Pellet stove

[hunts_with_stick]

So the house/camp we are buying has a pellet stove. What are the pros and cons? Works perfect, I am told it needs to be cleaned regularly, what does that mean? What does that include?

It also has a a third building on it, cinderblock, that they used for butchering. It is dry, has/had electricity, it’s not huge, maybe 14x12? I can get dimensions when we close. But what can I use it for? It has a chimney for what looked like maybe a wood stove or water heater.

I don’t want to make it a cooler. There is a large 2 car garage already on the property. Not sure we really need the extra storage.

 

[Jerry-B-WI]

I was talked out of buying a pellet stove by a salesman and customer at a store that sells pellet stoves.

To clean it you have to shut it down let it cool and then clean it. That happens every two weeks.
You have to be careful of the pellets you use. If there's allot of fines in the pellets they may not feed out of the hopper.
If there's any foreign material in the pellets it can jam the auger and burn out the auger motor. No motor no workee.
At the time propane was the same cost as pellets. And I don't have to stack the propane inside.
With propane you can leave your cabin for up to a week or more and when you return it'll still be warm. Yoh have to fill the pellet hopper at least every couple days.
I have a programmable thermostat for my propane unit, I don't think you can do that with a pellet stove.
I don't need electricity to run my propane unit.

For me it was an easy choice.

 

[hunts_with_stick]

Thanks, it actually has both, a pellet stove and propane. It does have a thermostat for both as well. Not liking the cleaning part….sounds like I need to look at the cost of pellets. I wish he had put in a wood stove…

 

[keets]

I think I'd get rid of the pellet stove, I've had several friends that have had serious problems

 

[356]

I know several former pellet stove users in my area. I know of no former wood stove users in my area. Sell it.

Unless your place is huge, you might consider the old batching building for bunks. In my dream home I would have an outdoor toilet and shower. That would take some work, but you have electric already.

 

[fishin coyote]

I run a pellet stove as auxiliary heat as my home is all electric. I only run it when I’m home and never overnight. Cleaning is simple, every day before we light it we just vac out the ash and after every ton of pellets I give it a more thorough cleaning which takes about 20-30 minutes.
That being said I would never use one as a primary heating source unless I had to and the stoves are perfect examples of you get what you pay for.
I deal with heating emergencies for a low income program and almost every stove that we have had to deal with is a farm/box store unit.

 

[Barndog56]

Our small ranch home(1500 square feet) was originally Amish built. It was updated before we bought it, but only had electric baseboard heat. My wife was dead set against using those, and since our property isn't wooded, we went with a pellet stove. Going on 11 years with it and I've replaced the control board once.

I added a ductless mini split heater/AC 4 years ago. We use it as our primary, but then need the pellet stove once the outside temp gets below about 30.