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DJ and I are having a disagreement and I want to get some input.
Background: our house is on septic and well water. Heated by a 25 yo oil boiler. No other means to heat it, no fireplace, no chimney. We live in New Hampshire and moved here last year. First house. No experience at all with heating with wood or pellets. We're in a semi rural area. There have been outages in the past that lasted 2 or 3 days.
He's a worrier and wants to be prepared for anything and everything. So he wants to get a generator, a pellet stove and to replace the boiler. I agree with most of this, but since money is not unlimited, I don't see the need to spend a lot of money for an event that might never happen or could be solved in another way (going to a hotel). And we don't need to do it all at once.
On the secondary heating appliance we thinking about a pellet stove, but again just get a mass market one (around 2k) vs a Harman (4k + dealer installation).
Generator I'm fine with a medium portable for fridge, well pump and heating. He wants a stationary gas one.
Same with the boiler, I want to investigate and get estimates next summer, he wants it now. So if we have a budget of say, $10k, we can spend $3k on stove and generator and save the rest for an efficient oil boiler. Getting a different kind of heating fuel is also up for discussion, no natural gas here.
Skip the boiler, they are stupidly simple appliances and MANY century old units are still in operation. My last house with one (1970's built) I was similarly concerned and had a plumber come out and give it a once over which is what I suggest you do if you have a concern. The part that DID fail was the circulation pump, I believe the replacement part was about $40 and took me about 20 minutes to swap and then a few days of re-bleeding the air from the system. The heating still worked, just not as efficiently.
For the other 2, those are strictly personal. I've survived a week without power through a Wyoming winter storm, the perishables in the fridge were easy enough to keep by putting them in the garage, in a snow bank and I think we have a couple coolers stocked with snow for things we needed frequently. Heat was from a wood stove ~ oh, for efficiency sake, you'll want to sleep in the room that has the heat source rather than trying to heat the WHOLE house, and you'll want to be able to close that room off to keep the heat in. If you want to continue heating the rest of the house with the stove, you can buy combo units (boiler jacket around the stove), though no clue if you can get one of those in pellet version as they're used mostly for off-grid places.
The generator is the only thing you'll really need to hash out is the need to power the whole house like normal (large natural gas/propane unit) or just the couple of items you really need to get by for the couple of days it takes (smaller unit for just specific items). I can see the appeal of the large generator and if you already have gas of some sort to the house AND the price isn't too bad, it'll make for a nearly worry-free experience. You could simply skip the pellet stove at that point too...
If you lose power for more than a day or two in New England in the winter, and you have a boiler with hot water baseboard heat, just going to a hotel isn't really an option.
Sure, you'll be fine, but your pipes will freeze! This can be tens of thousands of dollars in damage....plumbing, new heating pipes, and all the damage from the resulting flood when everything thaws. (Some people talk about draining the system, but this is a project, and you never know how long the power will be out. Might save the rating system, but what about everything else?)
You absolutely need a plan to be able to keep the house above freezing temps.
I agree with above, prioritize generator and hook-up. If you've got that, the stove seems like a (very pleasant!) luxury.
Boiler could last awhile, just have a plan for if it dies in the middle of winter.
Electricity that has been out of service for 2 or 3 days? ABSOLUTELY BUDGET FOR PERMANENT STANDBY GENERATOR! If you live in a rural-ish area you will need to plan for the potential that without heat you face FAR MORE EXPENSIVE problems -- the well won't work, the heat won't work, pipes can freeze!
As others have said, a modern boiler very likely will need the electricity to normally function and that means the generator has to be permanently wired into a automatic transfer switch and / or sub-panel for "emergency load center".
The boiler very likely is NOT NEAR the end of its life. Boilers built in the 90s could very well last 30+ years.
