Pellets (Wood pellets) Oven/Burner Selection

Ha, you mention a wattage to run it???
I'm thinking of a stove which doesn't rely on electricity at all in case of winter power cuts. (Gloomy thoughts of deepening recession, inept government, proffiteering and underinvestment by the utility companies...all pretty reasonable assumptions)
Del

Thats not a problem, you can unplug the heating element and use a barbecue starter to start the fire and run the ventilators off of a small inverter, works great, tried it out last autumn just for fun.......stove takes only average 50-60 watts to run without the heater element!! The element is just to start the fire only.....300 watts for 10 minutes or so......

There is no sensing on my stove of if the heater is missing or broken......luckily.....as that is not a dangerous failure. The grate fills with pellets and after a timeout ends, it says "NO FIRE"......big deal!!

Provided you get mains power back once a day or so, a 120 amp (from my caravan) battery will keep it working for best part of a day......

I could probably do the same for the central heating, just never got around to see how much it takes to run the controller and the circulating pump. Too lazy!!! But that way we would also have hot water as well, so it might actually be a better deal....

We have only had one power failure in the last 25 years here, many years ago. I forget now why......and it only lasted a couple of hours.....3 mile Island?I don't think so....

If you live where power failures are often/long then it might be better to think in another direction......here such utilities are really stable.....

Hi Andy,

I like those pellet stoves.

I use a wood burning stove, the reason being that the fuel is free......besides my labor. Very few people where I live heat with wood. I've talked to tree guys, and whenever they take down a nice big hardwood tree......or whatever, they have to pay money to put the wood in the dump, which is crazy, but it works out well for me. They'll bring me truck loads of nice oak and maple just to get rid of it........I take the chips too for mulch.

During the winter my stove puts out some initial smoke when first started, but within a short time it's burning clean........as far as smoke and particulate matter. It's work, but it saves me about $3500 US per winter.

Sorry to sound like a contrarian, but there is no way that these stoves are carbon neutral. In your case, someone is making the pellets, delivering them by truck, etc. In both of our cases, we are burning wood, therefore we are putting CO2, carbon monoxide, and everything else that is associated with the burning of organic material into the atmosphere.

That doesn't make us bad, I just didn't want anyone to get the impression that purchasing a pellet or wood stove is particularly "green".

You are right, in the United States for example they use oil based binders for the pellets as well, UGH!! Here we use Barley meal, about 5% I believe. But pellets are still greener and healthier than you appear to think! Read on.....

But Pellets burners are far, far greener than say Wood burning, Coal burning, Brown coal burning, Gas burning, Oil burning and electricity burning (unless only atom, but there again "3 Mile Island and that Russian nuclear accident"???!!!

Which is a right good start for to burn pellets!!!

Why you may rightly ask? Read on again.....

Here is a very recent study (2010) showing how even the pellet burners of today can be further vastly improved with regard to reducing emissions:-

www.pyro-man.net/IAC2010abstract-pyroman.pdf

Here is a study that as an average, burning wood pellets reduces emissions by at least 25% in all cases:-

http://www.energy-enviro.fi/index.php?PAGE=2906&NODE_ID=2906&ArchiveId=268&ArchiveSelect=200607

Also, (if you read German I will send you the various links, just ask) it has been proved time and time again that burning wood has a very poor health aspect!!

That aspect is that a wood burning stove, even of a modern and clean burning design, shoves out between 4x and 1000x more fine particles (which lodge in your lungs and hardly ever get expelled) than an average pellets burner.......

In fact, in an Austrian study they found out that just ONE house burning wood, ruins the air quality for a whole small town!!!!

This is SMOG!!! This is dangerous, this is the health of your family and those around you......

"Green" is what their lungs might eventually be. Which is why many countries are switching car/truck taxation to a tax based on the amounts of CO2 and fine particle emmissions....we here also have to run our central heating systems very, very cleanly with yearly maintenance and emission checks etc..

This also one of the the various reasons given by some archaeologists and the like that people generally lived far shorter lives a hundred years or more ago than today.....though as far as I am aware, this is not a proven fact, or at least I have never seen any proof as such..... But it certainly could be true as we know today the effects that fine particles have on animals and people....

