Wanted to “report” on the pellet stove now that I’ve had it running for awhile. For those who weren’t in on the beginning of the story — just before Christmas, Brian (a.k.a. Migraine) posted a used pellet stove for sale, practically in my back yard (well, a few hours drive, there and back). Got it installed (thanks, hubby) and running the week after Christmas, IIRC.
It has been wonderful. It runs all night and most days, using a thermostat. I set it at about 52° at night, but it seems to hover around 55° — probably because it’s only getting down in the low- to mid-40’s as our lows. The humidity, which will run at 70%+ without heat, stays around 40%. I crank it up to 60° when I’m working out there.
Cost? Well, if I use 24/7, it’s about 1 bag of pellets per day. Takes very little of that for the night-time heat. The cheapest we’ve found (but a name brand, Lignetics) run just a little over $3/bag. When the temps get up in the 50’s, I’ll turn it off on days there’s no work going on out there, that’ll help alot.
It does seem to take awhile to get the heat up, especially if the stove is cold. Partly, I think, because the chimney pipe itself never gets really hot, so there’s not the heat source there that existed with the old wood stove. Also, it took awhile to learn how best to set the controls for various temps and such. am getting much better at that and can get a vigorous fire going pretty quickly now.
Incredibly efficient — after 2 weeks, the ash bin in the bottom might have 3/4 cup of ashes in it!
forestgirl — you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of the girl 😉
Do unto others as you tell them they should do unto you….
Replies
I'm quessing that on a normal winter month you would be looking for a cost of $65 to $70 a month to heat your shop, assuming that you heat it on the weekends, otherwise it would be even cheaper. Does you stove draw it's conbustion air from your shop or an external source?
Ron
Hi Ron. The combustion air comes from outside (Brain gave us good instructions!). A ~2" PVC pipe run through the wall and turned 90° downward to keep the rain out. Occurred to me the other day, I should put a wire mesh over it to keep the critters out.
Weekends? Wha's that? (violin music here) I work every day except Monday. Still, though, Sat's and Sun's hold their charm -- "All Blues" on KPLU, sounds great in the shop....forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) Do unto others as you tell them they should do unto you....
A shop that sells high effeciency furnaces also handles those mesh ends that fits a 3" plastic pipe to keep the critters out. On the side - On a cold day ( about -10°) my kids, home alone, heard a noise in the wood stove. They opened the door and out flew a bird. It was badly burned and died the next day. I had no protective screen on the chimney.
Edited 1/31/2006 11:13 pm ET by tinkerer2
how did you vent the stove?
Hmmmm, not sure where I posted the pictures, but we already had a "chimney" for the old wood stove. We added a length of flexible stainless steel stove pipe to what Brian included with the stove, and used an adapter to make it fit the box at the ceiling. Weren't cheap, I'll tell ya. That stainless steel stuff is expennnnnnssssssive.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-) Do unto others as you tell them they should do unto you....
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled