Pellet Stove Pointers
As heating implements, pellet stoves offer the perfect balance between building a wood fire and the push-of-a-button convenience of gas fireplaces. They can provide the ignition ease of gas and the heat generation capacity of wood, with a quaint look that’s customizable, if you look at the right brands.
Pellet stoves are a renewable energy innovation that began in the 80s. Simply explained, they burn pellets of compressed sawdust from densified wood. Most have electric motors and controls and automated combustion processes. With a full hopper of pellets, these stoves can typically burn for 12 to 48 hours, and they burn much cleaner than traditional wood stoves. They produce far fewer greenhouse gases than fossil fuel systems, and they are much more economical. (If you’d like to see just how much, try this pellet cost calculator on the Pellet Fuels Institute website.)
Although they’ve been in circulation for at least 30 years, many are still confused by the characteristics of pellet stoves, but there’s much to recommend these green-friendly heaters.
At American Chimney, we offer a few different product lines that feature pellet stoves; Ironstrike, Napoleon, and Regency are all trusted names in the pellet stove production space with high efficiency and environmentally friendly ratings.
You have a choice when it comes to fuel with a pellet stove, just as you do with traditional wood, and you can pick from a range of offerings to meet your specific needs and wants with this stove type.
Pellets are clean-burning, economical, and a renewable fuel source--they’re often made with manufacturer waste from furniture or flooring and held together by lignin, which is a naturally occurring glue produced by the wood when it’s compressed.
A higher-quality pellet will mean less work, after burning; it will produce less ash and an overall cleaner stove. In the same way, gasoline is rated (premium, regular), pellets are rated, also, and ranked as “utility”, “premium”, and “super-premium”. Pellets from softwood are usually rated “super-premium”. (Whether a block of wood is hard or soft is determined by the mineral content; softwood is wood that comes from the soil with fewer minerals, hardwood comes from more mineral-rich ground.) “Super-premium” pellets will produce less ash.
Just how “clean” is clean? You can get by with cleaning a pellet stove much less often when you use super premium pellets. Some sources will tell you two weeks with a super premium pellet, as opposed to every four days or so with lesser quality. (We can recommend a safe cleaning schedule for those new to pellet stoves.)
Which Pellet Stove?
One size (literally) does not fit all when it comes to pellet stoves. Choosing the correct size is important to get the most out of this economical and efficient heating source. Too big and you may find yourself running the stove too slowly, in order to prevent overheating, and too small of a unit can be damaged by continual overheating.
A range of styles and price points are available, too...and this is where the benefit of professional guidance comes in. We can help you find the details that will appeal to your taste and fit your decorating scheme, and also gauge your home’s heating needs.
Call us today at 405-477-4200 to learn more about the benefits of pellet stoves for heating your home.
