About Wood Pellet Stoves

Function

• A wood pellet stove can be used to heat a single room, an entire floor, or even your whole house, and some models can be hooked up to your house's vent system to make heating more efficient. Wood pellets, constructed of sawmill shavings and agricultural waste, provide an intense, long-lasting heat, and heating with wood pellets is often cheaper than heating with firewood, natural gas or oil.

Types

• Wood pellet stoves come in two basic model: freestanding and fireplace inserts. If your home already has a working fireplace, you can buy an insert stove to burn wood pellets. With an insert stove, you will need to clean out ash build-up regularly and get the chimney swept every year. A freestanding stove can be cleaner and more convenient, but requires electricity to run.

Geography

• As wood pellets stoves gain in popularity, the availability of wood pellets may become more scarce. Before purchasing a stove, find out where your nearest pellet manufacturers are and ask about their supply and demand track record. Ask your local dealer how the price of pellets will be affected if they need to import pellets from farther away. The average home uses three tons of wood pellets in a heating season, and the cost of transporting that may be significant.

Considerations

• Freestanding wood stoves require a source of electricity (some stoves have battery back-ups). If you live somewhere with frequent power outages, you will want to have a back-up generator on hand. Also, you must remember to factor in the cost of electricity when deciding if a wood pellet stove is right for you. You will also need storage space for the pellets (deliveries are often made one ton at a time). Pellet stoves are more complicated than conventional wood stoves, and often require a professional to service.

Benefits

• Wood pellets are highly compressed and contain practically no moisture, which means that they burn very hot and produce a more efficient heat than regular wood. Burning wood pellets also produces less ash and creosote than burning wood. And since they reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and are made from materials that might otherwise end up in the landfill, wood pellets are an ecologically sound choice.