The Pellet Stove Advantage
Arguably, of all the heating equipment that burn wood or wood products, a pellet stove is the easiest to operate. All you need to do is pour pellets into the hopper, press on a few buttons on the control panel, sit back, relax and in a few minutes you’ll be taking off your coat or jacket. And you don’t even have to do this often. Plenty of stoves have huge hoppers that you only need to fill them once a day. If you operate them on a low heat output, they can run for days.
Pellets are made of sawdust, wood shavings, walnut and peanut shells, wood bark, recycled paper, corn, grain, and other biomass residues that are compacted and compressed, after which they are extruded to form approximately one-inch long pellets. The process of compression removes over 90% of the biomass materials’ moisture content. This means the pellets are very dry and thus emit more heat than regular firewood. It also burns more efficiently leaving very little ash. Further, pellet stoves produce only 1 gram of particulates per hour making it less polluting than other types of wood burning stoves.
Pellet stoves, therefore, provide and environmentally friendly way of heating your home. The pelletized materials out which its fuel is made would otherwise have been dumped into the landfills. They also help lessen the consumption of oil, a non-renewable energy source. Although pellet stoves run on electricity, an electric heater would consume substantially more energy to run.
Owing to the virtual lack of smoke, the pellet stove can be vented with a simple horizontal metal flue instead of a vertical chimney reaching all the way to the roof of the house. You also will not need to worry about smoke filling the room leaving everything inside smelling like burnt wood.
A pellet stove is often constructed of cast iron but there is practically no heat on its external surfaces. You can actually install it as close as an inch to your walls. More important, it is safe even when you have kids or pets in the house.
A final advantage is the tax credit you receive when purchasing a pellet stove. If it has an efficiency rating of at least 75%, you get a tax credit by as much as 30% of the cost of the stove including labor for installation. This is true in most US states.