Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Guidance needes for wood/pellet burner

I have a wood burner. Couple of years back, I built a "Prometheus basket" and burned pellets.
"Heated" as well as wood......starting was much more difficult.
I didn't have a "feed" system, so was constantly feeding pellets.
I'm sure part of the problem was that my home built Prometheus basket wasn't the greatest, but occasionally, I'd feed a dipper of pellets to the basket and the fire would die! 😖 Bummer in single digit weather!

Wood:
$100/load. A "load" of wood is close to a "face" cord and lasts about a month .... depending on weather!
The man has no eye for or doesn't measure his blocks!
I had to use a Sawzall to cut a few pieces down to fit my stove. Wood may be 12" to 24"! LOL!
That's okay! It still burns.
Dude has no clue about dry/seasoned/green. He just cuts, splits, loads and collects his $100! 😜

Pellets:
Not sure how much a bag now.
Last time I bought pellets, I got 10 bags. The weather had been really crappy and we'd had lots of snow and rain. Got the pellets home and realized some of the bags had gotten wet and the pellets disintegrated....or froze into huge, unburnable globs of frozen sawdust! 🤬

Yeppers! All wood stove retailers are big on pushing their pellet burners

Look at the specs on the stove you choose. Many require 12-16 feet of chimney to draw. Sounds like your app is well short of that....

That’s because the feds approved pellet stoves as safe, efficient and environmentally friendly secondary heat. They were offering 75% of total installation costs as tax credits, think this is the last year and it’s down to 25%. When the feds approved them they also became approved as secondary heat by most insurance companies. They still are real sticklers about wood though.

Pellets, they are up around here 1.00 over the last 3 years. 5.69 instead of 4.69 per bag, or 225 per ton.

FYI....Make sure that you contact your home insurance agent before you do anything. As soon as they hear "wood stove" it raises a red flag. They will want to make sure that it is properly installed. My new agent handed me a wood stove installation guide to go by when I switched Insurance companies 4 years ago even though the stove was already installed and working fine. My stove was within the safety specs., so all was good.

I got a pellet stove and used it two years.My wife`s Aunt bought it for me for doing a lot of odd jobs for her.It heated the whole house but the fan runs all the time and is noisy.Propane is actually cheaper to use.I have a Vermont Casting`s wood burner that heats the whole house and is my first choice for source of heat.

Ok, so now youre making me second guess lol. The roof isnt completely flat, but it drops about an inch per foot. Still heavy rubber though. Is this an issue?

I wasnt planning on doing the install. Not too proud to let the "pros" take care of this one and yes i was going to contact our insurance before we do anything

Yes, it would be roughly 10ft if im figuring correctly

We do already have propane here. Heated pool. But wanted a source of heat that isnt dependent on anyone but me

If you're estimating pellet cost, they are 50 bags per ton and usually discounted 10% when purchased by the ton..

You'll have little problem with draft if you do a properly done wall exit. Put the wall exit a few feet above the stove, and route your flue pipe to it with two 45deg elbows rather than one 90deg elbow, in order to minimize the length of the horizontal portion. I.E. put the upper elbow right against the wall penetration. You can add insulated pipe sections to increase height if there are any questions about draft. I put a regency 2400 insert in my inlaws fireplace back in 2004...used a SS chimney liner. Length of flue pipe is probably 8ft to 10ft (but it is straight up with no bends). I have a pacific energy freestanding in my basement with two 45s into the wall chimney liner adapter, but the liner height above the wall penetration is probably another 20ft. It drafts like crazy.

The "metalbestos" type insulated stainless pipe will run from the wall penetration to the outlet.

There are brackets and structures available from the metalbestos manufacturers to hang the pipe off the outside wall.

Or hire a mason and put a cinder block chimney on a small foundation. Build it around a replaceable SS chimney liner.

There are codes written for wall penetrations. Have a professional do the install under a local jurisdiction permit, have it inspected, and tell your wife to relax. Or learn what's required vs what's unsafe, and do it yourself. This really isn't brain surgery.

If you have any kind of eave, you'll get to do a roof penetration also. Get with installer and ask about how they work this with a professional roofer. I'm not familiar with flatter roofs and rubber membranes.

Avoid catalyst stoves like I mentioned earler.

Burn dry wood and you'll have zero creosote for the life of the stove. EPA-rated stoves, properly installed, burning dry wood don't make creosote. I've not run a brush down any of mine, and that's for the last 18 years of ownership and constant wintertime use.

People get pretty hysterical about woodstoves. They're easy to run (if your wood is dry) and firewood is easy to make (if you have a good saw and a good 6lb splitting maul). My 12 and 14yo boys (small for their ages) split nearly all of our wood this year. I only had to do a couple of big rounds into halves and they took over.

