. thanks ahead of time

[Maineah]

If you're planning to move to Northern Maine you really should consider buying enough land to cut your own firewood. In a few weekends you can cut and split all the wood you'll need for the winter and it will cost you Zip. Why use a stove you'll have to buy fuel for when you'll be surrounded by it?

[cordoba11]

Well i'll tell you why, i have talked to a few people that live in maine and they all said the same thing, they had all lived in connecticut or rhode island at one time but have been in maine now for at least 10 years. They said that northern maine doesn't have the selection of hard woods like we do here, they had all said that they actually took wood,[all used oak] from this area and trucked it up to thier houses when they were down this way Idon't know maybe they were all full of it. But i have been checking out pellet stoves and they seem to have some good features. But i still havn't decided. That's why i figured i would get some input from this forum first.

[kellysmith]

Don't agree with the statement that Maine hardwood is inferior. Rock maple, yellow birch, beech, and oak are the best in my mind, but I've burned white birch before (only because I had some) and it was fine--just not as long lasting. Ash burns hot, but again, doesn't last as long. The more dense the wood, the more btu's. Rock maple would be my choice. As for pellet stoves, Harmon makes a good one. I currently have a corn stove. It's a Bixby, and in my opinion, it's the best on the market today. Corn will be overpriced in the County however. More competitive down in the Newport area. The Bixby can burn pellets or other biomass pellets. It burns barley and switchgrass pellets, but you obviously don't see switchgrass around these parts. Not sure what Barley goes for a ton. I paid $175 a ton for corn last fall. A year ago it was $90 a ton. Thank the ethanol plants for that. But corn has more btu's per ton than pellets, and pellets were running $210 last fall, so it's corn that keeps me warm. I do suppliment that with wood however on cold nights. Only use the dynoburner when we go away for a weekend or something. I warn you however, corn burning is addictive!!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by cordoba11

Well i'll tell you why, i have talked to a few people that live in maine and they all said the same thing, they had all lived in connecticut or rhode island at one time but have been in maine now for at least 10 years. They said that northern maine doesn't have the selection of hard woods like we do here, they had all said that they actually took wood,[all used oak] from this area and trucked it up to thier houses when they were down this way Idon't know maybe they were all full of it. But i have been checking out pellet stoves and they seem to have some good features. But i still havn't decided. That's why i figured i would get some input from this forum first.

I can't imagine hauling hardwood in for anything but furniture making! There isn't the density of hardwood forests of the southern and coastal parts of the state but there's plenty of birch, poplar,cherry beech,maple and other hard and semi hard woods that make great firewood. Don't be afraid to throw a little hemlock in there too. It isn't oak but it burns hot and there's a ton of it around the North
Maine woods. Even alders make good firewood if they're big enough. You just have to find a lot with the type of trees you're looking for. Some of those big old beech trees will have a cord or more of wood in them. It doesn't take many trees at a cord a piece to fill the woodshed.
I've heard some good things about pellet stoves. I saw them demonstrated at the stove shop in Yarmouth last fall and I was impressed with how they're self stoking and almost self cleaning too. The ones I saw had to have an electrical supply for the loader and the blower though you could probably run one on a battery backup for a few hours if the power went out. I don't know anyone who owns one.

[cordoba11]

maineah, i'm really on the fence about it, i think the [maine] reason i like the pellet stove is for some reason they don't require that super expensive triple walled stainless pipe that is both ugly and much harder to install. I have a real nice regular wood/coal stove a friend gave me when he moved away a couple of summers ago, it's only been used one season. Another thing is i love to cut wood, love to haul it, and mostly love to enjoy it's heat after you are all beat up doing the first 2 things. I just can't justify buying that expensive pipe, all the pipes i have seen coming out of pellet stoves look more like dryer vent pipe then it does wood stove pipe. I want to find out how long they burn, years ago i had a vermont castings vigilant, that stove could not have worked any better. It was the best wood stove i had ever seen, on a full load of good hard dry oak it wood put out good heat for just about 12-14 hours. If they make a pellet stove that will go longer than that i will buy it.

[Submariner]

Pellet stoves?

I do not know. We have looked at them.

I manage 150 acres of woodlot.

Assuming that I only cut down dead or sick trees, and I drag out the logs just to clean-up the ground. While my goats eat the brush [only in my dreams can I focus their eating like that]. I can not burn enough wood in a winter to make any real dent in how much wood I have available to me.

I think that burning wood all winter, my woodlot is still generating more dead trees and blow-downs that I can consume.

And we burn a lot of peat. It is easy to harvest, just pitch-fork it up and into gunny-sack, kayak it back to the house and let it dry. It burns for a seriously long time. Btu wise peat is right in the middle between coal and hard wood.

We do not have a pellet stove. Just too darn much wood in every direction to bother with buying fuel.

Hey, does anybody want to cut up some fire-wood? Free for the taking? I do have just a few downed trees available.

[cordoba11]

forest keeper, that was my next question, if i can find a place where i can cut some wood cheaper than i can get it delivered that would make me lean toward using the stove i have now. I guess i will wait and see what others have to say about it.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by cordoba11

maineah, i'm really on the fence about it, i think the [maine] reason i like the pellet stove is for some reason they don't require that super expensive triple walled stainless pipe that is both ugly and much harder to install.

I have none of that stuff.

I do know what your talking about, I priced it.

To my understanding the expensive triple-walled and quadruple-expensive stove-pipe is needed anytime that a stove-pipe passes within three foot of burnable material.

I live in a steel building, so I have little burnable material. Unless you consider
'burnable' to be greater than 3500 degrees.

I have no triple walled stove pipe.

I have only used the cheap stove pipe.

I have about $150 tied up in our 200Btu woodstove, and $50 in our stove pipe.

But that sucker can throw out some heat!

I also have about $100 in tubing and fixtures that wrap around our stove to heat water for our radiant floors

[cordoba11]

Well i would be putting it in my house so i would have to use the stainless if i go with the regular wood/coal stove.