One day. Had Expansion valve replaced last year. Only let 50% thru. Wondered why this house AC could not keep up. Now it freezes you out in Summertime with AC on. Wife complains about it. Can't win for losing. Next year place is paid for. Will replace until then. No more House Payments will be nice!
Are pellet stoves worth it?
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minux
Member
I am with you. The beauty of the mini-splits are their efficiency, but the real gain is no more ducts. If you have a house where the ducts are in the basement, rip them out! No need for them anymore.
Mini-splits do not have "dusty" ducts. It is all pneumatic from the central unit to heads.
If I ever did new construction, 110%, mini-splits everywhere.
Every head is its own zone. You put ten in, you have ten-zone heating and cooling.
For many installers, they do not like them, because they are THAT much different.
My relatives have 0 issues after five years of fluctuating temperatures. My heat pump has the technician out every year....
minux
Member
Oh, yeah, stoves and furnaces work a lot harder, too, when you are raising a place from 30 to 70 (or -15 to 70).
Mini-splits are great in the right situation, but that is visually an ugly concept. I wouldn't consider building new where every room with a large wall wart and tons of piping on the outside of the house to tie them to a bank of compressor units.
Fortunately, there are good heat pumps on the market. Our American Standard central heat pump system was installed in 2006 and has had no service issues except filter replacements which I do myself. It's a well-balanced system without draft or uneven heating. Even more interesting is that now there are several high-end inverter units that will heat down to zero degrees which have a central air handler. When our system is at end of life this is what will replace it. Our current system switches to resistance heat when the temp is below 25º, but we heat with wood when it is that cold.
The best of the new generation heat pumps can still put out good heat below 30º. I have been in an old farmhouse heated with a couple of mini-splits, when it was 14º outside and it was toasty warm inside. It's remarkable how efficient these new units have become.
minux
Member
Mini-splits do not need giant heads anymore. In fact, a lot off folks are using the ceiling mount ones, looking like a bathroom vent fan -
I'd rather have a ceiling cassette then four or five floor registers any day. No more concern about placing your furniture, anywhere...
You think a stove in your family room with a pipe to the outside is aesthetically pleasing? Or, an insert shoved in a fireplace?
For outside pipe, be smart how you run the lines and no one will know will be any wiser. In fact, I'd rather have another 2' tall ceiling in every room.
We run mini-splits in sub zero temperatures and the bill is the same as always.
I'm amazed some people here aren't aware or don't know much about split systems. I'm in Tasmania, Australia and split systems here are everywhere. Again, they are great and efficient. Not as cheap as wood but no hassle. However, a lot of people here refuse to use them or only use them in mild weather because the heat is completely different. Yes, wood and pellet heaters all work harder the colder it gets but it's the type of heat which people prefer here. Pellet prices here are about $8 USD a bag, approx 2.5 times more costly than wood. So they are not worth it here from a $ point of view. Heat pumps aren't worth it from a $ point if view either as they cost about 1.5 more to run than wood heaters. Every type of heat has oros and cons. However, mist efficient, best value and least hassle definitely heat pumps.
minux
Member
The situation rests on bias alone. For years, people were told how expensive electricity was and how they need a stove or furnace. They may have invested in a stove or furnace years ago and "damn anyone to tell me different now!"
Very similar to the one year when we got crushed on heating oil. A lot of folks rushed out and ripped their furnaces and tanks out (and their tanks were paid for moons ago) out. Guess what, this year, they can barely give the amber sludge away... Guess Americans forgot about the early-1900s and Beverley Hillbillies...
In MAR when OIL crashed, heating oil did, too. My friend had the local company come and fill his empty tank up. His cost? The cost of the truck for one hour... Ain't that cheap no more, but pretty darn close.
What do we really know? Individual realities with mob mentalities LMAO
Just depends so much on your situation. There is no one fix. I burn with corn and how the house is set up (drafty old farm house) corn would have to be about 7 dollars a bushel for our electric heat to get close to even. We are paying just under 7 cents kwh. Now a new furnace might make a difference, but not that much of one. There is so many factors out there, where will electricity prices be in the future? Corn or pellet prices next year? How cold does your location get? What do you have to back up power source? Big generator or small?
Your budget makes a big difference as well. There is cheaper options out there for Corn/pellets stoves. Just don't go bottom of the barrel for the price.
Your budget makes a big difference as well. There is cheaper options out there for Corn/pellets stoves. Just don't go bottom of the barrel for the price.
minux
Member
What are you paying per bushel of corn? About $2.50 per bushel? Your electricity is about double my area. Through 31MAR2021, my area rate is 4.819¢ per kWh, then drops to 4.7¢-some afterwards.
Electricity should continue to drop with more renewable energies introduced. This is what is happening with gasoline right now. They want to ***always*** supply you.
