Home heating oil at $4 a gallon

[novah]

many have believed the promises of eager pellet store stories of " yes it will heat your entire house"

Your stove doesn't heat your entire house?

Mine does. 1715 sq ft. Upstairs and downstairs with no vents.

Haven't used a drop of oil to heat with in over two years.

It is good that your installation defies the laws of thermodynamics but this won't work for most people. Heat distribution is an important part of designing a heating system for a home and without a distribution system, a one-room house will be somewhat even and it goes down hill as you add walls and floors.

I burned wood as my sole heat source for 11 years so I have experience with single point heating. My installation a grate cut in the floor and a plenum over the stove to feed it through an 8-inch duct.

When I installed a forced hot water system, it was very noticeable that when you walked into the rooms furthest from the stove that you felt heat coming towards you (from the baseboards) instead of cool air from the windows. This house was a new super-insulated cape so the cold was not due to the windows leaking. My point being that the heat didn’t transfer evenly through out the entire house.

I am not trying to start an argument here but it is important for people thinking about making the switch to realize that you don't get the same heating characteristics when changing from a distributed system to a single point system. You also can’t switch from 1000 gallons of heating oil to 3 tons of pellets and keep your house at the same temperature.

Do the math. 3 tons is 150 bags. 150 x 2.5 gallons per bag is 375 gallons. The BTU’s just aren’t there. It will take 400 bags or 8 tons to get roughly the same amount of heat as 1000 gallons of oil.

Before making the switch, people need to understand there will be trade offs to save that money.

ï‚· Your heat will be coming from one point in the house. If you put the stove in the living room and your house is not an open concept design, the temperatures will drop as you move into the rooms further and further away from the stove. Even with an open concept design, you will have bedrooms and bathrooms separated by walls that impede air flow.

ï‚· You will be cleaning the stove at least once per week.

ï‚· There will be dust from pouring the pellets so if the stove is in your living room, be prepared to dust more often. There will be dust from the ashes as well, especially if you need to stir the burn pot daily.

ï‚· You will need to move tons of pellets at least once to get them into the house and more if you move them into the basement in the off season and to the stove during the heating season.

Don’t get me wrong, you can save money but you will give up something. I live in a different house now use my pellet stove to put heat in my 28 x 28 drive under garage that is converted into a workshop. Some of the heat makes it way up to the living area. I have a warm shop and save around 300 gallons of heating oil per year. Not free because I burned 3 tons of pellets.

 

[Don2222]

Hello

My Wood Pellet stove also heats the entire 2,000 ft Split Entry house warmer than when I was using oil! With oil I only heated the upstairs with the bedrooms 64 Degrees F at night and the living room, kitchen and bathroom 55 degrees F at night and then the living room, kitchen and bathroom 68 degrees F during the day and the bedrooms 55 degrees F during the day!! That scenario used 300 gallons for the winter. Now I use 3 Tons of pellets for the winter with the entire house at 70 Degrees F and no oil for heat! Only use oil for Hot Water. So I filled the tank on the last day in Sept last fall and I still have 1/4 Tank left

Now I have had the pellet stove for 2 winters and the 1st winter the savings was rather small maybe $50 to $100 but this past winter with pellets down approx. $1.00 per bag and oil up approx $1.00 per gallon the savings is enormous!!

300 gallons x 3.60 per gallon = $1080

3 tons at $209 per ton = $627

Savings of $453.00

Since I do my own yearly cleaning then I only pay $8.10 for a new exhaust blower gasket!!

Also 70 Degree heat is nice.

My stove is also in the center of the house in the basement. So 2 registers with a direct connection really brings the heat up!
See my thread with pics https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/71518/

 

[mascoma]

Got my first prebuy oil offer in the mail.

$3.89

Hello mascoma

That is not a good deal for me. I can buy a tank of oil for $3.49 per gallon right now and that is all I need for the whole winter now that I use wood pellets!!

So a buy is better than a pre-buy any day!!

Spot price right now is same a yours...$3.49. I'm not sure what they are thinking.

My oil tank is full and I'm not even sure I'll mess with a contract this year for 100 gallons we'll use.

 

[GenghisJon]

many have believed the promises of eager pellet store stories of " yes it will heat your entire house"

Your stove doesn't heat your entire house?

Mine does. 1715 sq ft. Upstairs and downstairs with no vents.

Haven't used a drop of oil to heat with in over two years.

It is good that your installation defies the laws of thermodynamics but this won't work for most people. Heat distribution is an important part of designing a heating system for a home and without a distribution system, a one-room house will be somewhat even and it goes down hill as you add walls and floors.

I burned wood as my sole heat source for 11 years so I have experience with single point heating. My installation a grate cut in the floor and a plenum over the stove to feed it through an 8-inch duct.

When I installed a forced hot water system, it was very noticeable that when you walked into the rooms furthest from the stove that you felt heat coming towards you (from the baseboards) instead of cool air from the windows. This house was a new super-insulated cape so the cold was not due to the windows leaking. My point being that the heat didn’t transfer evenly through out the entire house.

I am not trying to start an argument here but it is important for people thinking about making the switch to realize that you don't get the same heating characteristics when changing from a distributed system to a single point system. You also can’t switch from 1000 gallons of heating oil to 3 tons of pellets and keep your house at the same temperature.

Do the math. 3 tons is 150 bags. 150 x 2.5 gallons per bag is 375 gallons. The BTU’s just aren’t there. It will take 400 bags or 8 tons to get roughly the same amount of heat as 1000 gallons of oil.

Before making the switch, people need to understand there will be trade offs to save that money.

ï‚· Your heat will be coming from one point in the house. If you put the stove in the living room and your house is not an open concept design, the temperatures will drop as you move into the rooms further and further away from the stove. Even with an open concept design, you will have bedrooms and bathrooms separated by walls that impede air flow.

ï‚· You will be cleaning the stove at least once per week.

ï‚· There will be dust from pouring the pellets so if the stove is in your living room, be prepared to dust more often. There will be dust from the ashes as well, especially if you need to stir the burn pot daily.

ï‚· You will need to move tons of pellets at least once to get them into the house and more if you move them into the basement in the off season and to the stove during the heating season.

Don’t get me wrong, you can save money but you will give up something. I live in a different house now use my pellet stove to put heat in my 28 x 28 drive under garage that is converted into a workshop. Some of the heat makes it way up to the living area. I have a warm shop and save around 300 gallons of heating oil per year. Not free because I burned 3 tons of pellets.

heating my entire house with a pellet stove means I defy the laws of thermodynamics? That's just stupid.

Well you accurately described a space heater. And the point that people have made over and over again on these boards is that the space they heat is their home. If that to you defies the laws of thermodynamics then I just don't know what to say to you, Novah.

Yes things are hotter closer to the stove. I think most people get that, along with the lifting bags and cleaning the stove thing. That really isn't that big of a deal to me.

I save A LOT of money with the stove. Also my downstairs is much warmer then it ever was with oil. Upstairs is very comfortable as well.

I'm not looking for an arrangement either, just be careful with blanket statements. I would never claim that everyone can heat their home with any stove.

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah that would be like saying my wood stove hasn't heated my entire 2,500 sq. ft. house for 26 years.

That would be shocking news to the people that live in said house. :lol:

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You can heat any enclosed structure provided you can produce enough BTU/hr to overcome those lost to the outside and actually move the air around.

Folks who can't heat their entire house haven't sized their stove to handle the required BTU output into the structure or they have failed to have enough air moving ability to move their heated air around.

No laws of thermal dynamics need be broken in order to heat a house using a pellet stove, just proper planning as in PPPPPP, proper planning prevents _____ poor performance.