Keep Things Toasty and Cheap With a Wood Pellet Furnace

You read the headlines. "Home Heating Oil Hits Record Highs!" You see the TV reports featuring interviews with struggling families who are afraid of another cold spell because they can't pay their gas or electric bills. You don't really need those media reports to understand the situation, though. You've seen the evidence in black and white every month when you open your bills. It is getting expensive to heat your home. That's why you're going to install a wood pellet furnace.

A wood pellet furnace is more than a glorified fireplace. It is a top-notch way to keep your home toasty and comfortable without spending a small fortune on fuel. These marvels of engineering can transform simple, cheap little pellets of wood into enough heat to make even the most severe winter bearable.

If you don't already have a wood pellet furnace, you should be looking for the right one to meet your needs. If you don't have one and you're not shopping for the best option, you need to hop on the bandwagon. The price of petroleum products isn't going to suddenly bottom out overnight. Electricity isn't getting cheaper. Natural gas may be plentiful and readily available, but the gas companies want to keep posting their record profits. If you don't switch to a wood pellet furnace or some other alternative heating option, you can be certain that you'll spend more money than ever before in an effort to maintain cold weather comfort.

A wood pellet furnace has a number of advantages over other options. The first, as noted, is cost. The price of those little wood pellets isn't going up, either. In fact, the increasing popularity of these heaters is bringing more people into the pellet business, which is boosting supply and decreasing prices!

These pellet-burners are efficient, too. The old-fashioned fireplace leaks like a heat sieve. Your comfort and your money drifts right out the chimney or lingers just feet from the fireplace, failing to circulate. A good wood pellet furnace will create sufficient heat to keep things cozy from the basement to the second floor. They extract so much out of those pellets that it's almost unbelievable.

They're a flexible option, too. Some people do away with all other forms of heating, relying exclusively on a whole house furnace. Others invest in a smaller unit to supplement heat or in a fireplace insert. You aren't stuck with one option when you've added a pellet stove to your home.

These stoves--which have really only been readily available for the last few decades--are becoming popular, well-recognized options. That isn't an accident. Pellet stoves supply outstanding warmth with great efficiency while sporting a price tag that puts other options to shame.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Pellet Stove Heating for Your Home

A pellet stove burns its fuel very efficiently because most pellet stoves have three burn chambers. The first chamber is the main pot in which the pellets burn. The combustion of the pellets produces gasses which are burned in the second chamber when the stove becomes hot enough to ignite those gasses. The third chamber gets hot enough to burn the carbon residue. Each combustion chamber reduces the ash produced and produces more heat.

Most pellet stoves are beautiful in design and look great in your home. The glass front of the stove shows the flame which is so romantic and warm on a cold winter night. These factors add value to your home with the installation of a pellet stove.

Because pellet stoves burn so efficiently, there is very little residue or ash to haul away. The ash falls into a pan or bucket at the bottom of the stove and is easily removed for disposal. The ash is also an excellent fertilizer for all your plants, shrubs and trees.

There are a few disadvantages to a pellet stove, too. The stoves can be expensive. The initial cost of the stove will be at least $1,000 with very fancy or exotic models going into the $5,000 range. Installation requires parts not included with the stove even if you do the installation yourself which is very do-able. Hiring the installation will cost an additional $500 or so depending on the configuration of the chimney and the area in which you live.

Pellet stoves burn pellets which must be purchased, hauled and stacked in an easily accessible area. In moderately cold areas with overnight temperatures in single digits, a larger size pellet stove will burn about one and a half to two forty pound bags of pellets a day. At a cost of $5.25 per 40 lb bag, that's about $315 a month for the cold months in fuel costs over and above the cost of the stove.

Another disadvantage is that a pellet stove will not be integrated into your heating system unless you are installing during new construction. Even then, many house plans leave alternative heat sources outside the home's heat distribution system. What that means to you is that the pellet stove will probably not heat your entire home even if the stove is installed in a central area in your house.

These advantages and disadvantages are important points when considering the purchase of a pellet stove. The return on your investment may not occur for several years and you may not get an efficient use of all the heat the pellet stove can produce. The stove will look beautiful in your home and feels great on a cold winter night.

Kozi Pellet Stoves Will Give You the Comfort of Heat That You Want

If you are wanting a fireplace that will not only give the comfort of heat that you want and need but also be efficient enough so that you can afford to use it, then a pellet stove is what you are looking for. The Kozi Pellet Stoves are stoves that use these manufactured pellets to fuel their fire of warmth. This is a type of stove that will put different forms of wood that would otherwise be thrown away and wasted, to good use. The pellets that are created from these wood leftovers will burn very efficiently and burn fewer emissions than other types of stoves that are on the market.

The Kozi Pellet Stoves that you will find are environmentally friendly as well as efficient. One of these manufacturers models is the Kozi Model 100. This pellet stove has an air ignition system along with a air wash saver screen. These stoves are very popular due to the fact that they are not only very easy to use, but they are also safe to use. The pellets that are put into the hopper of the unit will eventually deplete. These units will automatically turn off the burner when it senses that there are no more pellets being added.

