Wood Pellet Stove Review From A Real Owner - Help Save On Fuel Bills

Does a wood pellet stove really help save you money? Yes it does. Have you been putting off buying a wood pellet stove because of the cost? Well I am here to tell you a wood pellet stove will save you tons of money.

You may be wondering why I am writing about wood pellet stoves now, at the end of the season. I wanted to hold off until we have used ours for a few months, so I could give an honest review and opinion.

Our only heat source was from propane gas. The cost was running us about $800.00 a month! This is crazy, right? Those of you that heat with propane or fuel oil, know this is true.

My son was paying about $1,000 a month. He and his wife decided to invest in a wood pellet stove. Although the first initial cost is high,(Altogether he paid about $3,000) form a dealer. My son says; it was well worth it. They are now paying $215.00 a month heating their home.

This convinced us to break down and spend the money to buy a wood pellet stove. We did not buy a coal pellet stove because coal is harder on the ozone. Corn pellets can be very costly and hard to find someone selling them. We have about $1,500 into ours. We bought ours at Home Depot. Our house is newer then my sons, and it has an open floor plan, so we did not need one as gig as the one our son bought.

Do your research first. Contact your code enforcer first to make sure wood pellet stoves are allowed in your area and you install it according to code.

Write down what you are looking for in a wood pellet stove.

How many BTU's will you need: this depends on the size of the area you need to heat

Automatic feed; yes, you do want this. This allows you to add more pellets to the hopper at one time.

Auto ignite: yes you do want this. Auto ignite lights the wood pellet stove for you.

Ash pan; Some wood pellet stoves do not have an ash pan. An ash pan makes it easier when it comes time to clean your wood pellet stove.

Thermostat: not all wood pellet stoves come with a thermostat.

How big is the hopper; This will determine how many times a day you need to add wood pellets to the stove.

With Ours; The pellets last for around 8 -12 hours. Depending on how high we have it and the kind of pellets we use.

We have tried many different brands to see which wood pellets burn the longest and hottest. This of course will save you money on the wood pellets.

You will need:

A heat plate or platform; for under your wood pellet stove to protect your floor from burning. You can see the heat plate under our wood pellet stove in the top photo.

Someone to install the wood pellet stove if you can not do it yourself.

The piping; that goes from your wood pellet stove to the outdoors. Most have two. One for the fresh air coming in and one for the exhaust going out.

There is also a vent that goes on the pipe outside of the house.

The Sleeve; that goes in between the wall. This keeps the wall from catching fire. Also holds the pipes in place.

Silicone; to put around the gaps.

You may also need; some silver heat resistant tape to add extra sealing around the pipes.

Doorway fans; if your home is not all open like ours you may need to add doorway fans to the corner of the doorways to push the heat into other rooms. The cost for the doorway fans will run about $20.00

A Shopvac; you will need this to vacuum the COOLED ashes out when cleaning your Wood Pellet Stove. There are also vacuums made just for this but can be costly.

UPDATE: You can get a Hearth Vacuum Cleaner. They run around $139.00

The pellets come a ton to a pallet. That is around 50, 40lb. bags. They usually run around $170 to $225 a ton or around $3.00 to $4.89 a bag. We call around to see who has the lowest price, then ask the store closest to us (Home Depot,Lowes,Farm and Tractor) if they will match that price. Most will. Make sure you check to see if the pellets are hard, soft or mixed woods. You will want to remember this for the next time you buy wood pellets. Some burn hotter and longer then others. If you can and you have a dry place to store them buy as many as you can in the off season when the wood pellets are cheaper.

We have a plastic bin in the house that we add the pellets to. This saves you form having to carry wood pellets in everyday. Ours holds around 4 bags of pellets. It saves the back too!

If you are older or have problems lifting, get someone to carry them in and dump them for you.

Make sure to keep your wood pellets covered and in a dry place. They cannot get wet!

Do Not Forget; A Wood Pellet Stove is also a tax write off! We do not pay taxes on the pellets either.