Please read here for example:-

http://www.epa.gov/pm/health.html

With regard to smoke I also found this:-

http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/airpage.nsf/webpage/Health+Effects+of+Fine+Particles+and+Smoke

and this

http://www.burningissues.org/health-effects.html

Disgusting isn't it!!

To quote from that report:-

Numerous scientific studies have linked particle pollution exposure to a variety of problems, including:

• increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing, or difficulty breathing, for example;
• decreased lung function;
• aggravated asthma;
• development of chronic bronchitis;
• irregular heartbeat;
• nonfatal heart attacks; and
• premature death in people with heart or lung disease.
• 
  

Is that not enough reasons to consider NOT to just burn wood in its normal state? it certainly was for me!!

I trust that once you have finished reading though this very tiny percentage of the infos with regard to fine particle emission and human health, you may see there are very good reasons to stop burning wood directly......at least a fourfold or more increase in better air quality!!

I've got a problem with pellet availability in my area. I'm not going to stop burning wood any time soon, however, I do take the steps to make sure the wood burns as efficiently as possible.

All wood is cured for about a year, I only use hardwood, I keep it dry, I use the damper on my stove to sustain as close to a smoke free fire as possible. I'm not saying it's as efficient as a pellet stove, but I've been using it for about 7 years and my visual inspections of the flue have shown very little in the way of soot buildup.

Off topic, but speaking of particulates and health, one of the craziest things I see here, on a regular basis, is people jogging on the sidewalk, alongside stopped traffic during morning rush hour. These people are obviously health conscious, but somehow completely oblivious to the fact that they are deep breathing car and bus exhaust.

If you google, efficient wood burning, you'll find that there is definitely a right and wrong way to burn wood. I do what I can to keep it as clean as possible.

Heck, where I live, it's still legal to burn in my yard. And up until very recently construction sites where trees had been taken down were allowed to push everything into a pile and light it on fire. You should see the smog here in the fall when everyone starts burning leaves! Which I don't do, by the way. More free mulch as far as I'm concerned, just pile it up and let it decompose.

**in the United States for example they use oil based binders for the pellets as well, UGH!!** Most use lignin as a binder

Thats much greener!!! Thanks for the update.

BTW, thanks for the great thread Andy.

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when I get too old to cut and split wood, which is inevitable at some point.

You gave me the answer! I can say for sure, that when that day comes, I'll get rid of the wood stove and install a pellet stove in the same spot. Thanks again, that really hadn't occurred to me.

Thats basically what I did, I needed a new Wood burner and I was about 58 years old at the time. I "stumbled" on pellets stoves, read more and came to the conclusion that I did not want to be changing again in 10-15 years time. Also it had to be light enough for my wife to handle the refueling as well......wood does not fit the parameters.......

Never regretted it for one second, it works out to be better in many respects that I had never even thought about and although it does need a little bit of power to run, that could be covered with a few big batteries and a small inverter quite easily.....

Here we have few power failures, but if that ever changed, I have everything to hand, even a small petrol generator that developed 2KW if needed.....all from my Camping stuff as I like camping where no power is......nicer type of people.....

Pellet stoves are a good choice.

There are two main drawbacks I found with mine when I was living up north.

1. Noise. The auger that feeds the stove and the fans do make some noise, whereas a traditional stove does not.

2. Electricity. You really need a backup power source if you use the stove as a primary heat source. Then again, many standard home heating systems suffer from the same fate.

It all boils down to what you need a stove for. If it's primary duty is heating the home, then the pellet stove is a great choice (providing pellets are available).

If it is mostly ambiance you are looking for, you may find the noise a little irritating. Nothing beats a fireplace for ambiance, period. Unfortunately, fireplaces are the worst when it comes to efficiency and maintenance.

I've seen those gas fireplaces. they are easy to use and look pretty good, but they still don't do well emulating those occasional pops and crackles you get with a fireplace nor do you get the adrenaline rush of clog hopping on your floor when a red hot ember flies through the screen - priceless family time.

