Erm .. I’m thinking we may have more than usual of very practical type posts in the next few weeks as I get ready to move to my new home.
And yes, it’s looking more and more as if it will be my home. WhooHoo! The inspector came today, and what a pro. He poked and prodded the place for 3-1/2 hours, and while I probably won’t have his report until tomorrow, my friend Leslie (she who found the place) stayed with him the entire time and gave me updates by phone.
I think I’m starting to owe Leslie more lunches than I can count.
No big surprises on the inspection. Except a couple of very pleasant ones. The house has a real basement — with concrete floor, workbench, beaucoup shelving, and no evidence of chronic water problems. (Basements are unusual in the NorthWet; probably for many reasons, but not least because the always-high water table tends to drown them. I knew there was an accessible area under the house, but at best I supposed it would be a spider-ridden, dirt-floored storage cellar.)
And that big dormer room upstairs? The one I already extolled as gigantic (not to mention a wonderful artist’s garret)? There’s another room behind it I didn’t know about. An attic room. Unfinished. Doesn’t even have a proper floor. But — so Leslie tells me — huge. Good heavens. After 10 years of living in less than 400 square feet, currently much less, whatever am I going to do with so much space? Several of the single rooms in the new house appear to be larger than the entire dwellings I’m used to.
Ah well. That’ll be a nice “problem” to adjust to. (A friend who has a gigantic old house tells me I’ll automatically begin collecting more stuff than I ever knew existed. And I’ll never be able to bring myself to get rid of a stick of it.)
Anyway … all the negative news from the inspection was small, and pending the roofers’ estimates, it’s looking as if I’ll be headed north within two weeks!
But one of the little negatives — or is it? — is that the supposed wood stove in the living room turns out to be a pellet stove.
I have no experience with pellet stoves. I know they’re very efficient burners. That they burn inexpensive, recycled materials. That they produce very little ash or other waste. And that they’re pretty to watch. (I hear that when the pellets drop from the hopper it’s like viewing fireflies.)
But the reason I have no experience is that pellet stoves have always struck me as being useless as an alternative heat source because a) they require electricity to operate and b) they use a material that has to be manufactured and can get scarce. Even though the northwest is wood-products wonderland, I recall a time a few years back when none of the locals in my area could get pellets for a month or two — and that was without any S hitting any Fs.
So tell me, ye who are more experienced with these stoves, will a pellet stove be a good thing to have? And is there any good way to operate one if the power goes out (without running a generator, I mean)? Is it true that many of them can burn — or be jury-rigged to burn — wood chips, corn, or other materials? How about evergreen needles? (No shortage of those in the area …)
I should add that the house’s main heat source is baseboard electric, and that the northwest has historically had the lowest electric rates in the nation, thanks to abundant hydro. But as with all things government-connected, those super-low rates have been gradually rising.
So … what can you more experienced types tell me about that pellet stove? Your wise advice much appreciated.
I’ve never had a pellet stove, but I knew someone in Idaho who did — in the early days of pellet stoves — and swore by them.
Here are two links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellet_stove
http://www.hometips.com/buying-guides/pellet-stoves.html
And this link, which sells them, apparently uses a battery backup. http://www.pelletstove.com/
Thanks, Pat. I should add that I did do some online research on pellet stoves. But none of the articles I saw addressed the questions of potential materials shortages or using the stoves during power outages.
The idea of a battery backup is interesting. Has anybody out there used a backup system on their own pellet stove?
I can’t think of a feasible backup battery system that would give stove-power for days (or more) in event of an outage.
While pellet stoves certainly work — and can be a somewhat more frugal way of heating your home — it’s just about as bad an option to depend upon in a SHTF situation for heating your home as you can get. You might as well be running electric baseboard heaters. You’ve already said as much, though, so I think I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Now, if you had a wood stove AND a pellet stove (perhaps a wood burning cook stove in the kitchen?), I’d feel more comfortable.
