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January 31, 2009
Wood or pellate stove?
We are about to start building our home in Bay Ridge...Someone mentioned to me that I should put in a wood stove. Does anyone have one? I have been reading around and it seems this may save me money on my energy costs.
Comments
I've got one. It is a jotul wood stove with a Magic Heat reclaimer. It shaves a lot off the heat bill, however is a lot of maininance to keep it burning. Not a big deal for us since kiln dried solid wood is our waste product. Fire wood is not such a good heat source since something like half of the heat is drying off the wood so it will burn. Bricquettes or pellets are better since they are made from highly compressed sawdust.
A pellet stove will have a feeder on a thermostat so it will feed in pellets as needed. You only need to load the hopper once a day. Down side is that you have to pay for pellets. I think that some bio-mass is made from corn cobbs and the like.
Posted by: southslope at January 31, 2009 7:43 PM
I doubt that it happens very often, but my sister lives in rural Virginia and when heating oil spiked recently, they could not get pellets anywhere.The upside to a plain old wood stove is that I've never seen it where firewood wasn't available. The last time I looked a few years back, the wood stoves seemed a little more stylish, less industrial than the pellet stoves, but maybe thats changed.
Posted by: Bond at February 1, 2009 10:02 PM
I have a pellet stove in my house upstate, and know several people who have wood stoves. There are pros and cons to both. Pellet stoves are not as messy, are easier to operate (you just have to fill the hopper and turn them on) and are more eco-friendly because they use recycled materials. They can also be placed in smaller spaces because they do not radiate heat (just blow it out) and therefore don't need to be as far away from furniture. However, as another poster noted, there are not as many design choices for pellet stoves, although we found a pretty decent looking cast iron one. I should note that while there have been shortages of pellets further south, I have not had a problem finding them upstate, even when oil prices were sky high. I don't know what the situation is in NYC. We usually get them at Home Depot but they might not carry them here. Woodstoves generate more heat, provide a real wood fire to look at, and have more design choices. However, they can be kind of messy (embers will jump out when you put more logs on) and the room will smell like woodsmoke. If your biggest concern is fuel efficiency I would go with a wood stove, but if you have small children you might consider the safety issue. The sides and top of a pellet stove do not get hot (one reason they do not create as much heat).
Posted by: supersleuth at February 2, 2009 3:03 PM
Not sure about the legality in NYC. Firewood is heavy and bulky; at current prices it is more expensive per BTU than oil.
If you really like splitting and stacking wood, a wood heater is great, but I wouldn't do it in NYC.
Posted by: thwackamole1 at February 2, 2009 3:08 PM
Burning wood or pellets is much less efficient and environmentally friendly than power from the grid. If you're in Bay Ridge, I just can't believe it makes sense with all the added work of stocking fuel.
Posted by: brooklynlorax at February 2, 2009 3:17 PM
The best way to save money on heating is efficiency, not experimenting needlessly with fuels. Natural gas is a perfectly good fuel source. To use less of it just get the best quality windows you can afford and insulate really well. Look into innovations in new types of insulation.
Posted by: traditionalmod at February 2, 2009 3:23 PM
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