It really pays to get quality pellets. I used a little over one ton of pellets per season to completely heat my house. Cheap pellets did not burn as hot and created a lot more ash (a lot more). Quality oak pellets burned much better and contained much less wood dust. I used Pennington in the US, but getting pellets may be hard to impossible in some states and areas. I only emptied the ash drawer twice in a year.

There is a noise level ascociated, too much for a bedroom, but I have (accidently!) snoozed near it....

The auger makes absolutly no noise, but the exhaust and heat fan can be heard, even at the lowest power rating (things turn slower then!), but they do not affect normal conversation.

But its a good point you make, anyone choosing a pellets stove for living room places, should hear one running first!! I have never heard a loud one, but you never know do you?

Place your order early with "Home Depot" for pellets; there not hard to find

Andy,

What a great and informative post. I have been looking at these for my home for about 2 years now. You brought out issues I was not aware of but am now prepared.

Thanks - KJK/USA

Many thanks, that was my intention as well, but I am sure there are a few points that I completely forgot, so when I finally remember, I will post updates.

Do your homework, make a checklist to take with you (I forget everything when I am looking at something!). I also make an Excel sheet so that I can compare all the different points (I do it for almost any purchase over $50 or so!).

Price has almost nothing to do with buying the best one.....

By the way, all of the ones I have seen, appear to produce more heat than the pamphlets actually say.......mine at max power (level 5) produces 8.5 KW. I cannot imagine anyone needing more and the book says for a building of less than 1100 Sq Ft.

We have about 1500 sq ft., and the lowest setting (level 1) keeps everything really warm, but our house is particularly well insulated......just as well I did not pay the extra for the 12.5 KW version!!!

House insulation is always a great move as well to conserve our resources....

I agree fully. I've been using pellets stoves for 20 years. We started off with the self light version, and three years ago finally went for a stove that was auto light with a thermostat. The new one are light years ahead of the older ones. Quieter, smaller, more efficient, easier to use, less maintenance, more BTU, and cheaper. Our first one was around $4500 the new one was around $2500. We went from a 75000 BTU stove to a 55000 BTU to heat the same amount of house 3000+ sq ft at 78F. We use about 2 to 2.5 tons a year now compared to 4 tons with the old stove.

I sold the older one for $750 still worked perfectly, hopefully this one last that long they where both made by the same company Quadra-fire.

As a non-scientific experiment, I used an old cast iron burner assembly from a gas fired boiler as the grate for a homemade wood stove, with a portion of the combustion air entering through this.

Once the cast iron became red hot, the combustion and heat output seemed to improve. Is combustion air preheat incorporated into these modern stoves?

Concerning good looks ... The ONLY good look for a home-heating stove is BLACK. Heat gets transmitted from the stove by conduction ((don't) put your hand on it), convection (hot air rising from the hot surface and spreading through the house) and RADIATION (infrared light). The blacker the surface, the more radiation and the warmer your house will get. Anything less than black means heat being wasted up your stack. Cheers! DZ

With a pellet stove very little heat goes out the stack and has very little to do with the color. The stove I have is rated a 95% heat transferance through the blowers. You can literally grab the pipe with your bare hands. (Don't try it at home if you have a coal or wood stove kids).

My Pellets Burner is not of the latest design, the temperature of the exhaust is usually between 130°C and 150°C, (not too painful to touch actually, I tried it after reading your post!!) far below that of a wood burning stove but probably not as good as a more current pellets burner.......though many manufacturers try to keep this a secret......

Mine claims 90% efficiency........but most of them nowadays claim slightly better......

I am at present doing some changes to the programming to try and reduce further the pellets consumption, today was "testing" day, the changes have worked really well. But I like it to run for a week with no problems before I call it a fix.....

Actually I am really trying to further reduce the amount of heat slightly on the lowest setting, as its still far more than we need for the whole kitchen hall, stairs and bedrooms..... which of course results in less pellets burnt as well......I keep reducing the time the auger turns for, and I am now at 50% of what the manufacture setup for power level 1 gives.....so theoretically only, I should be at half of 2.5KW, but I do not believe that low figure at all.......