Pellet stove as a secondary means of heat is not the worst idea, but for a your home you get MUCH MORE UTILITY from backup generator. A relatively modestly sized pellet stove can be quite a bit less than what you are suggesting, though without knowing how involved the installation will be at your home maybe you should budget for needed modifications for venting. BTW Many units are not going to be useful w/o electricty -- https://www.menards.com/main/heating...01076700639336
We keep Kerosun heaters for that eventuality. They cost about $100 each and three of them comfortable heat out 3900 s.f. house. Our furnace used to go out a lot. The nice thing about these heaters is they burn pretty clean. Thus you can use them in an enclosed house without suffocating anyone. There will be a bit of an odor, but not a lot. Not sure whether you can do that with wood pellets. You probably need a chimney for wood pellets.
You can also get camping heaters that run off of those little cans of propane or CNG. Those are also clean burning, probably more so since they are used to heat up a tent, but the kerosene heaters really throw out a lot of heat. The gas ones, not as much.
A generator is great, but can be costly. It requires regular maintenance and frequent repair. The NG stationary ones are wonderful. However they are the most expensive to buy and to maintain. The batteries cost $200 plus and if they go dead and freeze, they are dead forever. You generator should start up and charge the battery once a month, but sometimes it will fail. Then you cannot start the generator when you need it. When power is out, generator parts and repair prices go way up. Portable ones are cheaper to buy, but a PIA to set up and get to run in the snow. If you are stupid and put them inside or too close to the house, you can end up dead. You have to shut them off and re-fill the fuel every 10-12 hours. You also have to string extent ion cords all over the house (heavy duty expensive ones, regular ones will overheat.). You have to drain all the gasoline out of them or put Stabil in them when not in use. Otherwise, you will pay $120 to rebuild the carburetor.
We bought a new high efficiency high tech boiler for $6,000. it is a PIA. Keeps going out due to computer programming issues. Eventually they got it figured out after replacing half the parts (it was a programming problem. It was so high tech, even the installers did not know how to program it properly. Finally after several letters to the manufacturer, they sent out a specialist who figured it out after his second visit). Then the power went out and it re-set and we had problems all over again. But, hey, with the higher efficiency the thing will pay for itself in less than 115 years! Maybe longer if it needs repairs after the 20 year warranty runs out.
Keeping the old boiler was not an option for us, but I wish it were. The older ones may be less efficient, but they are far more simple. No computer, or sensors or motors, or. . . Just a fuel supply and a pilot light, sometimes a pumps, depends on the system. Not much to break, everything easy to fix DIY. The big thing with he old boilers, is they were big. The new one takes up 1/10 of the space and does not have a tank. The new one will not run without electricity.
BTW, your boiler can also double as a hot water heater if you put in a valve. Just make certain you do not have antifreeze in the water. Then you do not need a hot water heater and can save even more space and money.
It freezes here and occasionally the power goes out. My house, my son's house, all of my rentals, all of my son's rentals have an alternative heat source that does not require any electricity.
You do know, right, that if power is out, a pellet stove won't work? The fan, the blower motor, and the auger all run on electrixity.
A generator to keep your well pump going so you have water for your toilets, emergency fire supression & whatever electric appliances you deem essential. The size needed will depend on the list of those essentials.
What do your neighbors use for backup heating?
Do you have access to a natural gas line?
Natural gas, propane, or pellet stoves do not require the expensive lined chimneys or triple layer stovepipe which traditional wood stoves & fireplaces do for safety reasons.
Some pellet stoves have battery backup packages available, make certain you buy the right model stove if you go that direction.
Whatever you do, have the stove professionally installed for safety and house insurance reasons. A phonecall to your insurer prior to install could help you make a decision on heating source.
If money is an issue, I would get a portable gasoline generator and hire an electrician to install a bypass switch for the essential circuits you need.
IMHO, fridge, boiler, well pump, and perhaps the circuit for one room which has your entertainment requirements. You can cook on a grill and with a toaster oven.
"Getting ready for winter. What do we really need?"
An airline ticket to a warmer climate!
Says I can't rep you again but this one was worth it!
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