Archive for Pellet Stove Accessories

Pellet Stove Accessories

Wood pellet stoves, like the name implies, burn wood pellets that can create a very efficient source of heat.  Like regular wood stoves there are many pellet stove accessories that can add to your pellet stove’s funtionality, as well as it’s attractiveness.

Because pellet stoves look like regular wood stoves many of the same accessories will work for a pellet stove as they will for a regular wood burning stove.  These accessories include stove pipe shams, circulating fans, kettles, steamers and hearth pads.

There are, however, some differences. A pellet stove is built with an internal system that feeds the pellets into a burner, and a fan that blows heat out of the stove. The stove is fed by pouring the wood pellets into a hopper on the top or in the back of the stove. Pellets are made of waste products, such as compressed sawdust and wood scraps.

Additional Pellet Stove Accessories

There are many accessories available to allow you to customize your pellet stove. Most accessories are sold in colors that will compliment a stove, such as black, gold, brass, smoke gray and silver.

Pellet Buckets - Add a little touch of class to your stove with a pellet bucket. A pellet bucket can be used to either feed the pellets into the stove or to dump the ash after you’ve used the stove for a while.

Stove screens - Stove Screens are a common pellet stove accessory that provides a safety barrier for a pellet stove while still allowing you to view the stove as the fire burns. They are fairly inexpensive and easy to find at most hardware stores.

Stove Pipe brushes are another common and inexpensive stove accessory sold in most hardware stores. Make sure the brush is at least 3-4” wide to ensure a good scrubbing. Some include rods or extensions to allow you to reach up into the chimney to brush away residue.

Stove Wall Vent Kits - Because pellet stoves burn so efficiently most can actually be vented like a clothing dryer.  They also don’t get as hot as regular wood stoves, so they don’t have to be surrounded with fireproofing like a regular wood stove.  Through-the-wall vent accessory kits are available for most freestanding stoves. These kits normally include all of the parts and adapters necessary to vent your stove through an outside wall.  (Be sure to check your stove manufacturers instructions to make sure your particular stove will work this way)

Remote control thermostat kits - Since many pellet stoves include a built in thermostat that manages the air flow of the stove and the heat it is putting out you can get a remote control kit that will allow you to control the temperature from across the room.

These are a few if the most popular pellet stove accessories available on the market.  Let us know what your favorite accessory is.

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Interesting Video on Harman Pellet Stoves

Here is a video that is interesting that gives information on Harman Pellet stoves.

Pellet stoves are growing in popularity as heating fuel costs rise.

 

Duration : 0:10:0

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How Pellets Are Made

Wood pellets, the fuel for pellet stoves is made of highly compressed sawdust. This sawdust is mostly recovered from industries such as lumber and furniture manufacturers, and must be free from glues or additives. This recycling process diverts tons of waste from landfills across the country each year.

Wood pellets are a renewable resource that has lower carbon emissions than regular wood and does not have to be imported from the Middle East. Increasing the number of pellet stoves in locations where it makes sense would help reduce the amount of fossil fuel being burned.  Heating with wood pellets also provides an emergency heat source when their is a power outage.

Wood pellets are more convenient to use than chopping your own wood and provide a more efficient source of heat.  Granted, in an area where wood is easily accessible and free, burning wood will likely be the more economical choice.  But if your choice is between paying for chopped wood or paying for pellets, buying a pellet stove would likely be the way to go.

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Convenient Pellet Delivery

As heating fuel prices have soared, more and more people have been taking a look at wood pellet stoves to reduce their utility costs.

Pellets that fuel these stoves are made from wood scraps ground into pellets to form a smooth burning fuel. They are a cheaper way to heat, but they are a bit less convenient than just turning up the thermostat.

The wood pellets typically come in 40-50 pound bags. And every day, sometimes twice a day depending on usage, you have to reload the stove.

But according to Peter Howe of NECN, Jon Strimling had a better idea: Flick a switch to have a hopper load the stove. Then get a guy with a truck to load the hopper for you.

“We’re taking pellets in bulk out of the back of this truck, by bulk I mean there’s no bags in them, and we’re flowing them down this pipe into the garage” says Strimling.

Two fills like this a year should be enough to heat a home.  That’s three to four tons of product that the homeowner doesn’t have to move.

Strimling’s company now charges about three hundred and twenty five dollars a ton, delivered, for pellets on pallets. In heating value, 30 to 40 percent less expensive than heating oil. They’ve just started selling hopper systems they hope will make pellets even more popular.

Not only is bulk delivery of the pellets less hassle than pellets in a bag, it costs about 10 percent less too.  There’s actually ten to fifteen percent of the product cost tied up the packaging.

Despite the hands-on requirements of wood pellet heating, it’s popularity has grown quickly in recent years. Over 800,000 homes in the U.S. use pellets for some or all of their heat, burning 2.2 billion pounds annualy. The industry has grown to 80 pellet makers and 23 manufacturers of fireplace inserts, stoves, and furnaces.

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Silver Lining to Pine Beetle Devastation

Colorado’s problem with Pine Beetles devastation of lodge pole pines finds a silver lining in wood pellet production.  Pellet mills are making pellets from the lodge pole pines killed by the pine beetle infestation.

This creates two benefits for the area.  By cleaning up the dead trees and turning them into wood pellets, mills are able to bring very low-cost fuel to homeowners, and reduce the risk of deadly forest fires throughout the region at the same time. This is a win-win situation.

Local companies and groups are also creating initiatives to plant indigenous trees in non-harvest locations throughout Colorado as a method of replenishing forests devastated by the mountain pine beetle.  It is estimated that all of Colorado’s mature lodgepole forests will be
destroyed by the beetles within five years.

At $299/ton the cost of these wood pellets is still equivalent to fuel oil at below $2.50/gallon. A far cry from what consumers are seeing in their heating oil bills.

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Silver Lining to Pine Beetle Devastation

Colorado’s problem with Pine Beetles devastation of lodge pole pines finds a silver lining in wood pellet production.  Pellet mills are making pellets from the lodge pole pines killed by the pine beetle infestation.

This creates two benefits for the area.  By cleaning up the dead trees and turning them into wood pellets, mills are able to bring very low-cost fuel to homeowners, and reduce the risk of deadly forest fires throughout the region at the same time. This is a win-win situation.

Local companies and groups are also creating initiatives to plant indigenous trees in non-harvest locations throughout Colorado as a method of replenishing forests devastated by the mountain pine beetle.  It is estimated that all of Colorado’s mature lodgepole forests will be
destroyed by the beetles within five years.

At $299/ton the cost of these wood pellets is still equivalent to fuel oil at below $2.50/gallon. A far cry from what consumers are seeing in their heating oil bills.

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