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as you can see, it's an unending debate on the wood v pellet stoves Everyone has their favorite and likes it better than the other. Which says to me that it's pretty much a toss up and go with whatever is better for you, taking all the aspects into consideration. Too bad there's no way to make up a pro-con table and file it somewhere!
IMHO the primary advantages of pellet stoves are less handling of the fuel and ash and thermostatic control. Major disadvantages are they have the ambiance of a black iron box and the fuel costs more.
Environmental advantage goes to the pellet burners because they use waste wood from trees cut fro another purpose more efficiently with fewer pollutants.
My personal preference, if I ever could afford I, would be a anthracite coal/gas stove for the kitchen with separate electric ovens and a free standing small anthracite coal stove for the living area. These stoves burn trees that died 10s of millions of years ago. Besides I grew up with this fuel and kind of like the smell. Nostalgia time.
My in-laws built a home (3000+ sq ft) in northern NH (Littleton) and had a soapstone fireplace put it. They burn a few sticks of wood in the morning and evening and the soapstone retains its heat and radiates it throughout the day. Last winter they didn't use their furnace but once and that was just to check if it worked.
The house would stay around 70F throughout the day and night in the winter with just a few pieces of wood. Amazing. They get their wood from their land so it's free.
even when I run the stoves, the furnace routinely kicks in to heat hot water.
Just a heads up...there are finally really good instant electric hot water heaters out there that can heat a lot of water with a high temperature rise. The downer of course is you will need your electrical service uprated because the good units pull tremendous power (110+ amps) at full load...but its only momentary of course.
wheelsup .....when you stated your in-laws put in a soapstone fireplace did you mean one of those soapstone stoves or an actual fireplace lined with soapstone?
wheelsup .....when you stated your in-laws put in a soapstone fireplace did you mean one of those soapstone stoves or an actual fireplace lined with soapstone?
I think their actually called masonary heaters. A friend of mine had one built by a mason out of Franklin a few years ago.Expensive to have built,but he really loved it. Build one really hot fast burning fire early in the day, and it just keeps on radiating heat for a long time. He also had a wood heater in the basement for those super cold days so i'm not sure if those masonary heaters could actually heat a whole house.
Thanks everyone for the comments and recommendations. We are going with a propane furnace and pellet stove in the living room.
Does anybody have any opinions regarding pellet vs multi-fuel stoves? As I understand multifuel need to be manually lit. Is anybody burning any of the alternate fuels?
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