Burning corn, you have sunk costs, too (so do I). At the time, when a ton of pellets was $180, my stove was the top of the line @ $6K installed. This is a ton of electricity. When the owner who bought the stove did the net positive curve, the assumption was electricity will always increase. The world learned a lesson. If you are using corn to heat your whole home, I betcha you are using multiple stoves, right? Or, you are burning out of Room A to make Room B more comfortable?
Assuming you have about a 3k sq. ft. home, you and I could head up to HD tomorrow, spend $10K, get a bank of solar panels; turn around and head to AAP, get a battery array for another $1K; and you'd never have to haul pellets again in your life. Pretty-darn temping, no?
Ya don't want to go mini-split? Fine, we'll just run your pump in emergency heat mode 24/7 off solar.
Why mini-splits are such a game changer, you loose about 1/2 of your heat in your ducts. This is simple to measure: read your manual, find your emergency heat output temperature, go to any one of your ducts, and see the difference. You have none of this loss with a mini-split. The technology ***is*** better, but the huge difference is pneumatic lines to the heat sources. This is what our aging power system is learning, maybe flimsy copper wire is not the best to send electricity hundreds of miles down range, huh?
Electricity should continue to drop with more renewable energies introduced. This is what is happening with gasoline right now. They want to ***always*** supply you.
Burning corn, you have sunk costs, too (so do I). At the time, when a ton of pellets was $180, my stove was the top of the line @ $6K installed. This is a ton of electricity. When the owner who bought the stove did the net positive curve, the assumption was electricity will always increase. The world learned a lesson. If you are using corn to heat your whole home, I betcha you are using multiple stoves, right? Or, you are burning out of Room A to make Room B more comfortable?
Assuming you have about a 3k sq. ft. home, you and I could head up to HD tomorrow, spend $10K, get a bank of solar panels; turn around and head to AAP, get a battery array for another $1K; and you'd never have to haul pellets again in your life. Pretty-darn temping, no?
Ya don't want to go mini-split? Fine, we'll just run your pump in emergency heat mode 24/7 off solar.
Why mini-splits are such a game changer, you loose about 1/2 of your heat in your ducts. This is simple to measure: read your manual, find your emergency heat output temperature, go to any one of your ducts, and see the difference. You have none of this loss with a mini-split. The technology ***is*** better, but the huge difference is pneumatic lines to the heat sources. This is what our aging power system is learning, maybe flimsy copper wire is not the best to send electricity hundreds of miles down range, huh?
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I look at your posts and can see why you don't know what kind of heating to use
In Ontario Canada as of November first Hydro rates are
off-peak 7 pm to 7 am 10.5 cents per KW
mid-peak times vary 14 .7 cents per KW
Peak hours 21.7 cents per KW
then add in taxes a delivery fee and a value-added charge
That is why I spend most of my time in the dark or just wondering
where this old man is going to get the money to pay his bill
In Ontario Canada as of November first Hydro rates are
off-peak 7 pm to 7 am 10.5 cents per KW
mid-peak times vary 14 .7 cents per KW
Peak hours 21.7 cents per KW
then add in taxes a delivery fee and a value-added charge
That is why I spend most of my time in the dark or just wondering
where this old man is going to get the money to pay his bill
This year paid $3.60 a bushel. Only have one stove, it is a 1400 square foot house. Burn about 200 bushels a year. I have very little sunk cost. Purchased a used St Croix Auburn stove for $200 and a Hopper wagon for 500. So far replaced both fans on the stove and infrastructure to move the corn into the house, another 500. So a total of 1200 to 1500 total spent. Had it for 4 years and purring right along. Not really expecting cheaper rates for electricity here in the plains of Nebraska. Much of the cost of electricity goes into keeping many thousands of miles of power lines up.
Dont switch to pellets. That message seems consistent. Other options as you get older include propane stoves that use your wood chimney or some electric powered heater.
Don’t forget that you can split the difference and run just one woodstove and use some other easy heat source to make up the difference. Two stoves is a lot of work.
But really, the complaint I see is that you are growing tired of getting the wood. First thing I would do is get a price for delivered firewood. Just buy it. Heck, pay some neighborhood kid to stack it if you must. Wood heat is so cheap that it is still a great value. Next step is buying pallets of compressed wood. You live very close to the North Idaho Energy Log factory. They make wood pellets the size of firewood. No mess, delivered to your shop, same existing woodstove.
Just buy your wood. Nobody should complain about scrounging, splitting, sawing, etc. those are just hobbies to make wood heat even cheaper.
I would like to address the noise. I have a brand new Harman it is our 3rd stove in 16 years the first one is still running well the one we just replaced with the harman lasted 15 year with minimal maintenance. SO the noise..... The Englander was loud. My other stove is quiet but I do notice we raise the volume of the TV when its running The new stove is SO VERY QUIET I cant tell if its even running unless I go into the room and look at it. I often find it running when I think it has gone out. So I think you get what you pay for when it comes to the volume on the blower. As for switching from wood to pellet. BEST DECISION we ever made. We have all electric heat in our home and We had a chimney fire. 2 moths with no chimney our electric bill was aver $800 a month! so I would say totally worth it!
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