# Looking for a propane stove



## smg64ct (Mar 7, 2014)

I'm currently heating with pellets and I'm thinking about switching to propane stove. I have a open layout stove would go on first floor. I want to heat downstairs area and the open loft above, which the pellet stove is able to maintain. I need to find a larger unit that puts out a lot of heat. Which brands should I be looking at? 

I had a rough year with this pellet stove and I'm tired of dealing with pellets and the dust. Just want something I can just set and forget it. Also, my house is well insulated and I have electric heat so I do need to have another source of heat.

Thanks for the help.


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## DAKSY (Mar 7, 2014)

Go to your local Hearth Shop & see what's offered in the same BTU range as your pellet burners.
I'm afraid you're not gonna find too much. The larger LP (or NG) burners are in the 40K BTU input range.
Your mt Vernon is about 25% higher than that...
If you can live with less heating capacity, LP may be the way to go, but LP pricing really started to climb high this 
past heating season & we all know that they'll NEVER let the prices come back to where they were...


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## danimal1968 (Mar 7, 2014)

DAKSY said:


> Go to your local Hearth Shop & see what's offered in the same BTU range as your pellet burners.
> I'm afraid you're not gonna find too much. The larger LP (or NG) burners are in the 40K BTU input range.
> Your mt Vernon is about 25% higher than that...
> If you can live with less heating capacity, LP may be the way to go, but LP pricing really started to climb high this
> past heating season & we all know that they'll NEVER let the prices come back to where they were...


 
To put that in perspective, a gallon of propane has 91.5k BTU in it.  That means that if you got one of the big gas stoves like a Regency U39 or a Lopi Greenfield, when you're running flat out your stove will be burning a gallon every 2.2875 hours.  So if you have to run the stove at full output 24/7, you're burning over 10 gallons of propane a day.  Even at $2 a gallon, that's $20 a day or $600 a month.  At $4 a gallon, you could be looking at $1,200 a month.

Now, maybe you won't be running full out 24/7.  You'd have to do some energy load calculations to figure that out, and maybe this winter is an anomaly and we'll go back to milder winters next year.  But the biggest gas stoves out there are around 40k BTU and are around 75 percent efficient.  That means you're getting maybe 28-30k BTU output.  Will that be enough?  If it is, does the convenience of gas justify the cost?  How does that compare to your pellet cost?  Look at that difference - and your reaction to that will tell you whether the convenience is worth it to you.

All I know is that when I read about the cost of propane, I am so thankful that we have NG.


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## smg64ct (Mar 7, 2014)

Thanks for the replies. Looks like I'll have to hang on to the pellet stove a little longer. All the stoves I see don't put out as much as the pellet stove and the propane stoves have less btu's


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