SurvivalBlog has tons of articles referencing pellet stoves over the past several years that might be worth a look:
http://www.survivalblog.com/cgi-bin/mt43/mt-search.cgi?search=pellet+stove&IncludeBlogs=2&limit=20
One person there nailed my attitude about them, arguing that they’re not all that bad (after many readers were completely negative about them):
“Our pellet stove (upstairs) is good for those cool cloudy days in the spring and fall when firing up the wood stove in the basement will heat the house too much.”
A good adjunct, but not the whole solution.
High Claire,
We have a pellet stove, and we love it. But, it’s certainly not a permanent SHTF solution. When we lived in Oregon, we had a Lopi wood stove, and before that a Vermont Castings Defiant, so we have a fair amount of experience in both types.
The merits of pellets are that they’re very easy to reload the stove – you can pour an entire bag, or just use a scoop to fill the hopper. The stove is extremely efficient with it’s blower fan and heat exchanger. The ash cans are small and easily disposed of.
We’ve had at least one 24hr+ power outage here in NH each winter since we moved here in 2005. We’ve had to fire up a generator, and crank the pellet stove to full to turn the house into a sauna, then let it cool down gradually over the next 24 hours. This worked pretty well.
My brother, however, sprang for a batter hookup gizmo that kept his stove running for 3 days. It cost him about $250 or so.
One thing about pellets, it IS possible to get crappy pellets that will clog up your chimney. This happened to us a couple of years ago – when there was a shortage. And we had a mini-fire in our pipes. Sodium Bicarb fixed it, but it was exciting. To be fair, though, I should’ve been paying better attention. I noticed that the flame was not “looking right” a day before, but didn’t do anything. The flame flicker was because the exhaust blower was unable to evacuate the gasses properly.
Once you get used to how the flame looks, you’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if there’s an issue like that.
My brother swears by hardwood pellets. Most pellets are softwood. The problem pellets I had were softwood, and their defining characteristic is that they fall apart MUCH more easily as they burned. You’ll see many more “fireflies” and the ash bin will be blacker instead of ash gray.
I still have a few bags of those pellets, so I mix them in with better quality pellets to get rid of them. I also check my cleanout pipe once a week.
Also, the exhaust pipe / chimney requirement for a pellet stove are considerably easier to deal with. The exhaust temperatures are MUCH lower than a woodstove. A 4″ pipe is all that is necessary, usually, and it can be a straight pipe directly out an external wall, rather than an 8″ pipe going through a ceiling.
Compared to a woodstove, pellet stoves are a fraction of the work both in use, and in hauling and stacking. Great as long as there is power.
Long term SHTF? I’m not staying here, anyway, and am looking to score a Lopi, Quadrafire, or equivalent.
-Jolly
PS
Last winter, I bought an old used kerosene heater ( an Omni 15 ), and tested it in my basement, as there is no heater down here. That little 8,000 BTU heater kept the whole basement very comfortable, and sipped fuel very slowly.
I liked it so much, that I now have three kerosene heaters for emergency purposes ( one to loan out to an elderly neighbor ). Done right, they don’t have any odor, and are very efficient. Total cost for 65,000 BTU?
$100. ( craigslist )
i’d trade it on craigslist or sell it and use craigslist to find a decent older woodstove like a schrader
we picked up a beautiful wood cookstove from a house of ‘ill-reppute’ in Cripple Creek, CO several years ago and it both heats AND obviously cooks
that stove cost us about $500 delivered and has been a real godsend here in N’West MT living off the grid (biscuits baked in this rascal are awesome tasting if not all that great for the waistline!)
so, yes, i think your concerns about a pellet stove are justified … i am sure there will be those who disagree as the convenience and clean factor of pellet stoves are truly wonderful
but, like you i think, i always have a weather eye on ‘what if’ so any such appliance for us, and i suspect for you, must run independent of grid or self-generated power
let those of us in the “Northwest BWH” community know if you need help unloading, swinging hammers or could use any ‘stuff’ to fill your wonderful new home with (we’re trying to get rid of all our accumulated stuff from years of living in big houses and bigger barns)
godspeed Claire!
We replaced one of our two wood stoves with a pellet stove last year. The house is heated three ways: propane (dual furnaces), wood (old-but-great wood stove in the second living room), and now pellets.
