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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Pellet stoves were invented in the 1980s and have recently gained much popularity. These are electric stoves that use small pellets of recycled sawdust as their source of fuel. There are many advantages of using pellet stoves. Here is a short list:

1.    Pellet stoves are relatively safer for families with children compared to traditional wood stoves. They use convective heat so the outlet at the back or top of a unit stays cool to the touch. This also means that a masonry chimney is not necessary. If you have one, however, you can use it. If not, you can just install your pellet stove anywhere as long as a metal flue or liner can be placed out of the roof or through the wall.

2.    Pellet stoves pose a lower risk of damaging their surrounding environments and furniture compared to traditional wood stoves. They don’t require a big installation space like what you need with other types of stoves. Furthermore, they only need as little as a three-inch space from combustible surfaces, depending on the model that you have.

3.    Pellet stoves may be horizontally vented through walls or anywhere in your home. Since these stoves are power vented, they can be placed almost anywhere, be it through a wall, into a free masonry chimney, or through the ceiling. The only requirement is that the vertical chimney should be at least three feet.

4.    Pellet stoves are very convenient to use and maintain. Unlike in a traditional wood stove wherein you have to chop wood every now and then to feed to it, pellet stoves don’t require their pellets to be prepared in any way. Thus, by using a pellet stove, you’re making the process of heating up your homes less of a hassle.

5.    Pellet stoves use pellets as their primary source of fuel. These pellets can be made out of recycled materials, wood, peanut shells, corn, sawdust, and other sustainable and renewable materials. By recycling these materials, they are saved from being dumped in landfills to be left for no other use or from being incinerated in the burners of wood and sawmills. Furthermore, pellets are manufactured without the use of harmful chemicals. The raw materials are merely compressed at very high temperatures and no glue or any other type of chemicals binds them together.

6.    Pellet stoves burn fuel more efficiently compared to wood stoves. Most of the pellet stoves out in the market are rated with a high burning efficiency of 85 to 90 percent, making them more efficient than bigger and more expensive heaters. Because of their ability to manage the fuel-to-air ratio, an almost full combustion of the pellets happens. The pellets are burned in such a way that all of the heat in them is extracted. Furthermore, pellet stoves can release heat farther than it would normally go since they have negative pressure processes that further propel the warmed air outward.

7.    Pellet stoves produce fewer residues since the pellets are consumed at a steady rate. On the average, a 40-pound pack of pellets create less than one cup of ashes. This makes the cleaning process easier since you can go without emptying the ashes for several months.

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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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