Need help choosing pellet stove. Two story house, 6500sqft.

[chken]

Let's be fair. The OP did say, the upstairs is heated with a heat pump. Being so large, it's likely relatively new, and reasonably insulated, plus, it's in Maryland. Cold, but not cold like the more northern parts of N America.

And, I just looked up a heat calculator, and his 1000 gallons of LP is about equal BTU wise to around 800 gallons of oil. 800 gallons is about the average use for a 2000sqft home in Maine. If you know the homes in Maine, they tend towards old and leaky. So, if he's got a newish, well-insulated, home with heat pump for upstairs, electric HW, etc., perhaps he is only using 1000 gallons of LP.

For comparison, my relatively new, well-insulated, triple-glazed 4000sqft home in Maine used only 700 gallons of oil last year. My new this year, avg size pellet stove, 47k btu, is heating the open-space, equal to 3000sqft. I use 1 and a half bags on a normal 40 degree-day winter day, aka avg 25 degrees. That's equal to about 4 gallons of oil. My point being, let's not crucify the OP since we don't know all the details of his mcmansion. 1000 gallons of LP is certainly possible in a well-insulated home, even if it's large.

All in all, I'd say, if you are paying only $1.80 a gallon for LP, just turn up the thermostat; however, if you are paying $2.80 or more, then you might want to consider a big pellet stove like a Harman P68 in the living space.

 

[1wired1]

Well, thanks for all the replies. I'll see if I can answer all the questions.

1) Yes, I asked a similar question a couple years ago. Still in the same position. House is cold.

2) 6500 sqft or 7000 sqft? I am just estimating. Honestly I don't know the exact number It might be a little larger.

3) No I am not just trying to get some kind of response or pulling anyone's chain.

4) Hanging with the wrong crowd? I doubt it, is the house too big? yes. Kind of an impulse buy after searching for months for a new house. It was a short sale and we got a good deal.

5) I think we only went through 800 gallons of propane last year, but 1k the year before. About 250 so far this season.

6) We close off all vents in the basement.

7) Yes, $1.81 or there abouts this season for propane. We paid $1.76 last year,

8) thanks for the helpful replies, I'll look into the furnaces. The pellet I looked into a couple years ago didn't seem to make sense.

9) I like the idea of geo-thermal, but financially it's super expensive. Basement is finished and would have a lot of extra expense inside as well.

10) the heat pump sucks