The Model 100 of the Kozi Pellet Stoves also has a safety feature that if there is any kind of malfunction within the unit, it will automatically shut down. This model also comes with a heat exchanger within the blower. This allows the blower to adjust its speed when there is the presence of heat. It has an adjustable fuel feed which will allow the owner to control the amount of fuel that is being burned in order to be even more efficient.

This model of the Kozi Pellet Stoves allows the owner to add pellet fuel at a slow rate of maybe only one pound of pellets so that they will get just the right amount of heat that they need. Nevertheless, if a very cold night comes around, they could add pellets to have 4.5 pounds per hour so that the heat will last all night long. A great benefit about this type of stove is the fact that it can not only be used in a regular home but can also be used in a mobile home as well. Mobile homes have very strict rules about the types of heating units that are installed in them.

Pellet Stove Inserts Warm Things Up!

The fireplace was a great invention. For centuries, fireplaces have been used to keep homes warm, for aesthetic reasons and even for cooking. It is hard to imagine a world without them. However, they are becoming ever so slightly outdated. Fireplaces don't really heat homes efficiently--too much of the temperature is lost through the chimney. Plus, the wood we use for fireplaces doesn't really burn that efficiently--it doesn't provide maximum return on temperature. As a result, pellet stove inserts are becoming more popular.

Wood pellets burn faster and longer than good ol' chopped wood. Pellet stoves provide better, more efficient heating. Pellet stove inserts are basically fully operational pellet stoves that can fit within your existing fireplace. You get all of the good looks of a fireplace but you also get twenty-first century-quality heating. In fact, many of the inserts you can buy are actually more attractive than your average fireplace. You'll be upgrading in terms of home comfort, efficiency and appearance with a pellet stove insert.

The prices of home heating oil, furnace coal, natural gas and electricity are all increasing. This winter promises to be just as expensive as ever. When one considers the amount of money they're investing in home heating, it's easy to understand why these stoves are so popular. They provide the cozy comfort everyone wants at a fraction of other heating options' prices. Almost unbelievably, pellet stoves function at up to 90% efficiency. Old-fashioned fireplaces just can't compare with those numbers. These stove inserts are an amazing way to keep your residence comfortable.

You don't need to add an entirely new heater to your home to make use of wood pellets. You can maintain your existing fireplace and its role as a centerpiece to your family's living area. All you need is one of the many inserts currently available. These handy devices aren't overwhelmingly expensive to install and operation is often considerably less costly than alternatives.

Chances are they won't replace the fireplace and its unique role in our lives. Nothing can hope to erase that kind of history. These great heating devices may, however, change the way we use and think about our fireplaces. If you're looking for a great way to heat your home and you currently have a fireplace in on your property, investigate pellet stove inserts. They offer numerous advantages and may be exactly what you need.

You can still gather in the living room by the fireplace. You can still put the family snapshots on the mantle. Life won't change much. What will change is the quality of your environment and the balance in your bank account. They'll improve when you use one for your fireplace.

How Much Will a Wood Pellet Stove Cost Me

With fuel prices rising almost daily, smart homeowners are looking for ways to keep warm on a budget. Installing a pellet stove can help! A pellet stove is just what it sounds like; instead of logs, oil or natural gas, it burns pellets. A good pellet stove typically costs from $1,500 to $3,000, and installation can run up to $400-$500.

A small screw, called an auger, turns the pellets into the firebox, where the fire is concentrated in the center and burns very hot. A blower sends air through and around the pellets once they're lit, either by you or by an optional automatic igniter. This air keeps the fire going (remember, oxygen is an essential ingredient for combustion). The blower also creates a slight vacuum that draws the combustion gases (that dangerous carbon monoxide by-product) outside through a vent. Because of these moving parts, Pellet stoves can be a bit tricky to maintain, so it's a good idea to get a service contract.

To operate your pellet stove, you pour the pellets into a bin called a "hopper" that's located at the top or the bottom of the stove. Hoppers have a capacity from 35 to 130 pounds of pellets.. Depending on the size of your hopper and how cold it gets, a single load of pellets can last one to two days.

Where do those pellets come from? Makers grind up recycled sawdust, corn, walnut and peanut shells, wood shavings or other biomass wastes, then compress the mass and extrude the pellets.

At first, heating your home with pellets instead of wood can seem more expensive than heating with wood, since pellets can cost $130 to $200 per ton, compared with $100 to $175 per cord of wood. But that's really like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges, say experts. When you buy a cord of wood, you typically get 128 cubic feet (4X4X8) that includes the spaces between the logs you can't use for heat. Plus, the wood contains moisture that doesn't burn.

Home improvement experts say it's better to evaluate pellet fuel versus wood by its usage. If you use wood, you go through 3 to 4 cords of wood per year, compared to burning 1 to 3 tons of pellets per year. You can easily do the math on that one!

Pellets also save you time and energy, because you don't need to stack and carry wood. Those 40-pound sacks of pellets store in a space about a third of what's needed for cord wood. Be sure, though, to check with your stove vendor for the closest source of pellets, because freight is a big part of the pellet cost.

Pellet stoves are definitely an alternative way to heat your home that's worth a good look.