I know that a 1KW electric fire would NOT heat up such a large area......empirically only tested!!!! No real facts!!

So I really think that the lowest claimed level of 2.5KW is simply not accurate......but I do have the lowest consumption of pellets per day of all the 4 owners that I know of.....

The newer one I have now I can only adjust manually the feed and the thermostat. The rest are all adjusted by the inboard computer. My old one I adjusted everything manually. The feed, draft, fan, etc. Like you said it like I had to experiment with it every time I started it, and need constant adjustments through out the week.

How does you buddy like it? My two labs love laying next to it. After a while their fur gets toasty warm and I use them to warm my feet after a long cold day working around the quarries.

Mine actually only needs adjusting once for the pellets, though I "play" occasionally to improve matters.

My Weimaraner bitch LOVES it!!! (She comes from a town quite close to Weimar!!)

My main reason for staying away from pellet stoves and with wood is that pellets have to be made by someone and whoever makes the pellets uses energy to shred and recompress the pellets which is not carbon neutral. Wood have some chainsaw fuel and perhaps splitter fuel if I am not swinging the big maul. From cradle to grave the wood stove is better for the environment than a pellet stove. Plus it can operate without electricity during its daily operation. Just my $0.02 Mike

Considering that pellets are made from waste sawdust, which is better, throwing away the stuff or putting into the supply chain for someone to use?

Pellets burn many more times efficient than wood. Just compare the flue vents and the waste ash produced of the two after a year and it is easy to see the difference.

The alternative is electric heat, gas, oil, or in some cases coal.

Dear Mike,

burning wood in a wood burner, like cars, trucks etc., releases fine particles into the atmosphere, that when breathed in, are so small that the normal methods the lungs use to clean themselves simply do not work. So they remain there and cause massive problems.

Tests in Austria have shown that one person burning wood in a small town, ruins the air quality for all......

Wood in the form of pellets burns around 100 times cleaner for the same amount of heating, it also burns less biomass, which more than makes up for the energy put into making pellets.....

Also you burn less wood because it is controlled by a clock, that turns it off and on when you want.

Never needs stoking in the middle of the night as they usually run for nearly a day or longer on one filling.

Heat output is adjustable from max to min and it stays where you set it.....

We have a saying in Germany that I find fits here:-

" He who doesn't have it in his head (doesn't think well) has it in the feet (he has to run back and forth to achieve the same as the thinking man did with one trip only!)...."

Its true the world over!!!

This is the straw that breaks or causes me to yield. Thank you Andy and I shall go foward with the home owner sized pelletizer I designed a few years ago.

You should be careful, China is producing small ones, driven by a petrol or electric motor for very little money. Down to 100-120 Kg pellets an hour.......

This suggests to me that such machines are going to be the "Hot Number" for the next couple of years.....but unless you can undercut them.......

Maybe you need to check the quality, buy in the best and sell them in the USA.....

Like here:-

http://www.pelletmill.net/pellet-mill.html

They start around $2000......

Do a search on Google with "Chinese wood pellet machine".....it will find you lots of manufacturers.....

Sorry to appear to be unhelpful, but at least you will know the competition.

I personally would rather buy in country than imported and most Americans think the same......even if the price i slightly higher than the imported models...

Best of luck and keep us all informed......

Many of those China machines don't work. I can make them the size of a trash compactor and yes I can cut them up some too. Funny thing about three years ago a fella wanted my designs an he was so persistent that I gave him some details as a test of his integrity. No more than 3 months later several thousand such units were produced in China; he was extremely upset they did not work go figure, some kind of buddy eh! I could buy those machines and with some adaptation produce working models ha!

Wow!

Way to go?

Understand I didn't intend for the events to develop as such though I'd been warned of the individuals past indiscretion or unscroupulous methods involving stealing anothers ideas. That's the reason I proceeded so. I don't believe I could rely on the integrity of the faulty machinery, they maybe adapted for use as rock crushers or possibly pasta rollers. I may have a few models available this year.