What is biggest btu wood/pellet insert they make

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Miran587

New Member
Feb 15, 2020
15
Westport MA
Hi just bought a big house in oct and my oil bill is alot so looking into options. House is 3600sqft its 3 floors of living without basement. I was looking into wood burning boilers but there costly and dont think I can get it into my basement cause of weight. So I'm looking into fireplace inserts not sure what's out there that will do my size home. my fireplace is 35in wide x 27in tall x 21in deep. What are some ideas to circulate air to get it to other floors I know ceiling fans. I have oil burning boiler setup for forced air hydro setup . Wondering if I put forced air unit on fan mode but it would be always on but that would only help 1st floor as 2and and 3rd floor unit are together unit is on 3rd floor
 
Instead of wood boiler, perhaps wood furnace?
 
I worked with a guy with a big house. He had 2 pellet stoves one at either end of the house and had to dump between 1-2 bags in each a day.

He burned through 7-8 ton a year. Just to give you a general idea.
 
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3600 sq.ft. is not a very big house, but depending on layout, you may find two average size heaters do a much better job than one single very large space heater. In cold weather, they’ll do a better job of distributing the heat as needed, and in warmer weather you can choose to shut one down and just run one.

Consider the stored BTU of one cord of wood, times the efficiency of your stove. Then factor in the reality that heating with a wood stove usually means heating the house all night so that it’s warm in the morning, or heating the place all day so that it’s warm when you arrive home, when scaling your required BTU’s based on the oil you’ve been burning. You will quickly see that the size or number of stoves is not your limitation, if you have any family and employment obligations, it is how much free time you have to dedicate to processing and moving firewood.
 
A wood or pellet furnace ducted to just the first floor from the basement would heat that first floor and basement better than any insert on the first floor. You can get way more btu out of freestanding burners. There are some giant pellet stoves that make a high amount of constant heat. Remember that a high output pellet stove will eat a lot of pellets so you want the large hopper of a free standing stove.

Check out the enviro maxx. 130 lb hopper, 70,000 btu (input) constantly, and a 455 cfm blower.


Or the much lover P68. 76 lb hopper, 67,600 btu input, and decent efficiency too.


Remember that you don't need to eliminate all of your oil usage but even just cutting it in half by delivering cheap wood based btus to the home is huge!

You can go to the EPA list of stoves and sort them by btu output to look for the highest and also most efficient stoves. Check out the thread in the stickies for a link to that EPA list.

Too many people think it is ALL oil or ALL wood, but when saving money every little bit of cheaper heat displaces the more expensive heat.
 
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I'd really like to get this unit but 2 issues 1 is only 2 flue ,1 for oil unit other for fireplace . 2bd is how to get it in basement as it weighs 1800 pounds. But I think it would do wonders in my house along with adding a.o Smith hybrid hot water tank since I currently use oil to get hot water.

 
I'd really like to get this unit but 2 issues 1 is only 2 flue ,1 for oil unit other for fireplace . 2bd is how to get it in basement as it weighs 1800 pounds. But I think it would do wonders in my house along with adding a.o Smith hybrid hot water tank since I currently use oil to get hot water.

Do you have access to the basement from outside?
 
I do have a doghouse off the back of house to get into basement but to get something that big and heavy dont see how never fit that many guys or stairs would never hold up
If the stairs won't hold up you pull them out and lower it down with a peice of equipment. If they are strong enough you lay down ramps and lower it down them. Guys that install these do it all the time
 
Would like to see, yes
Easily most substantial derailment, this week, but here it is!

I'd rig this a bit differently today, but this was done about 15 years ago, when I was full of more ambition than experience. All's well that ends well, though.

DSCF0004.JPG DSCF0006.JPG

I didn't know how heavy it was, at the time. It wasn't until years later that I hired safe movers, and they gave me an estimated weight on it.
 
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