After a full season of heating with pellets, we love it to death. Cleaner than the wood stove by far, cheaper to fuel than the propane furnaces, and hands-off…all you have to do is refill the pellet hopper once a day, and empty the ash box after every ton or so burned. The pellet stove has adjustable output, distributes hot air evenly, and looks much better in the living room.
The only drawback is the operating noise (both the blower and feed auger make noise), but you get used to the cyclical whirring from the auger, and the blower sounds just like that from any forced hot air system.
For cost factor, sheer convenience, and efficiency, you can’t beat the pellet stove, especially when combined with another heating source. We heated mostly with pellets last winter, and hardly used propane and wood at all. For this winter, we already have six tons of pellets stashed. The fuel stays shrink-wrapped and watertight on the pallet until it’s time to break into the ton, and it’s much easier to manage, keep dry, and haul piecemeal than cord wood.
Claire, I have not had one – did look into one at one time and decided against getting it due to the frequency of power outages in the Pac. Nor-Wet. I went for wood burning every time because they do not need power to heat—- just wood or other burnable material. I also had one wood burning stove with fans (The Buckley house) and I would not get that again as when I really needed the heat during a week or so power outage and freezing weather – I could only burn the stove on low because it would get too hot without the fans running.
I do not like base board heat either – tore it out of a couple houses I had and replaced with a heat pump set-up. Spendy at the beginning but long term it will always be my choice.
My plans when I get back up North is a wood burning stove that has a top I can use for heating food and water when I need to do so. Also looking at getting one of the old fashioned wood cook stoves as an extra for those times of no power. I have used them in my younger days and I would rather cook on those than a BBQ unit when the power is out.
The deciding factor for me is the frequency of the power outages.
Oh, one more drawback: it needs electricity to run, so it won’t do well in a power outage. We have wood as our electricity-independent backup fuel, but the pellet stove doesn’t need much juice (500W at peak load, but much less most of the time), and could be operated for quite a while on a healthy-sized battery backup.
Hi Claire. I doubt I can be much help because I have always lived in mild climate areas and never really had to worry about it. I have read quite a bit on pellet stoves as a heat source and most of what I read it very positive.
I always approached it from the side of setting a few acres aside to grow corn and use that at the source and avoid buying the pellets.
One thing you may consider, if you have the raw materials around, is making your own pellets:
http://www.pelletstovefires.com/making-wood-pellets.html
While reading, I ran across a bunch of places that offer equipment to make pellets. They can take up room and be pricing (I think it was about $2400 for the small diesel powered setup). You might find a group of other home owners in your area that also have pellet stoves and work out a deal. Splitting the cost across a few people and possibly finding one in the group that has the room and even material could solve your problems. Anyway, just a thought.
BTW, while not certainly not an expert, I’d guess that the evergreen needles would burn too hot and the oils in them could create all kinds of problems… kind of like trying to burn pine in an regular fireplace.
Congrats on the new home. I am sure everything will fall into place and work itself out. Things have a way of doing that 🙂
You need to be careful with all that room. My brother packed the garage with so much stuff, that he can’t get his car in there anymore. And he won’t part with as much as a stick of it too. : )
I think you should change out that pellet stove too. If you decide to get another stove, try to get one you can cook on, for JIC reasons.
Interesting topic. Perhaps the intriguing idea of making your own pellets may have a useful relationship with all your new space. 😉
Hi Claire,
Welcome back to the PNW.
Congratulations on your hew house. Sounds peachy keen!
I moved from a fifth wheel to a house in 1999, it was a good change.
Stuff has followed me in the door a couple things at a time and the place has just filled up. Beware, “stuff” multiplies when you are sleeping.
Pellet stoves are to be avoided. I have personal experience with my sister’s. The pellets are expensive when compared to the cost of just any old piece of wood.
My sister’s requires 110 power to even work since it has a fan that has to run before it will burn. Its really noisy too. Plus, she really doesn’t get much heat out off the thing. I’ll take my stupid old wood burner any day, plus, I can heat water on it’s little flat top!
Good luck in sorting out your new home!
