Cold winter weather demands a reliable source of heat in your home. If you’d rather not turn your furnace up to keep your home warm, you may be looking for other ways to heat your house. Pellet stoves are an option that can provide comfortable heat throughout the winter heating season. You might use one as your primary heat source or to supplement other forms of heat in your home.
At first glance, this type of fireplace may look like a standard wood-burning stove. However, this type of heat source is very different because of the kind of fuel it burns: pellet stoves do not burn wood in the same way that other fireplaces do. Instead, they burn tiny pellets made from sawdust, corn, walnut shells, peanut shells, or wood shavings. These different combustibles make this type of heat source efficient and inexpensive to use.
Wood materials resemble rabbit food, and you purchase them in 40-pound bags. Opting to burn these materials is an environmentally responsible choice because it keeps waste out of landfills and reduces overall dependence on heating oil. The manufacturing process of wood pellets eliminates nearly all of the moisture. The low moisture content enables them to burn at a high temperature, while burning more cleanly than standard wood: wood pieces in pellet stoves produce less than 1 gram of particulates per hour.
Compare different pellet stoves for overall combustion efficiency to choose the best one. Combustion efficiency measures the amount of fuel that converts to energy. Some of these heat sources have a combustion efficiency of up to 90 percent. The higher the rating, the more heat is extracted from the unit and into your home.
Burning wood pieces will result in much less ash and creosote than a typical fireplace. This means that you will have less maintenance and mess to clean to keep the unit operating safely. If you like the look of a standard fire with large flames, buy a unit with a large glass door. Also, consider purchasing decorative ceramic logs to place inside the unit to give the appearance of a traditional fire.
At the beginning of every day, you will fill a hopper with enough wood pieces for burning throughout the entire day. Depending on the size of your unit, this could be as little as 35 pounds of materials or as much as 130 pounds. Pellet stoves need a power source, which would typically be electricity. Some units come with backup batteries, which you can use to keep your home warm if you lose electricity.
It’s important to purchase a stove that fits your heating requirements. If you purchase one that is too small, it will not produce enough heat to keep your home comfortable. If you purchase a unit that is too large, it may make your home uncomfortably hot. The BTU rating of these units will help you choose the fireplace that is right for your home heating needs.
Not only will this type of heat source keep your home comfortable, you can save money and enjoy a pleasant atmosphere from the rustic fireplace.
