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Marty Barron
10-07-2008, 5:15 PM
With the high cost of heating oil I am starting to get the itch to convert. Before everyone starts to say natural gas in NL that is not an option even though there will be a natural gas facility built in a few years. It will take a long time to build the distribution to houses if they were to do it. I currently have hot water baseboard radiation heat which in my opinion is the best source for heat and domestic hot water except for the price of oil. I have seen some talk of wood pellet boilers as of late. I am wondering if anyone has considered a pellet boiler or has converted to a wood pellet boiler. There are some that you can load for a couple of days like the Harmon but for a long period of time you would still need your oil furnace as a backup if you went on a vacation. But I have found a Bosch one that has a large storage drum that will last a couple of months. I also live in the city so I am not able to put an exterior wood burning furnace on my property.

I would appreciate anyone's experience on this subject.

Marty

http://www.harmanstoves.com/features.asp?id=48

http://www.maineenergysystems.com/Ho...ning_Works.htm (http://www.maineenergysystems.com/How_Pellet_Burning_Works.htm)

Andrew Derhammer
10-07-2008, 5:51 PM
I thought i heard heating oil was supposed to be coming down this season.

Frank Hagan
10-07-2008, 6:14 PM
In my past job, I had an employee who installed a pellet boiler along side his oil boiler, and loved it. If your oil boiler is old, you probably don't have features such as outdoor reset, etc. that can save energy. Even if you don't buy an additional boiler, you might be able to save some money by installing a computerized control with outdoor reset or other predictive measures to anticipate when your boiler needs to come on. Tekmar and others make predictive boiler controls that can pay for themselves fairly quickly.

Dennis Peacock
10-07-2008, 7:44 PM
I know a few folks that have pellet stoves and really love them.

3 years ago, the LOML and I installed a nice soapstone woodburning stove and have heated our home with wood ever since. The cost saving per month "now" since the heater and stuff is paid for is saving us about $300 per month. We were running natural gas but the cost to heat was getting so expensive that we had to break out the utility bill into even monthly payments.

Now we just get wood that is already down or dead and we heat with that. I just have a hard time cutting down good healthy trees just to burn for heat. If you shop around, you too can find a lot of free firewood....all you need to invest in a chainsaw and some sweat equity. :)

Bill Cunningham
10-07-2008, 7:52 PM
My mother, heated her house for the last ten years of her life with a corn stove.. No huge amount of ash, (just pop out the clinker everyday), corn is not taxable (not even GST) , and provides a very good heat source.. Don't know how this would work for you though, you don't hear a lot about the cornfields of Newfoundland :D I have family in Clarks Beach, oil and or wood is the common fuel there .. We are paying about 1.10 to 1.15 liter for heating oil in Ontario, So before my heating bill was going to hit 3k this winter, I spent a bundle on a Big honkin heat pump,(19.5 sear/9 hspf) a ultra HE gas furnace (you can get them in oil too) and a tankless water heater.. I'm actually looking forward to this winters heating bill.. I should be saving a bundle..

David G Baker
10-07-2008, 10:40 PM
My neighbor heats his pole building shop with a mix of corn and wood pellets. His unit is a furnace and not just a stove. It has a hopper that he fills every few days using a vacuum system. He is very happy with it and may go back to using just corn if the price drops like it says on the TV news.

Karl Brogger
10-07-2008, 11:24 PM
He is very happy with it and may go back to using just corn if the price drops like it says on the TV news.

Corn is going down but its still stupid high. a few years ago $2.50 was an awesome price, right now its at $4.17. But you pay more for the corn you use for heat as it has to be dried more.

Is off peak an option for you? My brother is installing a off peak boiler in his home. Heat the water at night, use it during the day. He stil has a propane boiler, and propane furnace too which has run when it gets super cold, (like -35*), and the in floor radiant can't keep up.

Ross Ellis
10-09-2008, 1:00 AM
We heat with pellets, and love it. Our total cost for heat runs under $1000 a year. 4000 sq ft house. It is well insulated. When we bought the 2 pellet stoves, we called our insurance company. They said pellet stoves are an "appliance" and don't effect rates. We are also considering putting a pellet furnace inline with our oil furnace, but will do this once the stoves are due for replacement.