We heat with a pellet stove (fireplace insert, actually) in Wyoming. It works very well. Our alternative is electric resistance heating, which is very expensive. When the pellet stove runs, it only draws 500W of power. Most of that is for the air blower (combustion air for the stove, and house air for heating). The auger (that meters the pellets) only runs occasionally and doesn’t draw much. Our model is an old Earthstove that delivers 60,000 BTU/hr and can heat the whole house. It costs half of what the electric heat does.
My house back in the US (I live overseas currently) has three pellet stoves. Pleasant, warm heat. Beautiful indeed to watch burn–very cozy. Pellets aren’t too expensive when bought early, but you do have to store pallets of pellets that are at least 4x4x4. And plural is correct! In the northeast, we need 4-6 depending on the winter.
BUT, I am thinking to remove the biggest one in our basement and put in wood, or perhaps a supplemental woodstove. Pellet stoves are so much cold iron when the power is out. Period.
My recommendation would be to see about a wood furnace or, if your airflow allows, a centralized wood stove somewhere that could heat at least the critical parts of the house when you lose power. Note that chimney requirements are vastly different between wood and pellet stoves, so you can’t do a last minute substitute when SHTF. The wood stove needs to be in place ahead of time.
Good luck in your new place!
I should also add that pellet stoves are wonderfully clean! Having heated with wood in the past, and probably in the future, I would definitely prefer the clean relatively compact storage of pellets. I also do NOT miss smoke in the house and eyes, cleaning out the ashes daily, hauling wood in, splitting/cutting logs, etc., etc., etc.
I’ve never used a pellet stove, so take this as brainstorming rather than expertise, but, could the blower be modified to use a sterling or other type of temperature-differential engine? And could the auger have a hand-crank added as a backup? With those two modifications it could run without electricity, although perhaps not as “mindlessly” as it would otherwise.
If you have or can get a pellet-using stove very cheaply, they put out lots of heat, conveniently. They need a source of electricity for the fan and pellet feed screw, but this can be a deep cycle battery, charge controller and a few panels in the sun, or a periodic run of a generator to charge the battery (assuming the grid stays down for several days).
If you have some time, look at Rocket Stoves or other high-mass heaters. In the PNW, the need is not for massive BTU’ s to fight super-cold, but more a need to have steady warmth to drive off moisture that feeds mold and rot. Mass heaters do that with a short small hot fire that uses a fraction of tending-time and a fraction of fuel consumption with low emissions, when compared to sealed stoves that smolder for longer burns.
In the early 1990’s, my parents had a house in North Seattle that was built around a Grubka, a high-mass masonry wood burning stove with lots of horizontal flue run through the mass. The design is a response to shortages of heating wood in Northern Europe. It was a 2700+ square foot conventional 1960’s stick-built house with forced-air oil heat (never used) and a massive fireplace between the kitchen/living/office main-floor rooms. One burn of about 15 pounds of 2×4 mill ends every 12 hours in the firebox (not the decorative open fireplace) kept the house toasty.
The man who built the house was a Seattle firefighter who was very concerned about wiring fires and used 12 ga romex to each circuit. He was also thrifty with building by re-using salvaged single-pane windows to make double-thick insulated window systems throughout the house.
Cheers.
They make battery backup systems to run sump pumps in basements. Pumps draw relatively high amps, so I’d bet one of these could run a stove for days.
I second not burning pine needles. Sounds like a formula for a chimney fire.
We’ve had both a pellet stove and a wood stove at the same time inthe same house. The wood stove was an insert on the main floor and the pellet stove was in a day light basement. Our pellet stove was thermostatically controlled. When the thermostat called for heat, the auger would drop a few pellets in the fire bowl. Then an electric ignitor would heat them until the fire started. Not sure how much power that ignitor used but it for a short time it had to be quite a bit. You do have to shut the unit down every once in a while to give it a good cleaning. We bought a year supply of pellets at a time. If you have the funds, that’s a good way to mitigate any pellet shortages at an inconvenient time of year.
I preferred the wood stove even though it required more cleaning (mostly ash removal). I like cutting and splitting wood. At the time we were using these two stoves, I got all of my fire wood for free (plus my own labor to haul it, etc).
The answer? It depends! 🙂