Intoduction to Wood Pellet Stoves

Warm, cozy homes are becoming more difficult to manage and maintain during the cold months with the continued rise of the prices of oil, natural gas, and electricity. But don’t fret. There is another option: pellet stoves.

How Do Pellet Stoves Work?

Pellet stoves are hearth products that make use of electrically-controlled blowers, combustion systems, and heat exchangers. In layman’s terms, this means that pellet stoves burn fuel slowly, release as much energy as they can from the pellets, and draw in cool air and release it out as hot air.

To use a pellet stove, pour the pellets into a holding area, which is called the hopper. If the hopper is very big, enough fuel that can burn for several days can be accommodated. Most pellet stoves can produce heat for one to two days on just one loading of pellets.

Within the stove is an auger, which is an automated feeding system. It controls the pace at which the pellets are fed to the fire. For instance, if the rate is one pound an hour, a slow fire is generated, thus heating the room for a long time. If the rate is higher, say, four to five pounds per hour, the fire will be bigger so the room will be warmer.

Some pellet stoves are self-lit, while some are needed to be manually lit. Regardless of the method of how it is lit, the heat exchanger is heated to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. The cool air from the room is warmed as it is passed through heat exchanger. The blower then releases back the warm air into the room.

Cost-efficiency of Pellet Stoves

Pellet stoves are the perfect heating alternative for people that have expensive home heating bills because of the fluctuation in energy prices. In fact, more and more people are installing them in their homes as a secondary heat source in order to help reduce their heating expenses.

The main reason behind this huge savings is the fuel that is being used. Pellet stoves burn cheap pellets that are produced from recycled sawdust. Because of the efficiency of the production process and the low price of the materials used, pellets are very economical. Moreover, pellet stoves are extremely efficient at generating heat. They may look like traditional wood stoves but they are engineered to burn the pellets in such a way that they squeeze all of the heat of it, thus warming your homes at a less expensive cost.

Thanks to their feature that helps manage the fuel-to-air ratio, an almost full combustion of the pellets is guaranteed. That same feature also helps minimize wood smoke, making them the solid-fuel burning heating products with the least emission. This is very important especially in places where the quality of winter air is an issue.

Once you have tried using a pellet stove, you would most probably refuse to go back to using the traditional wood stove. Because they’re economical, environment-friendly, and automated, they provide a convenient way of warming your home.

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More and more people are looking for better ways to keep their homes warm and cozy during the cold season. Some are still using traditional wood stoves, while others have resorted to using pellet stoves. The pellets used as fuel for these stoves come with a cheap price tag because of the low cost of the raw materials used in making them and the low cost of the manufacturing process. Thus, it does not cost that much to operate pellet stoves. But cost-efficiency is only one feature of pellet stoves that many people have come to love. Pellet stoves are also environment-friendly hearth products.

Nowadays, caring for Mother Nature through using green product alternatives is among the big issues that are being advocated by environmentalists. As such, an increased awareness in how we could go about protecting the environment has prompted a lot of people to evaluate the commercial products that they are using and switch to those that are safer for the earth. Pellet stoves are one of those environment-friendly products. Here are some of their green features:

1.    The wood pellets used to fuel pellet stoves are produced from recycled sawdust. This sawdust would otherwise have been dumped in landfills, thus creating more waste that has no other use. It could also have been incinerated in the waste burners of sawmills. Wood is a natural renewable resource. By utilizing wood pellets as your fuel source, in a way you are helping recycling the waste or by-products of forestry activities.

2.    Pellet stoves are a clean-burning home heating product. As opposed to wood stoves that produce a substantial amount of soot and ash even just after a use, pellet stoves can burn for several days at a time and still not create as much residual ash as what wood stoves make in one day.

3.    Pellet stoves are very easy to clean. They have ash pans that need to be removed and cleaned every few weeks. Moreover, you don’t have to sweep huge piles of ash and bark scraps.

4.    Pellet stoves have an auger that delivers the pellets into the combustible chamber on a consistent and regular basis. This means that your source of heat is steady and consistent for up to three days before you must refill the hopper, which is the holding area of the pellets. Pellet stoves are not like wood stoves that you have to feed chopped wood every few hours with no guaranteed steadiness of the heat, having volatile hot and cold heating cycles.

5.    Pellet stoves are efficient home heating products. An average pellet stove has a burning efficiency rating higher than 85%. Because of a pellet stove’s state-of-the-art technology, the fuel-to-air ratio is controlled so a full combustion of its fuel source is guaranteed. It is designed to burn the wood pellets in such a way that it would squeeze all of the heat that it possibly can out of those pellets.

6.    Pellet stoves produce minimal wood smoke emissions. A lot of the pellet stoves out in the market nowadays have no problems in meeting strict air quality standards, both local and federal.