Then you answered your question. A stick burner is the way to go if your home insurance allows it. I worked for a pellet furnace manufacturer and I while I wasn't directly involved with the engineering of the product, I saw first-hand the struggles they had with pellets. It was everything from availability to quality issues with pellets.
I'm only a few years behind you in age and while I enjoy cutting and burning wood, I don't want it to be necessary to provide heat. I used to burn 20-25 full cord of wood a year in an outdoor boiler to heat my house and shop. I used to cut it all on my property then started buying 10-15 cord a year to supplement. Now I cut 7-10 a year for additional heat in the shop and let the propane man take care of the rest. I enjoy the exercise and gratification. Yes I can be completely self-sufficient but if it gets to the point that I can't get propane, gas and oil for the saw and truck isn't far behind, much less electricity. My $0.04

A thought as to supply of wood.

We have several Amish saw mills in our area Western Wisconsin) and can get slab wood from them dirt cheap or almost free if you have a large truck or trailor you can leave with them to fill.
Price hauled is a large dump truck or trailor holding about 3.5 to 4 cords for $150 to $170 depending on how far it is hauled.

The wood is mostly oak, with some hickory and cherry. Slabs with bark on one side. You get it pretty wet as it comes from sawn logs. If you plan ahead and get it at least 6 months before burning season it burns great...it drys quickly. If you got and stacked it a year ahead of time it would be even better.

I know Pennsylvania has a lot of Amish so may be an option for you to save you some time making wood.

Forget it. Rubber roof might catch fire from sparks. Get a propane powered "wood stove."

Pellets stoves need regular cleaning and maintenance. Most folks keep loading pellets into the hopper until the stove won't run anymore. The ash needs removed from the combustion chamber or the auger will jam and maybe kill the auger motor. The circulation fan pulls unfiltered room air, and if not cleaned occasionally, will load up with dust and become unbalanced.

A word of warning on the newer (EPA certified) wood stoves:

They have a bad habit of building up coals without burning them down. Eventually, you get to the point where you don't have enough room to get sufficient wood in. Searching the internet, lots of people have this issue. Supposed fix is to rake coals to the front and burn a small log across the front to get the coals down.

I tried it last weekend. Not impressed. Better than not doing it but, damn, took a while and heating capacity went down. Other option is to shovel the coals out to make room. That seems a waste of heat.

Other issue is I've never met anyone that said their new stove would run all night. I've filled mine up, choked it down and best I've been able to get is about 3 am before the heat pump kicks on and I have to either go back to sleep and let the heat pump run or get up and add wood to the stove...or whatever I can get in with all the coals that are built up.

Basically, I love having a wood stove. Mine is in the garage. I open the garage door and put a fan blowing warm air into the living room. That will keep us warm and comfortable until we go to bed. It can't be relied on for all-night heat, though.

I would think a pellet stove would likely run all night if you filled the hopper up before going to bed.

P.S. I have a friend that hated his EPA stove so much he found an older wood stove and swapped it out. His EPA stove sits in his barn. Nobody wants to buy it.

Like those water saving toilets when they first came out

"A word of warning on the newer (EPA certified) wood stoves:
They have a bad habit of building up coals without burning them down. Eventually, you get to the point where you don't have enough room to get sufficient wood in."

The coals build up because you are burning wood that is not dry enough. Common rookie mistake.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/General-Tools-Instruments-Digital-Test-Meter/3136919

You need to shell out $39 at Lowes and buy a moisture meter. The moisture must be below 17 percent. For oak, this takes at least two years of drying.

Don't go out and test wood in your woodpile. Common rookie mistake. Bring a piece inside for 24 hours to let it warm up to the 65 to 70 degree range. Take it back out and split it. Immediately test the freshly split face, with the prongs running parallel with the grain.



My stove is a modern EPA approved. Made in Norway and cost $2500 six years ago. It is a delight to run. Burns the coals down to fine white ash.
Works great with dry wood.

First I've heard, after a bunch of internet searching, about this likely being a moisture issue. I'll get that moisture meter and see what I'm dealing with.

Also, my stove will "Burn the coals down to fine white ash" too. It just takes a long time and they build up. Perhaps that is the difference between a $2,500 stove, made in Norway and one bought thru Northern Tool.

For what it is worth, the wood I'm currently burning was cut, split and stacked 7 years ago.

I know all about the good old pre-EPA stoves. I had one just like this, a 55 gallon barrel, with a wood stove kit made by Sotz. This stove loved green wood! In fact I would load it up at midnight with green wood and it burned all night. An honest 12 hour burn. I burned the Sotz for 8 years. Sadly, the new girlfriend didn't like the looks of it so I had to shell out big bucks for the Jotul. I must say the Jotul looks better, and the big glass doors give a beautiful view of the fire.

Your cheapo stove will work well if you will use dry wood.

I got smart about wood stoves, including moisture content and moisture meters on this forum. These gearheads really know their stuff, they have the answers. I bet you will discover that you have a pretty good stove after all. Go over there and ask any question you have.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/forums/the-wood-shed.17/

ps As far as the "all night burn" don't feel bad. Jotul lies about that, like all manufacturers do. I am supposed to get a "ten hour burn." I load up the Jotul at ten pm, and ten hours later at 8am, the fire is out! The stove feels slightly warm after 10 hours. Jotul ought to advertise a "five hour burn."