Pellet Stove eh? How do you like it? Is it cheap to run one of those?
I don't yet know how it compares to other heating methods--this will be our first year trying to exclusively use it to heat the house. If you shop around, hardwood pellets can be purchased for between $5 and $5.25 per 40lb bag. Home Depot sells bags of pellets for about $4.75/bag, but as far as I can tell it's a hard/soft wood mix of unknown proportions. We haven't tried corn or other alternatives.
Last year we had it running from mid-December through to the end of March or so. I was trying to regulate it's temperature by hand, but had the elec. baseboards on as well. Based on our hydro bill and subsequent experimenting, I'd say that the stove was
helping but being used nowhere near to its potential. We used about 80 bags of pellets in that period.
This year we have the stove set up to self-regulate via an external thermostat, and have added a homebrew forced-air system. We're going to leave the baseboards on at a low, "oops we let the stove go out" setting, but we're hoping that they'll never actually kick in. Only time & Old Man Winter will tell.
If you can make it out to the December get-together I'll give you the $0.10 tour if you like.
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