Archive for the ‘Selecting’ Category

Why should you choose a pellet wood stove

Pellet stoves are a technology that is good for you and your family, as well as being an environmentally conscious way to heat your home. Most pellet stoves come with a battery back up, enabling them to continue to provide your family with clean, efficient heat, even during a power failure. Manufactured from recycled waste wood, pellet fuel is lower in cost than any other source of fuel for home heating.

They provide you with heat, as well as with that extra something that people seem to get from a crackling fire. The comfort and warm, radiant glow of a wood fire, combined with the efficient heat, make pellet stoves the obvious choice for home heating. Wood burning stoves and fireplaces manufactured before 1988 are very hard on the environment. Not as efficient as they should be, these stoves send non-combusted materials and particulate matter such as soot high into the atmosphere where it contributes to unhealthy air quality in many cities around the country. Stoves of this period are also seriously ineffective at heating homes.

They consume far more wood than is made up for by heat produced. Add to this the time and cost involved in purchasing, chopping, splitting and stacking wood, and it shows that wood burning stoves are not an ideal solution to your home heating concerns. Pellet stoves give you the look, feel, and ambiance of a wood fire roaring in the hearth without all of the pollution associated with wood stoves. Introduced more than a decade ago by Whitfield Stoves/Pyro Industries, pellet stoves are the ideal solution to your heating needs. Far more technologically advanced than standard wood stoves, pellet stoves look like regular wood burning stoves on the outside, but on the inside they are serious combustion appliances designed to provide the user with clean and efficient heat.

The fuel for pellet stoves is made from recycled sawdust, wood shavings, and even walnut and peanut shells that is compressed and dried to the optimum moisture level. Similar in appearance to rabbit feed, pellet fuel is available in convenient 40-pound bags. Pellets are a much better heat source for your home than firewood. Pellets take scrap materials that would ordinarily be discarded and put them to great use providing you with clean heat for your home.

Compressed until they reach a moisture content level of less than 8%, compared to the 20 to 30% moisture content of cordwood, pellet fuel produces much more heat than traditional firewood. If you experience high heating costs due to fluctuating energy prices, a pellet stove may be the solution for you. You can even install a pellet stove in your home as a second source of heat to help you lessen your heating bills. Compared to other sources of fuel for home heating, pellet stove fuel is incredibly affordable. You can purchase a years supply of pellet fuel at one time, so you will know exactly how much you are going to spend on heating your home for a year.

Wood pellet stove advantages

Wood pellet stove technology has many advantages over traditional methods of home heating. For one thing, the pellets are derived from wood scraps from other industries, such as furniture making and saw mills. Sawdust, which can be from either hard or softwood is dried to the optimum moisture level and then taken to a pellet mill, and under pressure, transformed into pellets for either kitty litter, or for fuel for pellet stoves. This is a great way to make efficient use of all of our limited resources, especially lumber. Relatively clean burning, the use of pellet stoves is a environmentally conscious way to heat your home. Wood pellet stove technology is fairly new, but with advances in the technology, we find that there are now over 60 manufacturers of pellet stoves in Europe.

Originally developed by modifying the design of wood chip boilers, pellet stoves are now so common in Austria, Denmark, and Sweden, that these countries are the leading consumers of wood fuel pellets. With a cost that is less than heating oil, it is possible to run central heating system on pellet stoves, and the installation cost of these systems is lower than that found with any other form of heating. Biomass, such as wood pellets can actually go a long way in helping us to reduce our emissions of green house gasses. While biomass fuels, like wood pellets actually produce about the same amount of carbon dioxide as fossil fuels, biomass is renewable, with the growth of new trees actually removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

As long as plants and trees are continually grown, the net emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from pellet stoves will be zero. Crops, such as fast growing trees and grasses for use in pellet stoves are called biomass feed stocks, and the use of these can help increase profits for the agricultural industries. Pellet stoves are simpler and cleaner to use than wood stoves and fireplaces, and also provide heat at a much higher level of heating efficiency and more thorough level of combustion.

The technology of pellet stoves is such that they are the cleanest solid fuel heating appliances available for your home. Pellet stoves are exempt from the EPA’s smoke-emission testing because of the fact that they have combustion efficiencies of between 78 and 85%. Producing between 8,000 and 90,000 BTUs per hour, depending on the size of the appliance, pellet stoves are ideal for home, apartment, and condominium use.

About styles and features

Pellet stoves are available in many different styles, and with different options to suit your specific needs. Most pellet stoves come with one of three different ignition systems. The standard way to ignite a pellet stove is by using a special starter gel and a match.

They are also available with a self-starting ignition system, which means that the stove is lit by push button, or even by remote control. There are even fully automatic pellet stoves that are controlled by a thermostat and will shut off and turn on automatically, depending on your heating needs.

They are available with a wide array of options, depending on your specific wants and needs. Some stove models offer self-cleaning combustion areas and glass, and deep ash pans that lessen the number of times you need to empty the ash from your stove. Some models feature battery systems to keep your stove running even in the event of a power outage. Pellet stoves are as attractive as they are efficient, with full bay doors that are often trimmed in gold or black. Often, pellet stoves are available with either a cast iron or porcelain finish.

About types and sizes

Pellet stoves generally fall into one of two categories, high or low. This classification refers to the amount of heat that is produced when the stove is in operation.

Size of pellet stoves
The actual size of a pellet stove is secondary to the heat output of the stove, as well as the capacity of the stove’s fuel hopper.

A smaller size stove is able to produce enough heat to keep a large space comfortable, but the hopper may be unable to hold more than a day’s worth of fuel.

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How to select a pellet stove

As with any major appliance purchase, it is important for you to do the research before hand, so you know exactly what you need and want in a pellet stove. A good place to start your research is at a retailer that specializes in pellet stoves. Most pellet stove retailers are experts when it comes to helping the customer choose just the right stove for their needs.

Many retailers can have your stove installed by a certified installation technician, and also give you information on purchasing the pellet fuel in your area. Specialty shops that focus on selling pellet stoves are also an excellent resource on correctly and efficiently operating your pellet stove, as well information on maintenance and upkeep.

Choosing and Buying in The Summer

Pellet stoves are categorized based on the amount of heat output they have, being either high, or low. The size of a pellet stove is not as important as the heat producing ability of the stove. Size basically determines the size of the storage area for pellets.

A small stove may produce enough heat to heat a home, but will only be able to contain a day’s worth of pellets. Compared to many other types of stoves, pellet stoves require much less installation clearance, and may be installed as close as three inches to a wall. A pellet stove does need to be installed a certain distance away from combustibles such as drapes and doors, and it is advisable to install the pellet stove on a hearth pad.