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Pellet stoves can be a cost-effective and fuel-efficient way to heat any room. However, before you invest in one, you must carefully consider a few factors. Here are a couple of buying considerations for pellet stoves:

Average Cost

The price of a pellet stove ranges anywhere from $1,700 to $3,300. Its installation may cost from $350 to $550. Aside from the price of the stove itself and the installation cost, there are other costs to consider, such as delivery, hearth pad, vent or chimney, fuel supply, and maintenance. When it comes to installation, always bear in mind that unlike ordinary wood stoves that need expensive conventional flues or chimney, pellet stoves only require a vent pipe that can go through the ceiling or wall.

Type

There are two major categories of pellet stoves: high output and low output. This classification is based on the amount of heat that the stove is able to generate, which is known as their efficiency or heat output range. In general, pellet stoves have an efficiency of 75 to 90% and a heat output range of 40,000 BTU or higher. These figures vary from model to model. In deciding what model to purchase based on the type and capacity, take into consideration other factors, such as the following:

1.    Size and layout of the house
2.    Features of the house that would affect heating
3.    Intended purpose of the pellet stove
4.    Desired temperature range

Physical Size

The physical size of the pellet stove is one of the most thought-of aspects when considering where to position the stove in your house. Note, however, that the physical size is not as important as size of the stove in terms of its fuel hopper and heat-generating capacity. A smaller stove can keep a large room warm, but it might not last for more than a day because of the small amount of pellets it can accommodate.

Fuel Requirement

Pellets may be made from wood, sawdust, corn, and peanut shells among other recyclable materials. When it comes to the fuel source, take note that the type of stove that you should choose as well as the cost-efficiency of heating your home largely depend on the availability of the different types of pellets in your area and their cost. In some areas, the pellets are generally more expensive. For instance, in New York, a standard bag of pellets usually goes for $4.50 to $8 and can be consumed within 12 hours even when burned at a low setting. Aside from the type of material, pellets are also categorized based on their grade: premium and standard. What separates the two is their inorganic ash content. Using premium-grade pellets translates to less cleaning and maintenance but, of course, a higher annual fuel cost.

Location

Compared to other stove types, pellet stoves require less space to be installed. Depending on the model, they can be placed as little as three to four inches from a wall. Pellet stoves must be positioned a certain distance away from materials and surfaces that are combustible, such as curtains and doors. They must also be placed on a non-combustible material like a hearth pad.

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People are looking for economical ways to heat up their homes during the cold months. Because of increasing energy prices, traditional wood stoves have become very hard to maintain. As such, more and more people have discovered that using pellet stoves is cheaper and practical. This is mainly attributed to their high efficiency in burning fuel and in heating our homes.

Pellet stoves are fueled by pellets that are made up of tightly compressed renewable materials, such as sawdust, wood, corn, and peanut shells. They are composed of complicated machinery that feeds more pellets into the fire as needed in order to maintain the desired temperature range. What the user only needs to do is to load the pellets into the holding area called the hopper, and the automated feeding device called the auger moves them to the fire when more fuel is needed to be burnt.

In terms of labor, pellet stoves are efficient in that they don’t require much effort to be maintained. The pellet stove can provide heat intermittently for one to three days or even more, depending on the size of the hopper and temperature range selected. It is not much of hassle to maintain since unlike in a traditional wood stove, you don’t have to keep on feeding wood to it in order to maintain the heat and cold cycle and keep it burning. Furthermore, pellet stoves don’t produce a substantial amount of residue unlike wood stoves. A 40-pound bag of pellets creates only less than one cup of ashes. This makes the whole cleaning process a lot easier since you can manage without emptying the ash pan for several months.

The next efficiency is in the fuel itself. As mentioned above, pellets are made from byproducts of forestry activities that otherwise would not have had any other use. Instead of dumping them in landfills or incinerating them in the wood burners of wood processing facilities, they are recycled into something useful. These renewable materials are then compressed at high temperatures without the use of chemicals like glue. Thus pellets are inexpensive since they are made of low-priced materials plus their production process is not costly. Furthermore, these pellets store really easily. They usually come in packs of 40 pounds and they take up less storage space than wood that can churn out the same energy output.

Aside from labor, price, and storage, the main efficiency of pellet stoves lies in its ability to control the right amount of air and fuel in order to keep the fire and heat steady. Through convection heat produced by the heat exchanger of pellet stoves, the temperature is kept stable. Because of this state-of-the-art technology, the fuel-to-air ratio is maintained so an almost complete combustion of the fuel is promised. Almost all of the heat is extracted out of the pellets. Thus, the pellet stoves out in the market have an efficiency of 75 to 90 percent (most are in the mid-80s) and a heat output range of about 40,000 BTU or higher. Moreover, the heat produced is released farther than it would normally go because of the negative pressure system of pellet stoves that forcibly propels the hot air produced.

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